Randstad Recruitment: TV Commercial

Client: Randstad Recruitment of behalf of Jaywing

Project: Seeing possible in people

Location: Greater Manchester

Deliverables:

1 x 30s TV advert
1 x 60s brand film for YouTube
15 x social cuts in 1:1, 9:16 and 16:9 formats
40+ 5K screengrabs

Dead Pixel did:

Location Scouting
Casting
Filming
Directing / producing
Editing with and without captions
Grading

Quote of the Shoot:

“Are those kids jumping over the fence to bunk off school?"

Brief

Sheffield-based creative agency, Jaywing, approached us to collaborate on a new TVC and social brand film for International Recruitment Company, Randstad. They had the script boxed off and the main job roles that they wanted to showcase.

Our job was to decide how to bring this brief to life that would work across multiple platforms and formats.

Pre-Production

We took the templated storyboards and expanded this into a detailed shot list. We then broke the shot list down by character and location and began the casting process.

After a rigorous casting call we put forward 6 experienced actors per character role. The Randstad team whittled the 24 candidates down to their favourites and we took it from there.

Budget is always a consideration for any project. That said, we had to dig into our extensive network to provide the locations for this shoot. We managed to source a high school, construction site and a family home to be used for the care-worker and ‘work from home’ scenes.

Once we had the cast and locations pinned down it was onto scheduling. We knew there was an extensive shot list with multiple setups to get through and only 3 days to do it but we like a challenge.

Production

We arrived at the family home bright and early to begin rigging the lighting. We moved from room to room capturing a variety of reactions and ‘first-day’ nerves. We opted for a Spring morning vibe adding warmth to the shots with selective wardrobe and lighting techniques.

Day 2 was spent transforming the house into a completely new space with selective framing and dressing. (It was more cost effective to utilise the same house across 2 days than relocate somewhere else.) After a jam packed morning we packed down the kit and headed to Parrs Wood High School, Didsbury for our teaching scenes. We’ve created 2 x brand films for the school and knew the staff well. This meant getting an access all areas pass much easier than going in cold.

On Day 3 we went to a busy construction site on the outskirts of Manchester. After going through a few options during the pre-production meeting our client expressed the love of traditional stone buildings so we aimed for a site that ticked those boxes. Covered in PPE we took a small team on site to capture the relevant shots with our lead actor and a few extras. Following the construction site scenes we drove into Manchester city centre to capture the Randstad offices. We’d already visited site during a recce and knew that lighting and styling would be challenge in a working office. That said, we had a plan and actually rigged the office scene in between two elevators.

Post-Production

Our in-house team took care of the edit, including grading and sound design. We first delivered the 60 second online brand film and then began cutting a shorter version that would be aired on TV.

We then produced a selection of even shorter social-first edits that were purposely created for different paid social media platforms. We didn’t have the luxury of an on site photography but was able to pull out over 40 high resolution screengrabs that have been used on web banners and social posts.