One of our all-star projects; a day on the Moors Dartmoor with a professional racing driver testing half a millions pounds’ worth of Mercedes AMG flagship models.

The audience: current or prospective AMG clients.

The ask: to shoot over the course of one day interior, exterior and automotive features and driving shots with presenter links, and deliver three succinct and engaging edits for inclusion in a targeted email campaign.

The answer: rally together two camera ops, a drone and one talented presenter and spend one 12-hour day working through a meticulously executed script using multiple filming units and cars, steadicams and mobile production units. Then find and appoint one skilled editor with a flair for the Top Gear style of editing.

The pre-production challenge: drone licensing requires landowner permission for takeoff and landing, with a considerable amount of red tape, meaning that the 63% of Dartmoor that is privately owned was firmly off the table. We tracked down a friendly pub owner on common land, secured written consent and promised that multiple meals would be consumed in return for a take-off and landing zone in their car park. The result, some great aerials to complement a full suite of films.

The production challenge: we only had the presenter for three hours, right in the middle of the day. Our only option was to take all three cars out twice, complete with ex-police officer drivers. The first time, and without the presenter, we’d shoot all the static shots of each car and any exterior driving shots that we could get without the driver being easily identifiable. The second, we’d shoot the presenter links and interior driving shots and links. It worked well, but the swan analogy very much came into play here.

That was one busy day.