Pets & Friends : TV Commercial
Deliverables:
2 x 30s TV commercials
1 x 30s digital ad
Social cuts in 1:1, 9:16 and 4:5 formats
>2000 still images
35 5K screengrabs
Dead Pixel did:
Location scouting
Casting (for humans and pets)
Treatment & producing
Filming
Directing
Photography
Editing & grade
Clearcast submissions
Quote of the Shoot:
“Hmm, I can’t work out why they say never work with kids and pets…”
Brief
We were approached to fulfil the production of Pets & Friends first ever TV advert. After a successful round of investment, they wanted to push their online and in-store services using the tagline ‘We totally get your pet’.
They came with a long wish list of extra content, including stills and video assets to be used across web and social, maximising the shoot time.
With 2 dogs in our office we’re clearly pet lovers and couldn’t wait to get stuck into the casting and pre-production for this project.
Pre-Production
From the clients wish list of content we scheduled 3 filming days to fulfil the production.
We allocated two days on location in Manchester and one day in store in Nottingham. Our budget allowed for 12 pets and 6 cast members and we pulled in some willing volunteers from the wider business to be in store extras.
Variety and diversity was key due to the wide range of customers that use the Pets and Friends services; this was paramount when diving into the casting process. We sourced some models from our extensive network and had the assistance of ‘Boss models’, a reputable modelling agency, to handle the required child performance licenses, as we filmed mid week during term time.
Once casting, locations and shot lists had been approved it was onto production.
Production
Filming began on location in Manchester with our skilled crew of 10, shooting across 3 jam packed days. (This didn’t include animal owners or our client). We brought in a variety of trained animals including dogs, cats, puppies, kittens, rabbits and parrots to ‘act’ in our scenes. As with any production working with animals, there’s an element of uncertainty and in order to mitigate this we ensured no animals were in the same room as one another. Dogs and cats that don’t know each other can become unnecessarily stressed and this is something we needed to make sure didn’t happen.
We sourced a beautiful home in South Manchester and worked our way through the space showing as much variety in terms of product, set dressing, cast and animals as possible.
We brought in our friends from ‘Vets on Set’ to ensure animal welfare was always adhered to and signed off by a professional (this is a requirement for any TV production and a letter must be submitted to Clearcast during the approval stages).
After wrapping in Manchester we loaded the vehicles and headed to Nottingham to film the interior and exterior shots of a ‘Pets and Friend’s store. This was a working store still open to the public, so safety was paramount and something our production team took very seriously.
The camera and photography teams worked seamlessly together sharing lighting setups and squeezing into spaces to capture >2000 high resolution images.
Post-Production
Our in-house team took care of the post-production including editing and grading for 2 x TV ads, plus multiple social cuts.
Throughout the production, we worked along side Clearcast, submitting scripts, first drafts and multiple substantiation documents to ensure the TV ads follow the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising. The last stage was to submit to them the final edits for TV for approval.
We also delivered 197 individual video assets ranging from 3s-15s in length that were showing a specific moment, product or feature that could be used on web banners or social campaigns.
Here’s what the days looked like…
Behind the scenes with Dead Pixel, Makalu Agency and Pets&Friends
