Video production

The brief

We had 3 key targets to hit with this ad:

1) Display the vibrant variety of exciting experiences at this diverse event.

2) Create a sense of warm welcome for people of all backgrounds and communicate that the event is not only for those with roots in farming.

3) Include Welsh, English and BSL for accessibility and inclusivity

What we did

Creative problem solving

The Royal Welsh Show takes place in July, and the ad was needed in June. See the problem? Clearly, we couldn't film new footage of the event itself.

But as per our attitude, everything is figureoutable.

Instead, we crafted a concept and storyboard to work around this challenge and sourced footage from various sources, including past TV broadcasts, and complemented this with new material filmed ourselves.

Crafting a narrative and script

Often, videos with a story or dialogue capture attention and retain interest better than videos simply using nice shots and a backing track with no narrative, because there is a reason for viewers to keep watching.

Rhyme also helps with recall rates so we made sure the script had rhyme and rhythm.

When it came to scripting, rather than having all dialogue in one language, subtitles for another and a BSL interpreter superimposed on the video, we created a script to seamlessly combine the languages and used open captions to aid accessibility.

This normalises all languages, creates a sense of unity and inclusion, and keeps the video clean and accessible for all viewers.

Casting

We casted a diverse team of actors, including some well-known faces from farming circles.

Shoots were organised between a team of camera operators at different locations to reinforce that this event appeals to a wide range of people from all over Wales, not just those from farming backgrounds.

With casts and location shoots come separate filming permits, risk assessments and agreements - shall we say, the not-so-glamorous side of production.

Among our cast were comedian Mel Owen, who we filmed in front of the stadium in Cardiff, a mother and baby filmed at a park in west Wales, and the Welsh Rugby Union player Wyn Jones filmed on his farm, all talking about their love for the Royal Welsh Show.

Injecting magic into the edit

The edit is just as important as the shoot.

We cut a fast-paced edit to mirror the excitement and buzz of being at the event.

On social media, captions help to increase thumb-stop rates and the likelihood of a user watching on rather than scrolling away, so we used open captions with subtle animation, rather than static subtitles, to grab attention and to contribute to the dynamic visual experience of the video.

The result

View the finished product below, posted on the client's YouTube and social media channels.

We delivered multiple versions of this promo for different digital placements and purposes, including versions for TikTok and YouTube, versions for different ad placements from 7 second versions all the way up to 60 seconds, captioned versions, clean versions and a few others. If a job is worth doing it’s worth doing well!

The videos quickly amassed over 178,300 views, 3,500 engagements and a lot of appreciation across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube.

We loved the challenge of concepting, scripting, casting, filming, editing and delivering this campaign in just 3 weeks from start to finish, and hope you enjoy watching the video as much as we enjoyed producing it.