RSA Films is hoping to venture into the film festival circuit this year with a series of short films for one of the United States' largest insurance companies.

Two years ago, Boston-based agency Hill Holiday recruited RSA director Laurence Dunmore to direct a series of 30-second TV spots for Liberty Mutual Group called "Good Deeds" about strangers who commit random acts of kindness. This year the campaign evolved into the branded entertainment realm as "The Responsibility Project", a series of web films about pedestrians or bystanders unexpectedly faced with moral decisions.

Late last year, Hill Holiday asked RSA to create four shorts based on the idea of civic responsibility. The company put a call out to its international roster to send back scripts. RSA President Jules Daly likens the pitching process to that of a music video, though she notes the budget situation was a lot better.

"We sent around a paragraph about what the agency wanted to hit upon, and then did an internal competition for directors to write a treatment as to how they would like to structure a short around the spec," says Daly.

In addition to Dunmore (also EP on the project), directors Steph Green, Adam Goldstein and Lena Beug won the assignment with seemingly mundane story ideas that put viewers in the shoes of a bus passenger who witnesses a purse-snatching ("Transit"), a coffee shop patron tasked to mind another's laptop ("Table Guardians") and a little boy who unwittingly comes into possession of missing boxes of cookies ("Mandy & Lester").

"It was really fun for the directors to get into a narrative mindset and question responsibility," adds EP Fran McGivern. "It was also a hard thing to write about - some directors got it and some didn't." She adds that RSA negotiated for and secured story rights and final

Responsibility Project http://www.responsibilityproject.com

RSA Films http://www.rsafilms.com