A Balancing Act with Jimmy Doherty

Client: AHDB

Agency: LUX Illuminating Brands

Project: A Balancing Act with Jimmy Doherty

Location: Jimmy’s House

Deliverables:

4 x recipe videos in 1:1 and 9:16 for Instagram
4 x short recipe videos in 1:1 and 9:16 for Instagram
1 x behind-the-scenes video in 1:1 and 9:16 for Instagram
Hero and BTS still photography for website, social and internal

Digital Triangle Creative’s role:

Shot lists
On set styling & lighting
Filming with 3 camera setup: fixed with autocue, slider and gimbal
Directing
Editing & colour grade
Sound design
Motion graphics
Photography inc. edit

Let’s Eat Balanced is an initiative by AHDB to encourage people to eat a balanced, healthy diet. This campaign was a partnership with Jimmy Doherty (chef, TV presenter, owner of Jimmy’s farm and all round lovely guy) to create some delicious recipe content using British beef, lamb and dairy in his country-style kitchen.

The brief was to produce a series of 3 recipe videos, that are perfect for busy families, each with a focus on one of the three hero ingredients. Distribution was to be used across both paid and organic social channels. Jimmy recorded the official scripting for each video and we captured incidental audio throughout. We also captured user generated style content so that a paid social A/B test could be run during the campaign. Each video was delivered in both 1:1 and 9:16 ratios along with a suite of hero and BTS photography for use before and during the campaign to increase engagement.

Production

As we were filming on location, the first thing to do was prepare the filming space and get everything set up. Jimmy’s house was beautiful both inside and out and made for a great filming space, albeit quite tight once you have added in a full, multi-camera production and lighting rigs. There was a large window on one-side of the kitchen and we placed a diffused light source outside to boost the natural light available. We then set up a large diffusion screen and shot another 300W light source to fill out the kitchen.

The videos were filmed using our in-house Sony FX6 and FX3 cameras, all using G-master lenses. We had the FX6 mounted on a tripod with the autocue which gave us the hero shot of the scene and where Jimmy delivered his lines to, We then had an FX3 mounted on the 2-axis iFootage slider giving a dynamic, parralax shots of any prep and cooking processes. A second FX3 was mounted on a gimbal along with an iPhone to capture additional detail shots and UGC style content. There was a dedicted UGC crew member shooting on another iPhone to capture the process from alternative angles with more of a focus on being from Jimmy’s perspective.

Incidental BTS photography was captured throughout the shoot and hero shots were captured after each dish had been completed.

Post-Production

This was such a great project to put together in post as Jimmy and the setting made for some really lovely shots. We got to flex all our core skills on this one as well with the video, motion graphics and photography which always help create a cohesive style across a series.

The first stage was cutting the script with all the incidental voice over recorded throughout the shoot, then matching with picture. Once the videos were put together it was adding in sound design, animation and production music to bring the whole series together.

Once we had the picture and format signed off we then produced all the different ratios of each for final distribution - 20 in total!. Total time from start to finish of post-production was 8 weeks.

To date the videos have over 4.8 million views on Instagram - a great result for everyone involved!