‘Out of My Depth’
Arthur Hill x AMADEUS
Client: Sky TV
Project: Amadeus (TV) Campaign
Location: London, UK
Deliverables:
1x Hero Longform YouTube Deliverable (Social)
1x Video Trailer (Social)
1x Episode cut-down (60 seconds) (Social)
1x Influencer collaboration post (Social)
Window Zebra did:
Creative Development of Original Concept
In House Team - Including Director, Producer, DoP
Pre Production
Production - Two shoot days across three locations in London
Post Production - Offline & Online Edit
Key takeaway:
Filming in a busy, congested train station in the heart of London at Christmas… not as easy as you may think!
The Brief
In the lead-up to the release of Amadeus (TV series), Sky TV partnered with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields to stage a live orchestral performance at King's Cross Station -bringing Mozart’s music to the public and generating buzz around the show just before Christmas. But why stop at a live audience?
That’s where Window Zebra comes in.
We saw an opportunity to create something that could travel far beyond the station concourse - a piece of content designed to engage new audiences and drive them towards the series. The result was Out Of My Depth, a digital-first concept created in collaboration with singer and online personality Arthur Hill.
What happened next? Well… read on….
Pre Production
For this production, we had to somewhat work backwards, as a lot of the other elements of the event was being planned by another agency (Rapport IMPACT) so our creative had to slot within the shifting timeframe and limitations attached.
We worked closely with Sky’s influencer and YouTube team to identify a range of potential talent to work with including everyone from YouTube-only talent, to mainstream recording artists, and ultimately landed on Arthur Hill who James (Director) had worked with twice previously.
From there, we worked with Ben Holder, the musical director for the TV series, to come onboard and coach Arthur through the process.
The core crew consisted of:
Director
Producer
DOP
3x Camera Operators
1st AC
Photographer
We knew that a lot of the shooting block in Kings Cross would have very limited control both with logistics and lighting and developed a multiway client viewing system that ran off of iPads so that the director and key team could see the footage as it was being captured and relay to the operators any core feedback.
We shot the whole campaign on our Sony FX6 cameras with a mix of zoom lenses to capture every angle, especially important when there are large crowds or barriers in the way. We also used three GoPro Hero 12 cameras as plant cameras for the orchestra and Arthur.
Production
The episode was shot over the space of two days to fit around Arthur’s time commitments as well as the rehearsal time with the main orchestra. The first day was in ‘The Warehouse’ in Waterloo, London with the String Quintet, as Arthur was coached by Ben directly. The 2nd day of shooting was spread across St Martin’s in the Fields where the main orchestra is based, and Kings Cross where the main activation happened later in the day.
We had two shooting teams on the day, and bridged the blocks with a well planned unit move, and some clever production logistics, to ensure that everyone and everything ended up where they needed to be with the right equipment.
Post Production
The last shooting day on the project was the 18th December and the show was being released on the 21st so we knew we had to turn around the project in lightning speed. We had an editor working on the video from the 1st shooting block so by the time we were about to shoot the 2nd, we already had a rough edit to show Sky. We had a full edit build together on the 20th and were simultaneously building the promotional material to go out with the project at the same time.
All post production on all elements from edit and grade to audio and graphics was completed in-house for better flexibly for quick ‘social’ edit timelines.
