People often ask how a criminologist ends up producing films. As if those two worlds belong on opposite sides of a map.
The truth is, they belong together.
My name is Dr Nicola Harding, I'm an academic by training and work as a Producer at Big Egg Films . My work has always circled around one central question: what makes people tick? Why do some people flourish while others fall through gaps that shouldn’t exist? Why do we keep building systems that misunderstand human behaviour, and how do we help people on the receiving end of that misunderstanding?
Over years of studying fraud, vulnerability, exploitation and resilience, one conclusion has become impossible to ignore. Data reveals patterns. Theory explains the mechanics. But stories, honest, human stories, are what shift hearts, minds, and sometimes entire institutions.
That’s where Big Egg Films comes in.
I joined as a bit of a different producer, one of Adam Sheldon's “good eggs,” which basically means I’m part of a slightly unusual gang of people who believe that creativity is a social intervention. We make films that don’t simply sit online - they open doors, reduce fear, dismantle stigma, and help people feel understood.
It’s storytelling as harm reduction. Creativity as strategy. Film as a bridge between people who might never otherwise meet.
Why film matters
Film is one of the most powerful tools we have for connection. You can hand someone a 50-page policy report, or you can create a two-minute film where a person with lived experience looks straight into the lens and says, “This is what it feels like.”
The difference is enormous.
Film bypasses the intellectual armour people wear. It lets emotion do the heavy lifting, while evidence quietly scaffolds the message. It brings nuance into spaces that normally flatten people into categories; victim, offender, vulnerable, resilient, risky, compliant.
Film puts the human back in the story.
What “films for good” actually look like
Let me give a few examples from the projects I'm involved with at Big Egg.
1. Accessibility films for stadiums and public spaces.
This is one of my favourite things we do at Big Egg. We create guided walk-through films that help neurodivergent fans, people with anxiety, and those who feel overwhelmed by crowds understand a space before they ever step foot inside it.
Viewers get to “arrive” at a a public venue, such as a stadium hours before a match, see the entrances, hear what the noise level will be like, and know exactly where the toilets, lifts, and quieter areas are. Often the guide is a member of staff with lived experience; someone who doesn’t just know the building, but understands how overwhelming it can be.
For some fans, this is the difference between attending and staying home. For some parents, it’s the difference between stress and joy. For some young people, it’s the difference between being excluded and belonging.
Film does that.
2. Lived-experience storytelling.
Big Egg has a way of capturing stories without exploiting them. I’ve seen Adam and the team sit with people who’ve endured things no one should face, and create films that hold their experiences with dignity rather than spectacle.
These films become training tools, empathy builders, strategic evidence for organisations trying to design safer systems. They help leaders understand what their own data often hides.
When someone explains how a fraudster groomed them, or how an anxiety-triggering environment shuts them out of everyday life, it lands differently than reading a policy brief.
3. Behaviour-change campaigns.
This is where my criminology background and Big Egg’s creative instincts meet in the middle. You can’t change behaviour by lecturing people. You change behaviour by helping people recognise themselves in a story.
We’ve worked on films that give people the confidence to avoid scams, that help people recognise coercive control, that quietly reshape how organisations think about risk, trust and vulnerability. These films sit in that sweet spot where narrative meets evidence - stories carrying the weight of real research.
Why this matters to me personally
My career has taken me through prisons, community projects, academic institutions, and government advisory roles. I’ve listened to people living at the sharp end of inequality, exclusion and harm. And I’ve seen how often harm grows in silence, in the gaps between what people experience and what the system thinks they experience.
Film closes that gap.
It gives people back their voice. It helps organisations see what they’re missing. It builds empathy where suspicion once lived. And it does something criminology can’t always do alone: it reaches people emotionally, instantly, and accessibly.
Working with Big Egg has shown me that creativity isn’t the opposite of rigour, it’s what makes rigour matter to real people. It’s the delivery mechanism for insight.
A good egg in the Big Egg basket
Collectively, we are all just “good eggs,” which makes me smile because it captures exactly what this team is about. No ego. No pretence. Just people who care about making things that help.
Adam and the Big Egg team aren’t chasing glossy perfection. They’re chasing truth. Humanity. Stories that make someone feel less alone or more understood.
It’s a strange little partnership: the criminologist and the filmmaker. But it works because we’re trying to solve the same problem - how to make the world a little easier, safer and more empathetic for the people living in it.
And maybe that’s the real point
Films for good aren’t about being worthy. They’re about being effective.
They help a frightened fan walk into a stadium for the first time. They help a policymaker finally understand the lived experience behind the data. They help a company stop a harmful pattern in its tracks. They help people who’ve been silenced step into the light.
That’s why I do this work. That’s why I believe in it. And that’s why I’ll keep making films that don’t just inform, but transform.
Creativity, in the right hands, is a tool for justice. And that’s the kind of filmmaking I want to be part of.
