Production made in i3S makes it abroad

The first series of Portuguese fiction about health education, produced by i3S, in partnership with the Belmiro de Azevedo Foundation - “2 minutos para mudar de vida” -, which recently won a first and third place in the Telly Awards, was nominated for the main prize of the MEDEA Awards and selected as one of the seven finalists of the 1st edition of “Health for all film festival", created by the WHO. At the audience level, the numbers are also promising: more than three million viewers have watched the episodes.

The series, consisting of 20 episodes, was broadcast on RTP1, from Monday to Friday, in prime time, and was part of a “multiplatform health education campaign that promotes behavioral changes that everyone can make to prevent non-communicable diseases”. For the authors of the format (Nuno Teixeira Marcos, Luís Carvalho, Nuno Ribeiro, and Paulo Gomes) from the Cancer Prevention Unit, these awards and prices, as well as the results of the series’ audiences, “are a stimulus for us to do more”.

From the United States 2 prizes were awarded at the 41st edition of the Telly Awards: Gold Winner in the category “Television: Fitness, Health & Wellness“ and Bronze Winner in the category “Television: Public Interest/Awareness”. This edition received more than 12 thousand applications from all over the world and other winners came from the BBC, HBO Latin America, CNN, Al Jazeera, CBS, Smithsonian Channel, PBS, NASA / Hubble, Sony Music Entertainment, and the Malala Fund.

In the 1st edition of the “Health for all film festival”, an initiative of the World Health Organization to promote the best works of documentary or animation on health where 1300 works from 119 countries were submitted, “our animation episode was selected as one of the seven finalists in the ‘Non-Communicable Diseases’ category. The BBC won, but that doesn't make us feel less honored”, says Nuno Teixeira Marcos, who heads the Cancer Prevention Unit.

As for the MEDEA Awards, “we were nominated for the main prize and we will be in Leuven, Belgium, in October, at the ceremony where the winner will be announced”, which takes place in parallel with the Media & Learning 2020 conference. Luís Carvalho, content coordinator and scriptwriters, highlights that “in 12 editions, despite some honorable mentions, it is the first time that a Portuguese project has been nominated for the main prize. More than 200 institutions competed and only seven reached the final”.

This entire campaign, which uses different platforms - TV, web, mobile and face-to-face sessions - “was such a colossal and strenuous challenge, in which we knew that we were doing something new and with a true mission spirit, that these awards are comforting”, confesses Nuno Teixeira Marcos. “They corroborate all our effort and commitment”, emphasizes Paulo Gomes, responsible for the post-production and visual effects phase. “We can only be satisfied”, stresses Luís Carvalho.

Learning and changing behaviors

“Prevention is still seen as something secondary, there is a very large void in the public service and few financing opportunities”, explains Nuno Teixeira Marcos. Taking the risky gamble, the authors decided to move forward with a new concept, creating "2 minutos para mudar de vida", the first fiction series on health education produced in Portugal, “combining the power of narratives with practical messages to promote accessibility to all, with the capability of contributing to the reduction of the risk of disease”, explain the authors.

The public’s response was very positive, says Nuno Ribeiro, “each episode had an average of 374 thousand viewers, more than 3 million Portuguese were watching some content of the series”. Nuno Teixeira Marcos explains that “these numbers are fantastic, but they were only possible because we managed to have the series aired during prime time on RTP1, which is unheard of for a health education program. We had the merit of not losing viewers, even with a traditionally unattractive theme”.

In addition to the analysis of the audiences, an impact study is being concluded, whose preliminary results are very promising. In addition to “very high” levels of appreciation of the episodes - almost 100% of respondents “would like to see more episodes” and “would recommend the episodes to family and friends” - the most notable result, says Nuno Ribeiro, is that “50% of the participants of the study reported changes in behavior after seeing the episodes. In addition, when tested with knowledge questions, it appears that whoever saw the series, has a significant increase in the number of right answers compared to the control group”. The episodes were also evaluated in focus groups with doctors which “allowed a validation of the format, since health professionals were consensual to approve the clarity of the messages and the potential for health promotion of the episodes”.

One year after the premiere on RTP1’s prime time and with a soundtrack created, the project is still alive on social networks and is in demand by the public, as explained by Paulo Gomes, one of the project's creators: “The posts on Facebook and on Instagram have reached more than two million people and the videos on Youtube, RTP Play, the App and the website have been viewed over 60 thousand times”. The team also created a pedagogical kit for teachers to work on health issues in the classroom, which has already had more than 12 thousand downloads, and that “can help explain the increase in views of episodes during the confinement period”.

The last phase of the campaign - face-to-face sessions of debate and proximity to the population held across the country - have already taken the project to Leiria, Guarda and Santarém. The remaining 14 sessions were postponed due to the new rules of social distancing.

When the team started writing the episodes in 2017, the team sketched out about 80 ideas, choosing 20 to focus on for the first season. “In the future, we would like to do a second series. The themes are already set for four seasons. Now we have to look for financing”, says Nuno Teixeira Marcos.

With the main partner the Fundação Belmiro de Azevedo and RTP as the media partner, the campaign also had the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the “la Caixa” Foundation.