Be Bold - creating a video advert for Leeds Beckett University

The idea behind creating a video for Leeds Beckett sprung from the need to grow my commercial directing portfolio. I had also noticed that the university doesn’t have a lot of video advertisements which created the perfect opportunity to both develop and shoot something using recourses available to us at the Northern Film School.

We spent the next two weeks creating a six-page proposal and storyboarding five alternative narratives, all with the hope of gaining the trust and funding from Leeds Beckett to shoot the advertisement. After a bit of digging, I managed to find the right people in the Recruiting / Creative Teams and pitched the idea. They were quick to respond and informed me that they would love to support the project.

This network allowed me to put together a crew of 15+ people in less than a week. 

We were also fortunate enough to be able to bring on board some of the first-year filmmaking students as PA’s and camera assistants. This allowed me and the producing team to develop our team management skills, whilst giving the first years some great experience working on a larger production.

One of our biggest challenges in pre-production was gaining access to all four of the necessary sports facilities, as the advertisement includes 4 very different sporting events (Boxing, Sprint, High Jump & Swimming). However, we had planned this a month in advance, and with help from the right people at the university, locations were soon organised and booked across a total of two shooting days.

Over this same period, we contacted the sports teams and sourced a total of 9 athletes and coaches for the shoot. At this point, we were set for a successful production. We had hired a Leeds-based moving company to transport the kit across the city and had enough budget to fund catering for both the cast and crew.

The shoot went by in a flash. After two days of very early call times and long hours lugging kit between locations, the team worked together flawlessly, despite the sheer number of moving parts. Our thorough pre-production meant that there were very few issues with the locations or cast, and our assistant director had scheduled both days perfectly. This allowed us to capture over 45 different shots in 4 different locations, in under 11 hours of shooting time. Editing was on the contrast, a fairly long process, yet we still managed to get it finalised in time for the summer holidays and passed on to the Leeds Beckett recruitment team for distribution across their social media channels.

This project has taught me a great deal about managing & developing a commercial project from start to finish. It has also matured my directing and producing capabilities significantly, my team management skills even more so. I am forever grateful to the university for providing the necessary funds and equipment needed to make this project happen. 

It has undoubtedly been a pivotal point in my early career, and one I will most definitely look back on in years to come, with a profound appreciation for both the people and the establishment that made it happen.