Great news… Thatchers Cider have just unveiled their new advert (see Films below), which means that I can now blog about my involvement in the ‘Making of’ film…

I was lucky enough to be asked to shoot the ‘Making of ' the new Advert during the 4 days of shooting back in September, when the days were long and warm (mainly) and the apples were still on the trees. I’ve been present at the last two adverts and I have to admit that it’s one of my favourite jobs of the year. Thatchers Cider, although still very much a family business has grown massively of the past few years and in turn, it’s advertising and marketing has grown with it. So making an advert has become a large operation which involves a lot of people, and to me, who normally works on their own, it’s pretty much like landing on a Stephen Spielberg movie lot. It blows my mind how many people are involved, all doing a very specific job, from gaffer to grip, and runner to director, everything is highly choreographed and nothing happens by accident and unless there is an earthquake. Nothing gets in it’s way or stops the production, unless it’s time for lunch that is, these big shoots do lunch very well, thats partly why it’s my favourite job of the year :-) It’s along day and everybody works incredibly hard and are very focused, but I do somethings feel that I’m the hardest worker there (honest !) as I’m practically doing the job of 7-8 people. You see I shoot both stills (PR Photography) and Video all day, and when shooting on my Sony FS5, I am the camera operator, the Director of photography, sound engineer, focus puller, Gaffer (chief lighting engineer) Director and Interviewer. I even had to make my own tea !

Continued below…

A selection of stills from the shoot…

But having this much control does give me a lot of freedom, and with a flexible brief from the marketing team at Thatchers I can roam around and pretty much shoot what I like. This can get me into trouble though. You have to be very careful not to get in the way of the production as time is precious. As I said, I’m not really in the ‘team’ and I am at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to getting the job done. I did managed to get a right royal rollicking at one point from the assistant director when he noticed me hiding under a tree hoping to get a arty shot of the Race Car. Lying on the ground, I presumed I was out of shot, only to have the assistant director looming over me with a rather angry look on his face. I was in shot (aggghhh !) and they had to do another take. I did have to tread carefully after that but I’m sure that if you check out the orchard scene at around 29 seconds in the advert, you might be able to make out a rather dashing videographer, trying to look like a tree and capture an award winning shot !!!

Anyway, a big thanks to everybody who I worked with during the shoot, it was great fun working with the brilliant team from Joint London, all the crew, actors and a real joy to interview both actor Richard Eder and Director Declan Lowney (who directed the award winning Father Ted series ). Thanks for putting up with me

Below are the actual advert and my ‘Making of Film.

The Thatchers Race Car TV Advert

My Making of the Race Car Film