By Thom Wood, Founder at Nowadays and Head of Production at Auspicious

Last night, our film Waiting List was recognised at the Lens Awards, winning not one not two but an impressive 6 awards including the big one - Video of the Year. It was a significant moment for us. Not so much because of the award, but because of what the film represents and what it took to make it.

Waiting List began as a Nowadays Original. A project we chose to back ourselves, written and directed by Phoebe Brooks. The film follows a young trans woman navigating the reality of a 3–7 year NHS waiting list for gender-affirming care. Phoebe's treatment set out to capture the life-affirming joy of becoming yourself alongside the blunt cruelty of a system that effectively withholds that chance. That contrast is what gives the film its force. A single conversation in a GP surgery, intercut with flashes of a life that may or may not be allowed to unfold.

It is a heartbreakingly human story. Relatable whether you know the pain of this specific circumstance or not. And that’s deliberate.

What stays with you

There was a lot of impressive work in the room at the awards. Big brands, hardworking teams, serious craft. But watching some of the work on display, what tends to stay with you is something simpler. A person. A face. A lived experience. Less so a well-structured positioning line or a shiny new set of brand pillars.

This kind of storytelling, starting with personal experience and building outward, shaped the work we were most proud of at Nowadays. And it is something I am determined to carry forward at Auspicious.

Why this matters for businesses

There is an inherent irony in a self-initiated, self-funded film being recognised in a space largely filled with highly polished, commissioned (and dare I say, well-funded) corporate work. But there is a useful signal in it.

Businesses tend to communicate through abstraction. Strategy. Values. Transformation. Growth. Those things matter internally. But audiences respond most strongly when they are grounded in human consequence rather than expensively and excruciatingly well-considered brand copy.

Think about the difference between a strategy document about a new healthcare policy and a two-minute film about what that policy means for one person's morning, stood in front of a mirror not recognising the person in front of them. The first informs. The second has the potential to bring a tear to your eye, or get you fist-clenchingly fucking angry to the point where you stop scrolling a minute to write a letter to your MP. When a viewer sees what a service or a decision actually changes in someone's life, the message stops being theoretical. It becomes something they remember.

That is not a softer approach. It is a more effective one. And it is available to any organisation willing to put people at the centre of how they communicate.

What comes next

Waiting List would not have happened without Phoebe pushing for it, and without a willingness to stay with the discomfort that passion projects inevitably bring. There were moments where it would have been easier to step back, to save money, to save time, to play safe. But we chose not to.

The part of this work I care about most is not the finished film (beautiful as it is) or the awards nights (fun as they are). It is the bit before. Saying yes to something ambitious, then protecting the process long enough for it to become something good.  

And I think that commitment to championing this kind of storytelling is part of why Rachel and Barnaby brought us into the Auspicious fold. It is certainly something I am building on with our new Head of Film, Jon Max Spatz.

We want to back more directors, like Phoebe, with something important to say. We want to partner with organisations ready to tell stories that centre the people at the heart of their work. And we want to keep proving that the line between corporate and cultural storytelling is thinner and more permeable than most people think. That is the work I intend to help make happen with our team.

And if you're reading this as someone working at a production company – one that bangs on day and night about doing the right thing, about purpose-driven storytelling, about wanting to make the world a better place and not just their 20% production fee – press the powers that be to put their money where their mouth is, to give your people the time and resources to tell those stories, so it amounts to something more than a line of copy on their About page.

Waiting List was directed by Phoebe Brooks, produced by Jenny Garrett, edited by Ben Harding, and brought to life by a team who gave their evenings and weekends to make it happen. We later gifted the film to Gendered Intelligence, a trans-led charity advocating for better access to healthcare.

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