All creatives need an opportunity to flex their creative muscles every now and again. We needed a project that challenged us creatively, enhanced our portfolio allowing us to expand further into the online advertising space and finally allow us as a team to try new roles and strengthen our working relationships. This is why we decided to create a spec ad. We looked at creating the ad for all kinds of brands including food, drinks, sports, and automotive brands but in the end, Salomon was the choice we settled on due to the passion the team had for hiking and outdoor activities.

For this project, planning consisted of a full storyboard detailing the types of shots that we wanted to achieve. For this, we used Midjourney AI to assist with quickly generating imagery. Once this was done we needed to find suitable locations and talent, with the Peak District being only a couple of hours away it was a perfect location. For talent, our lead, Leo, runs Menace Music which is our music studio, and for the supporting talent, Aaron, we found via a casting call on a local Facebook page.

Efficiency was key with this project, but that’s where putting the effort in the planning stages shines! Our detailed storyboard and shot list allowed us to keep track of everything that we needed. Even if the shots weren’t exactly how we planned them, having the references to follow to ensure that the key story elements had been captured was critical. Running on a small budget meant we needed to keep as much of the production in-house as possible so we used all of our own kit, crew, and where interior scenes were required, we used our own office and studio as well as props.

This is where we worked our magic. We took everything that we’d captured and pulled together a first cut of the ad, after some tweaking and adjustments we moved on to visual effects, transitions, overlays, and of course, the all-important sound design! Sound is always important but for this project, it was critical to get it right so we spent a great deal of time on this. Lastly, the project went in for a full colour correction and colour grade treatment to ensure that we had the look that we wanted.