Every year a client approaches us with a vision for “A John Lewis Advert”.
Now, we’re good at making videos and we love our clients dearly but they generally don’t have the budget required for a £5 million Christmas campaign, and we don’t necessarily have the expertise to pull off that kind of production either!
However, there is a lot we can do to make your festive video stand out, and this year Guildford’s BID – Experience Guildford – and Guildford Borough Council wanted to join forces and do something different.
There’s a lot that can be achieved to raise the production value of a film without impacting the budget, and mostly this comes down to storytelling, clever camera work and managing expectations so that what is possible is executed really well.
The Brief
Experience Guildford wanted to encourage local shoppers back to the high street to buy their Christmas presents. They decided they wanted to create an emotive video which didn’t focus on specific services or shops but rather what Guildford has to offer as a whole package.
In collaboration with GEEYOU we refined the concept and put together a storyboard that would truly get the residents of Guildford in the Christmas spirit.
The narrative is led by a child’s letter to Santa, and the child’s narration provides the voiceover throughout the whole video. On-screen, we follow a post man on his rounds through Guildford, with lots of familiar sights for locals to recognise and enjoy. In each location he visits he exchanges letters for a gift box, leading to a reveal at the end that the box contains “The Gift of Guildford”, celebrating the message that with over 200 retailers, 100 + places to eat & drink, 3 theatres, and multiple music and arts venues, it’s easy to give the gift of Guildford this Christmas.
Visually, we really wanted to give the video a festive feel – dark evenings, sparkling Christmas lights, with the contrast of warm and welcoming interior scenes. This warm feeling would be much harder to create in bright daylight, especially on a grey, wet day in December, so we chose to film in low light and early evening to really achieve a cinematic result.
The Challenges
Two of the biggest challenges with any Christmas video are props and timescales. Christmas is the same day every year so in theory it’s easy to plan ahead for the big festive campaign… However, think about the sheer volume of Christmas paraphernalia that pops up around the end of November and you start to realise the scale of props required to set up a convincing Christmas in September. Another aspect to consider in any external shoot is the weather and the trees – a tree full of bright green leaves will visually jar with the winter vibes that are attempting to be achieved.
So that brings us onto timescale. We need to wait for the Christmas decorations to come out, and simultaneously deliver a video that can be used for as long as possible to maximise its impact for the festive season. In real terms, this means planning, filming and turning an edit around in a very short timescale, and this project was no different. From production meeting to final delivery this video took just under four weeks to produce! That includes scripting, storyboarding, casting, wardrobe and props, organising locations, schedules and logistics, two filming days and five days of editing time!
Another challenge we faced was filming in low light. Yes, we brought this on ourselves… but it was worth it! The problem with filming in the dark is the quality of footage – the camera sensor needs light or the results could be grainy and noisy, which massively undermines the high production value we were looking to achieve. Sometimes it is appropriate to film in the day time so that the image is crisp and colour grade it in post to give the impression of night, but when the narrative was reliant on dark skies and the light spilling out of the shops as well as the Christmas lights we needed real darkness. This gave us a small window of opportunity – a couple of hours when the sky was dark but not so dark that we couldn’t get good results.
We tackled this with a camera that handles low light particularly well, coupled with clever shot planning (using residual light from our surroundings) and portable LED light panels which we could use to control the light on important areas of the scene.
Shooting in public areas was necessary to bring realism and familiarity to the production, but this brings its own challenges too. The general public will happily walk through a shot that has been rehearsed, framed, set to record and is nearly perfect without a moment’s hesitation (even if you ask them nicely). This means communication is key on set because everyone needs to be ready to go as soon as the opportunity arises.
The great British weather! Tsk!
Weather is our enemy on external shoots in the UK. Apart from the fact that rain does not inspire thoughts of festive cheer, it’s really not ideal for the equipment to get wet either. Unfortunately, winter in the South East is not known for its dry spells and scenic snow, so it was always a possibility that we’d have to battle precipitation! Armed with umbrellas and local knowledge of where to dash for cover we managed to work around the showers to get all the content we needed.
Even with the best planning in the world a shoot needs to be adaptable to accommodate all of the challenges we have mentioned. But without that plan in place at all it would be incredibly hard to make those adaptations and be flexible without losing time and focus. And when you’re working with actors and on location, mistakes are expensive and time consuming to fix so this is especially important. Crucially, a plan means we get all the content we need to produce a whole video.
“Everyone is absolutely delighted!!! And tears were mentioned… John Lewis eat your heart out. Thank you, thank you, thank you, one million times thank you! Looks absolutely marvellous. A pleasure working with you as always and thank you so much again.” Olivia Kelly, Project Manager at Experience Guildford
The Result
The final video hits all the right notes. It gets you in the feels, it shows off the best that Guildford has to offer, it’s festive and it’s magical. And best of all, the client and all the associated parties are really happy with it! We had a blast working with Experience Guildford and GEEYOU.
So if you want to connect with your audience on a much deeper level during the 2022 festive period (which let’s hope is a little more predictable than 2020 and 2021), get in touch with us and we’ll be thrilled to discuss how we can give you a discounted ‘John Lewis’ advert!
To all of our clients, suppliers, friends and colleagues – please stay safe and have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and we look forward to working with you all in 2022.
Jovan and the Daisies
