Shadwell is one of the world’s leading horse racing and breeding organisations. They have a roster of fantastic stallions including the likes of BAAEED, MOHAATHER and many more legends. Shadwell sought a video supplier to assist in the making of a series of stallion promotional content. This included conformations, racing promotions, sales videos, and documentaries. Additionally, they also required content to support other sides of the business including recruitment.

Shadwell had used video production in the past, but found that video within the equine industry had become stagnant and wasn’t quite as exciting as it should be, given how epic the industry is. So they needed a fresh perspective from a company that hadn’t spent a great deal of time within the equine industry. And that’s where we came into the picture.

The majority of the shoots took place at their stud in England as this is where most of the business was based, including their stallions. Occasionally, we’d visit other locations and sales venues like Tattersalls in order to capture relevant content for the respective videos.

Our shoots typically consisted of a one or two person team, focusing predominantly on b-roll capture. This meant a lot of slow motion and detailed shots of the horses in their element. Due to the nature of the subject, we always ensured to shoot in direct sunlight, typically in the warmer months, as that’s when the horses will look their best. Occasionally, when interviews are required. We would either shoot these outdoors, requiring minimal lighting setup by relying on mother nature, and on other occasions, we’d shoot indoors and use various lighting techniques.

Drone footage was always something we were keen to use when working with Shadwell, as their estate is truly magnificent and what better way to showcase that, than with a drone.

Our aim with the edits for shadwell was to find a balance between cinematic, and fit for purpose, be it sales, socials or internal comms. This meant we needed to adjust the pacing and music to be fit for a variety of purposes.

As Shadwell wanted us to be creative and bring something new to the table, we would often experiment and try new things, especially with the stallion content which was traditionally done in a particular way. We mixed this up with the use of more contemporary music tracks and slow motion where appropriate.

Colour grading is always an exciting aspect of Shadwell’s content. The content is always featuring majestic horses in the beautiful British countryside, meaning we can push the colour to truly pop and showcase the horses at their best.

We’ve been working with Shadwell for over 6 years, and our fruitful collaboration on over 50 videos has helped their organisation increase online presence, generate revenue and streamline their internal recruitment processes.