Merry Christmas everyone!

We’ve been producing plenty of Chrimbo-related content for our clients over the last few months, all with their seasonal campaigns in mind, so we thought we’d share a little behind the scenes from our most recent filming session with Leicester City Football Club, and talk you through some of the processes and challenges we faced over our two days of filming.

Filmed at the end of a very crisp November, we were tasked with filming material that would form the foundation of LCFC’s Christmas Commercial Campaign for 2021/22. With a brief that wanted to keep things light and fun, but not too time intensive for the contributors, our objective was to capture six different scenarios involving current and legendary LCFC players taking part in traditional Christmas games and activities (think Jenga, cooking mince pies, wrapping presents and the like).

There were a couple of planning challenges right off the bat – the brief required the scene and lighting to feel very warm and Christmassy, (terms like ‘Nigella’ or ‘Bake-off’ were banded around) so we had to take that under consideration, and likewise, our time with the players would be extremely limited, so we wouldn’t be able to do much in the way of scripting or planning with them beforehand. With that in mind, we approached the shoot with the idea of creating simple yet beautiful set-ups that we could place each contributor inside, and then essentially letting them ‘play’ (with a little guidance from our Director). This meant we could get as much coverage as possible within the allocated timescales and then allow LCFC’s in-house edit team to shape a narrative in post, using selected highlights and outtakes.

The location was absolutely beautiful; a converted farmhouse in the middle of the Leicestershire countryside. The location required a full day of set dressing before the production team arrived, where all the Christmas decorations were added, with as many small points of lights and reflective surfaces as possible. Although it was a beautiful place to film (and stay!) the location was a real home, rather than a studio, so this meant that in some places it was a bit of a tight squeeze, particularly fitting in our two steadyrig cameras, a camera mounted on a motion-controlled automated slider, a ton of lighting kit, and then all the camera, sound and lighting crew!

Because of the complexity of the lighting set-ups, and the time needed to change from one scene to the next, we decided very early on, that we’d set up as many filming ‘stations’ in advance as possible, meaning that we could move from one to another with minimum turn-around time. Due to the player’s hectic schedules, actual filming time with the football stars is always very (very!) limited, meaning that we had to devise quick game scenarios and set-ups that they could quickly drop them into. Luckily, our contributors had filmed one or two things before so were able to get up to speed very quickly, and their competitive natures and strong personalities meant that things soon got quite heated (competitive Jenga should be televised), and we were able to grab some really fun, engaging content for release, that we’re sure the LCFC audience will love.

The final suite of videos are coming out one by one throughout December, and they were great fun to work on. A lovely location, plenty of set-up time, fairly intense, short-burst shooting windows, and some great kit to work with, meant that we had a load of fun working on these videos, and we think the results speak for themselves. Check out the videos that have already been released below, with more to come!

Have a great Christmas everyone and see you all again in the New Year!