New York Agency teams up with UK Advert Production Company
As a video production company, we’re always thrilled to work on new and challenging projects, and this Aimé Leon Dore advert was no exception. Having produced TV Adverts for many different clients, we pride ourselves on having a great relationship with our clients, no matter where they come from.
Aimé Leon Dore required a video production company to produce a video to show their new collaboration with New Balance.
We were approached by The Flow agency, an advertising and communications agency based in New York, thanks to having an old Greek client in common.
The Brief
The creative brief was to produce an 80s theme ‘Green Street’ style advert, a group of young men walking to a football match wearing Aimé Leon Dore garments and the latest New Balance footwear. I (Gurmit Samra, creative director at Impress video), took the producer role in bringing everything together to make this happen with my UK team.
The client specifically requested a road close to the football stadium Arsenal which had a real British look and feel. This project worked in line with Bukayo Saka’s collaboration with Aimé Leon Dore.
Film Fixer & The Location – Elfort Road N5
Our location scout set about and presented several roads and streets to film on – the key criteria were to have a base close by the location for cast and crew preparation.
Our client wanted to shoot the video in a street close to The client chose their location Elfort Road, and through a key process via FilmFixer London we secured the road for filming a 10hr shoot, along with this we secured permits for some cars to be removed from the street.
Due to having only one month to produce the shoot and not 3, our application allowed us to close the road for only a 10hr day.
As part of the application, key stipulations were in play such as:
- Alerting the Streets residents twice via a letter drop. This was important to us too as we had to be mindful of the residents, and wanted them to have full disclosure of what we were planning to do.
- We had to have 4 Marshalls at each end of the street.
- There were to be x2 security personnel along with a supervisor.
- Key insurance had to be in place.
- Preparing a full report including the number of cast and crew to be on set along with prop cars and vehicles.
Set design
Meanwhile, we acquired 20 vintage cars from the 80s, which consisted of old-style Escorts, Cortinas and a Porsche. A key contact was transported in the 15 classical cars from Wales via a car carrier on the day of filming, the transporter arrived at 6 pm, and all cars were off-loaded ready for 7 am.
Moreover, during our shooting time, we needed to use 2 houses on the street. We used one house as a technical room and the other one for the models including hair and makeup.
What is more, we also used a pub as the main base close to where we were filming for food and costume prep.
The Crew
Our Location manager Stacy was incredible at sourcing locations.
Film Fixer was a joy to collaborate with. They helped in everything as they wanted our production to go as smoothly as possible. To ensure this, they closed the road for us from 7 am to 7 pm. They were there from initial discussions right up until after the shoot to ensure all went well.
Everything went perfectly, that is why we captured everything we needed to. We managed to capture the 80s theme of football fans’ street walk-through, with urban music from mos def.
For this shooting, we needed a huge amount of people, including:
- 4 Stewards
- 2 Security person
- 1 Traffic manager
- 1 Location manager
- 8 runners
- 1 AD
- 2 AD
- 3 AD
- Technicians
- x2 producers
- DOP
- Director
- Loader
- Camera Assistant
- 8 extras
Although we had to do a lot of breaks due to the rain, we managed to capture a well-rounded shoot that fulfilled what Aimé Leon Dore’s asked us to do.
The Outcome
After creating and recording this Aime Leon Dore advert, the team produced and edited the 30-second video. The brand used this video in their social media channels.
Although this video cost more than £100k to be produced, it got a lot of engagement from Instagram users, as it now has almost 100k views and 1389 comments. By and certainly was the power play Aimé Leon Dore wanted to launch their new store in Soho London.
On to the next.
Thank you for reading,
Gurmit Samra