Darts with the mayor
Mayors have busy schedules, therefore we’re grateful when we get the opportunity to make a short film which features our mayor, Councillor Jenny Hill.
Can we turn an idea into final product – a two minute film – in less than 10 hours?
Townsville resident and Australian darts champion, Jeremy Fagg, was competing in an upcoming international darts showdown touring the east coast of Australia including Townsville city, and we asked Mayor Jenny Hill if she would like to have a quick game with Jeremy leading up to the event. We wanted to build pride in our city through a short video story, promote Jeremy leading up to the event, as Jeremy was up against world champions, and simultaneously show the social and charming side of our mayor. Councillor Jenny Hill said yes and Jeremy was keen.
Our production timeframe looked a little like this:
- One hour market research, brainstorm script, storyline and distribution plan,
- Two hours animatic storyboard (helps demonstrate our vision for stakeholders and workshop any kinks),
- Half hour location shoot,
- Half hour prep talent, props, gear and crew,
- Half hour setup,
- One hour shoot,
- Half hour break set,
- Three hours edit,
- One hour audio mix and colour grade.
Then we publish. We had a one person crew (me), and our two talent (Mayor Jenny Hill and Jeremy.) Could we produce a two minute short film in less than 10 hours?
During our location shoot we discovered the venue had to change from the small, intimate Mayor’s Office to the large (and yellowish) Council Chambers, which means a different space, sound and light than originally planned.
On the shoot day, the mayor was only available for a maximum of 40 minutes. Because of the tight turnaround I asked a colleague, Ali, to operate a second camera close to the right of my position to record close shots of the talent or action. As we had less than two minutes per shot to block our shot and record our talent’s performance, with two cameras we could increase our time by simultaneously shooting mids and tights to provide options during the edit. In my mind we only had time for a practice run and single take before moving to the next shot; kudos to our actors for doing a great job in our short timeframe.
During the edit I decided to compose a theme for Jeremy vs The Mayor. While eating lunch I composed a melody in my head, then fired up the music studio and two hours later and we have an original piece of music for our darts film.
Total production time from idea to delivered product was twelve hours and our reach was 30,000 impressions. For those who like numbers return on investment worked out to less than 2 cents per view leading up to the main event.
The stadium went wild when Jeremy stepped out into the limelight – he said the feeling was amazing; many darts fans from all over the country recognised our local wild card from the video and Jeremy went on to beat his opponent. Well done.
