Weatherhead – Night At The Oscars – Safety Video
Stormy Studio was approached by the Weatherhead Group to develop a number of unique creative ideas to highlight the multiple awards won by the UK Shop Designers in 2017.
Whilst a number of awards were received by the company throughout the year, the 12th Rospa Safety Award was one they were understandably very proud of, as it had been achieved over 12 consecutive years. So the main narrative for the video focused on this health and safety award.
We spent time creating 6 different safety v
ideo award approaches, with some being more matter of fact and corporate in tone, whilst others took a more original approach.
After pitching the various creatives in person, one of the more unique creatives was selected as it complimented the ‘Thinking Differently’ approach already seen on the Weatherhead website.
With the project commissioned, we began work fine-tuning the narrative and planning the production.
Even the smallest of creative film shoots requires significant planning. One of this projects biggest hurdles was going to be finding and working with a large group of children and finding our lead actor.
We spent many late hours browsing the web for props. A fun part of any project, we were able to source some exceptional items thanks to ebay and similar sites. Also, a family friend donated the exceptionally cool vintage racing helmet, this really helped achieve the desired look and feel we had in mind.
Multiple safety video edits were created, with some highlighting the 4 key awards won by the company, including an invite to a party at Buckingham Palace.
The village hall film location needed throughout the shoot was easily selected from day 1. As the perfect looking village hall (with a stage) was farily local to our video production studio. We organised a number of visits, to first recce the site for shooting (deciding on needed lighting, power and grip kit), then for a brief test shoot and finally for our final busy film day.
Our leading actor (the talented Hugo) playing Oscar, came to the hall for a quick costume test shoot prior to the real film day. This was in part to see how awesome he’d look in the kit, plus also to get him acquainted with having our camera follow him around.
We of course still needed our teacher and audience of children and other young stars seen on stage. Whilst we had some success inviting our own friend’s kids to join in the production. We still needed to significantly boost the numbers. Fortunately, our Directors own 4-year old son attends a local dance/drama group called The Dance Shed. With help from Melissa who runs these excellent children (and adult) classes, we were able to organise an audience of approximately 50 budding child actors to attend the shoot.
We were put in touch with David Griffiths, a local actor who was happy to step up and play the headteacher role. He was superb to work with on and off set and patiently waited, whilst we prepared the kit and other actors for each of the shots.
We also created a cardboard COOP shop for Phoebe (dressed as a shop designer/architect) to hold on stage. Whilst we never see the shop close up in the video, it still helps add to the overall finish and aligns nicely with the Co-Op contractor of the year award.
Phoebe is joined by Dexter and Violet who are dressed as our King and Queen, to tie in with a Buckingham Palance Party invite Weatherhead had received. Plus the smartly dressed Hector plays our classic English gentleman to represent Weatherheads, National Considerate Contractors Award.
The real film day was soon upon us. We had our talented 6 person film crew (Director, Camera Assistant, Producer, Lighting Tech, Sound Tech, & Data Wrangler). The early afternoon started off rather calmly, as we blacked out windows, rigged up lighting and prepared camera rigs, sliders and microphones. We also managed a couple of test shots as we blocked out the opening and closing shots, ensuring we had the lighting just right, before the hall became a tad busy with children and some parents.
Our fantastic actors, young and old soon turned up, and the fun really began. Many incredible friends generously gave up their time to help keep our 50+ crowd of kids happy. With some providing catering, others headed up our welcome desk and organised the signing of release forms. Plus good friend Catherine even took up the role of assistant teacher to sit alongside the head in the opening and closing shots.
Melissa from the Dance shed, was also an incredible help during the shoot. Successfully getting the kids happily back into position as we prepared for each of the different shots, swapping places around to ensure different groups were captured inline with our storyboard shots.
We organised a shot list that prioritised those that featured the audience, knowing that waining attention spans and hunger would soon strike. We stopped for an early dinner for the cast, whilst the crew prepared for the next shots. Once these were completed, we said a huge thank you to our young audience members. They each left with their own ‘Film Crew’ t-shirt and hopefully a new fondness for film production.
We then worked through the final shots on stage with Hugo working his way up to the stage and receiving his certificate, alongside those already on stage. Which lead to a great spontaneous moment.
We captured a beautiful shot where Violet who plays our Queen Elizabeth, without prompting, stepped forward and helped Hugo up the stairs. Unfortunately, we couldn’t squeeze this into the final edit.Though the watching parents and crew, were all impressed by her eagerness to help her friend.
After the final handshaking, certificate shots and close-ups with our headteacher. We finished with the final wide shots of all the dressed up children, before wrapping for the day.
Our crew and friends then tried to madly pack all camera, lighting and catering equipment before the hall was taken over by that evening’s Pilates group. We didn’t quite make it in time and ended up hiding lots of kit behind the curtains on stage, only to return at midnight to pack up the rest.
The final creative safety video was then edited and graded using Adobe Premiere and Lumetri. With a profesional voiceover recorded, and music added to complete the production.
