Member Feature Article: Anti-January Blues

Photo credit: From on set at POPSA with Jonathan Beech

January can be a really hard time of year for many people. The days are long, it’s cold and Christmas is over! Not to mention the continued impact of Covid-19 on our sector. So for this month’s member feature article we asked our members to send in work they’d created to help us all shake off those January blues! We asked for work that was all about adventure, colour, sun, happiness and humour, for projects that had the clients, and viewers or delegates, smiling.

Thank you to all our members who have contributed their work to this member feature article, to help bring a smile to our faces!

 

Hound Dog Films promote travelling with confidence

Traditionally, Christmas is a time for looking ahead and booking those welcome holidays for the coming summer. It’s a time of hope, excitement and dreaming of sun, adventure, relaxation.

Although we face a different travel environment at the moment, ABTA’s annual #TravelWithConfidence campaign focuses on the early peak-booking period for the travel industry, promoting confidence in booking a holiday with an ABTA Member and actually going overseas.

Launched across social media channels over the Christmas period and early 2022, Hound Dog Films produced a series of films featuring ABTA Members and their customers taking centre stage in this campaign which highlights the benefits of booking with an ABTA Member. The theme is authenticity. We wanted the campaign to have genuine voice – real people, real knowledge and expertise, and real experience of travel, with honest feedback from customers of ABTA Members on why they’ve booked their holiday.

Over 10.4m people saw last year’s national campaign video which we produced for use across ABTA’s main social media channels – Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

 

Jonathan Beech creates a happy family feel in POPSA shoot

 

POPSA is a photo book app commercial with a lovely colourful and bouncy happy family feel. This was shot just before Covid was here. The brief was to make an iPhone style film that was bright bouncy and fun. And it was late October and the nights were drawing in so we only had a few hours of useable sunshine as it was all shot on location. So we decided to do all the PTC’s ( Pieces to camera ) at the end of the day after the children had all the fun of the day and excitement of having a film crew with them. which only last’s so long. This allowed us to light inside to recreate the sunny day feel even though outside was in Darkness.

John Gradwell who was the Director from Toast Tv and I chatted about the look and the safety element with children involved and decided we would light it all from the outside which gave us more freedom and flexibility to capture those one time moments without a light in the background. We also decided to keep crew in the room to a minimum as to not distract the children, and we blended into their day.

John, a patient and very experienced director with great rapport with children, was such an invaluable asset to enable me get the shots he was looking for. Poe Panayiotou (who was my trusty 1st Ac, again a calm and reliable chap) the Director and myself were the only crew in with the family for most of the day apart from those playback chat moments.

Alongside the story board were many quick grab magical moments that just appeared in front of us which John was quick to see unfolding and which greatly added to the spontaneous feel of the film. All in all a splendid day and, I hear, a very successful campaign.

Main Crew were form Linkline and TOAST Tv with Location Lighting as always providing their usual top class lighting services.

 

Challenging 2021 Sparks Animated Success for Hamlett Films

2021 had a challenging start, but two projects surprised the team at Hamlett Films and sent them off on adventurous journeys around Wales and Egypt. Animation is a new direction for HF, but proved the key to getting clients’ productions moving during lockdown. First was BBC Bitesize Humanities, which featured lively animated presenters exploring identity and Welsh revolutions, layered with archive and colourful graphics. Next were 70 films for Discovery Education. Maths for the Egyptian and US markets – sun, sea monsters, giant ants, innovative teaching and brilliant animation make maths fun for 9-11 year olds.

See more here: https://hamlettfilms.com/work/discovery-education-maths/

 

CTL Communications support stroke awareness campaign

The ground-breaking FAST Heroes stroke awareness campaign, held during the Christmas period, was definitely a smile-inducing activity for all who braved Manchester’s Trafford Centre during the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

Promoting our Guinness World Record attempt for the most superhero selfies ever taken, we had babies in prams, kids, teenagers, grandparents and everyone in between donning superhero masks and posing like Britain’s next top models.

We took over 5,000 selfies in 3 days and reached our target of 20,000 selfies on Christmas Eve!

 

DFS annual conference – In it together with Top Banana

Top Banana partnered with DFS to create a compelling, memorable sense of togetherness, energise the business, celebrate successes and instil confidence in the company’s future.

This year’s annual conference welcomed c.1500 in-person and virtual attendees. Hosted at The International Centre, Telford, the experience included a combination of interviews and presentations incorporating a 58m super-wide projection screen in the main room, supported by a range of feature films and animation. In addition, there was an interactive product showcase and showroom of the future, immersive breakout groups, and an exhilarating gala dinner, awards and after-party – it was an event filled with surprise and delight.

Marc Hazelden, Client Strategy and Innovation Director, said: “It was paramount that their people felt re-connected, valued, and motivated, so the experience had to be innovative and interactive to extract personality and energy – we wanted to harness the DFS spirit and create some positive energy amongst the team to help drive the evolution of the business. As a result, there most definitely was a feeling of vitality in the air.”

Disclaimer: This event was hosted in line with the current government covid guidelines with additional safety measures.

 

DRPG supports St. Richard’s Hospice

In 2021, DRPG worked on two projects with St. Richard’s Hospice, ‘Woo Fest’ and ‘What’s the Elephant in the Room?’ both of which raised huge sums of money for the organisation.

 

In 2021, DRPG were invited to produce a virtual festival that would allow people to listen to a variety of music acts and raise money for St. Richard’s Hospice. The charity was established in 1984 and cares for adults in Worcestershire with serious progressive illnesses, improving their quality of life from diagnosis, during treatment and to their last days. It also supports patients’ loved ones.

The virtual multi-genre music festival was hosted at DRPG’s studio complex in the West Midlands and included 11 live sets and more pre-recorded performances with all funds raised through ticket prices and additional donations going directly to the charity. Artists included Sophie Ellis-Bexter, Toyah Wilcox and Nigel Clark from Dodgy.

The event was hosted on an interactive virtual festival site with different areas to visit such as a wellbeing zone, Zumba classes, cocktail making classes and more. Attendees were also sent posters and bunting to create their very own festival scenes at home.

Woo Fest raised over £12,500 for the hospice and the festival won silver for best Virtual Fundraising Event at the 2021 Eventex Global Awards.

 

Bringing a unique perspective to mental health, ‘What’s the Elephant in the Room?’ explored the difference we can all make to both ourselves and those around us, when take a moment to stop and look at what may be right in front of us.

In 2021, DRPG  joined forces with St. Richard’s Hospice and mental health awareness partner Onside, to create a unique holographic experience running in conjunction with Worcester’s Big Parade, taking place in the city of Worcester over the summer.

The experience provided members of the public with an exclusive opportunity to become one of 24 virtual ‘community artists’ by creating their very own Worcester’s Big Parade elephant. As well as sharing what mental health means to them. Each week, three artists were selected to be featured in the holographic installation located within Worcester’s Crowngate Shopping Centre.

DRPG continued to work with St Richard’s Hospice throughout the summer and hosted the Worcester’s Big Parade auction, as part of a CSR project, within their studios at their HQ in the West Midlands. The event saw all 67 elephant sculptures auctioned off and raised a mammoth £368,000 for the charity.

Thank you so much to all of our contributing members!