G’Vine: International Drinks Campaign

Client: G’Vine / Paragon Brands

Project: It All Starts In France

Location: Cognac, France

Deliverables:

4 x 2 - 5 min episodes
1 x 10 minute edit
Social messages for retailers
Footage used for paid social snippets

Dead Pixel did:

Treatment & scripting
Pre-production
Filming
Directing
Editing & grade

Quote of the Shoot:

Crew member: “Hey Gino… I mean Fred!!”
Fred Serieix: “Are you fu**ing kidding me?!"

Brief

Paragon Brands are the UK distributor of premium French gin, G’Vine.

After acquiring the signature of Fred Serieix (First Dates / Gordon, Gino and Fred’s Road Trip) as their new UK ambassador of G’Vine, they approached us to help with the production of their upcoming campaign, aimed at introducing their new star man and establishing the partnership to consumers on an international scale.

After reading the brief and getting a good understanding of what the brand wanted to achieve, we produced a director’s treatment and developed the concept that would allow us to create a story behind why Fred and a French gin made from grapes are the perfect fit. The story would allow us to create a mini branded content series with four episodes, plus a bank of social content and paid media assets to drive the digital activity.

We pitched it to the team and, without delay, flights were booked, the kit was packed and we were on our way to Cognac.

Pre-Production

Due to Fred’s limited availability in between other filming commitments, we had a two-day window to shoot everything needed for the campaign.

Our first priority was producing a narrative and rough script that would provide a storyline for us to follow and dictate the scenes that we needed to capture. We then split Fred’s journey into four chapters and produced a shot list based on what we know before getting to France (these things often change once we see the setups).

Working alongside the Paragon marketing team and the French team on the ground at Maison Villevert (owners and producers of G’Vine), we mapped out five locations that we wanted to utilise to tell our story. It was then a case of planning those into a shooting schedule, ordering things from a logistical perspective to decrease travel time and give us more time on set.

With all of the pre-production complete, we packed our flight cases, filled in the carnet (customs document for exporting equipment), and headed to France.

Production

We arrived on a Sunday evening at La Rochelle airport, just a small drive away from Cognac. With any excuse to see the vineyards up close, we did a quick recce of each location so that we were familiar with our surroundings prior to filming. This helps us to understand what we’re up against when it comes to terrain, sounds, movement and lighting.

Filming began the next morning with us shooting in a mixed order for logistical reasons. Our Director talked Fred and Jean Sebastién (our 2nd on-screen talent) through the scenes whilst our DOP and camera team rigged the kit and prepped for the first setup.

We captured multiple takes, along with a mix of b-roll of the local setting before moving to location two and so on. Our on-set producer took care of logistics and continuity with us jumping between outfits.

To add context to each chapter, we shot a mix of introductions and in-car dialogue to help us transition from scene to scene. This also included voice-over recordings to dub over drone footage and montage sections.

Some of the locations (e.g. distillery) provided a technical challenge due to sound and lighting barriers. But a solid schedule allowed us time to think on our feet and come up with various solutions that wouldn’t affect the final output.

Once we’d captured everything with our talent, we rigged the 1960’s Citroen 2CV with action cameras to drive around the local town and vineyards, capturing cutaways that may come in handy during the edit.

After two days of filming, it would have been rude to not enjoy a few gins with the local team before flying home the following morning and heading back to the studio to begin post-production.

Post-Production

Our in-house edit team took care of the post-production at our Manchester studio.

To begin with, we produced a 10-minute cut of the full story that allowed us to finalise the narrative and set a look & feel for the edit; keeping things succinct and on-brand.

Once approved, we split that into four smaller chapters and applied start and end sequences to provide context to each episode when viewed in isolation.

The whole project was completed in 3 weeks from stepping on the plane to submitting the final edits.