A Case Study of Case Studies: Business Surrey 2024 Brand Story Multimedia
“I want to thank the Lamplight team for producing a range of high-quality promotional films for Business Surrey and Surrey County Council. They were extremely professional and diligent in understanding the brief and liaising with third parties to ensure a seamless production process from start to finish. The result was a series of engaging video case studies and stills featuring a range of fantastic businesses within Surrey. We’re pleased to partner with Lamplight and look forward to working with them again on future projects.”
The Precedent
We successfully worked with the Surrey County Council Economy & Growth Team to create the Surrey Festival of Skills 2023 event video in November 2023.
Pleased with the result, the team reached out to us in early 2024 regarding the creation of a series of multimedia case studies, showcasing the hottest businesses in Surrey. These multimedia case studies would be a key part of the launch campaign for the new Business Surrey initiative: a council-backed team of specialist business advisors who will stimulate and encourage businesses to start in, or move into, the county. The ultimate goal of the campaign was to showcase Surrey as a great place to do business, by telling the stories of six successful brands based in there.
The Project
The team at Surrey County Council reached out to us because we specialise in short form content, we are experienced interviewers; plus, we could offer photo, video, & drone services all in house. We felt this project was a great fit for us. We love telling engaging, genuine stories; and it was fantastic collaborating with the best brands based in the county. However, we did not under-estimate the level of trust the Business Surrey team had placed in us, to represent them in these workplaces. We oversaw the end-to-end project management. After an intro from the Council; we conducted pre-production meetings with brands, booked production days, conducted the shoots, & edited all deliverables. However, like all large projects, it presented the odd challenge that had to be overcome:
Rescheduling shoots due to last-minute cancellations.
Cramming a full day shoot into a half day due to talent availability.
Crew illness; requiring last-minute assistance from industry friends.
Fire alarms and evacuations mid-interview.
And all the standard scheduling fun when trying to get c-suite diaries to align…
After a 4-month production process, we were very proud of the 12 short reel & long form videos and 6 commercial photosets we produced. Our client also agreed:
Tim Ridgway, Strategic Marketing Manager said: “I want to thank the Lamplight team for producing a range of high-quality promotional films for Business Surrey and Surrey County Council. They were extremely professional and diligent in understanding the brief and liaising with third parties to ensure a seamless production process from start to finish. The result was a series of engaging video case studies and stills featuring a range of fantastic businesses within Surrey. We're pleased to partner with Lamplight and look forward to working with them again on future projects.”
A deep dive into one challenge we overcame
We were excited to work with the team at KFC in Woking, and due to their talent availability, we split our one day of production into two half-days. However, disaster struck the evening before the first half-day of production: Tim Marsh, the Producer/Director, came down with a heavy flu; to the point he was not able to speak. (Not great for an interviewer!) The production runner also dropped out with illness the day before. Tim called on friend and fellow filmmaker James West at Too Many Words Ltd to step in and assist Director of Photography Callum Swan in ensuring the shoot went on without issue. James pivoted on his schedule and the production continued as planned. (Thank you James!)
As the second half-day rolled around, we were keen to make up for lost time. A time crunch led to a technical issue with the key talent’s lav mic, which required them to re-mic and the interview to start again, now with half the time slot left. The talent sat back down, and almost on cue, the fire alarm sounded. A full-building evacuation. Cut to the Lamplight production team standing at the muster point, in the drizzle, with the rest of KFC Restaurant Support Centre Woking. Tim & Callum pulled out the schedule and started strategizing. Thankfully they were not standing outside for long, and they swiftly went back to wrap up the interview. Tim asked the talent for key sound bites and wrapped them only 15 minutes behind schedule.
The next talent arrived and Tim pulled the morning schedule back on time by focusing their answers on top-line points. Thankfully, the team at KFC are consummate professionals, and gave the exact answers needed. The production team finished the interviews, continued with B-Roll in the offices, and pushed exterior B-Roll to past wrap time, so their host wasn’t tied up longer than agreed. The Lamplight team completed exterior & drone B-Roll in voluntary overtime and wrapped the shoot with all rushes on the shot list. The client was happy with the results and signed off the video with no notes needed. A logistically challenging shoot; however one to celebrate, due to the challenges overcome, with the end product retaining the high quality expected by the discerning client.
We’d like to thank the team at KFC for being accommodating and the team at Surrey County Council for choosing to work with us on this project. We look forward to future collaborations with the Business Surrey team.
