Here at CH, we have a solid foundation of all our clients allowing us to take a brief, work to brand guidelines and add that extra sparkle! 

A great example is our ongoing partnership with Thames Water who we recently worked alongside for their latest campaign ‘Save a Drop.’

Project in the Pipeline

Thames Water asked us to produce a suite of short form video content to communicate water efficiencies in the home.

Having the opportunity to respond to any creative brief is great fun for the team. Our brainstorm sessions are always bursting with creativity and a great way for us to utilise experiences from all sides of production and offer new perspectives.

We decided to follow a reportage style that explored the ‘everyday family’ with realistic scenarios like taking a shower, using dual flush and what to do when you have a leaky loo.

We wanted authenticity in every aspect of production and especially during casting. With the shoot taking place at the height of the second wave of COVID with restrictions still in place; we needed to use a real family group of actors in a single household that could be filmed in close proximity. Our options were limited and although we’d worked with child actors in the past, it was an added logistical challenge. On top of that, we also needed a location to fit the specific requirements of each scenario and accommodate a crew of 14.

After completing several virtual casting sessions, a mountain of paperwork and a crew’s worth of negative covid tests…we were ready.

Diving into Production

We had one day to film five different scenarios, recreating the summer sun in the pouring rain of February (find out more about how we achieved the lighting here), and ensuring everyone followed our COVID filming guidelines.

Arriving bright and early, we took steps to protect both ourselves and the location:

• Staggered arrival times for cast and crew

• Temperature checks on arrival

• One-way system and assigned rooms

• PPE and face masks worn by everyone not in front of the camera

• COVID safety briefing before filming started

• Protective shoe covers worn while on location

• Tennis balls on light stands (to prevent marking the floor) – sounds crazy but really works!

Part of our extensive pre-planning was factoring in the shorter winter days (and risky weather forecast!). We started outside, working with the bulk of the crew while our Art Director and Production Assistant were dressing the next scenes. There was a massive amount of detail put into each shot such as adding plants to the flowerbed, a water butt to the garden and added food remnants to prop plates.

We followed a meticulous schedule to capture all the necessary content, as our Producer was keeping track our child actors, ensuring they had the correct number of breaks throughout the day with their chaperone. The Director and DOP had to think on their feet, adapting the shot list to work within our timeframe and quickly setting up the next camera angle.

We wrapped the day with some fantastic feedback from the cast and crew in regards to COVID safety and the overall positivity on set!

Flushing out the Content

With a hop, skip and jump into the edit…thanks to the upfront work we put in during pre-production, we quickly assembled the initial narrative and secured approval from Thames Water. 

We focussed on a consistent grade that suited each scenario to create a bright, engaging and most importantly fun collection of videos. 

We completed the project supplying the following video deliverables:

• 5x 20 second videos and social reversions

• 1x combined video (featuring the entire collection)

Watch the combined video here https://vimeo.com/589775590

Make sure to say hello@ch-video.com to see how we add value and creativity to everything we do.