Studiowide Case Study Videos For London Underground

Background

Studiowide recently provided on-location Video Production services to Project7 Consultancy for London Underground, as part of a case study. The London Underground network comprises of 11 lines, and carries approximately 4.8 million passengers per day – that’s 1.34 billion each year!

Project7 Consultancy wanted to communicate and raise awareness of the performance improvements that had been undertaken at London Underground as part of an internal development programme.

Our objective was to film staff testimonials about the changes, and film staff members undertaking a key set of morning meetings, in order to demonstrate how effective and critical their Daily Control System is in the management of their facilities.

Challenges

On the morning of the shoot, we were given a quick tour of the location to see where the meetings would take place and to discuss who would be available for filming and when.

As we would be filming a real meeting taking place, we had to ensure that we were set up and ready to go beforehand, as we couldn’t delay any part of the discussions. We also had to make sure that we didn’t get in the way of the meeting, as the conversations take place around boards and the whole process is very active, with people moving around throughout.

When it came to the testimonials, we often only had 10 minutes per person to introduce ourselves, let them know what was going on, mic them up and conduct the interview.

Solution

Having worked with other major organisations on similar projects focused around morning meetings or discussions, we were used to the fast-paced environment the meetings take place in. We had previously established who would be the main speakers/leaders of the meeting and had already set them up with lavalier micrphones to capture their audio, as this is what steers the meeting.

We had also researched the order in which the planning boards are visited, and discussed and plotted an appropriate path for both cameras to move along during the meeting, to ensure that we would never get in the way of the meeting taking place, neither camera would be visible in the other camera’s shot, and, most importantly, that we would always have a clear line of sight for the lead speaker presenting that board.

Results

Due to the very tight timescales of this project, we filmed the meetings in the space of a single morning, planning the shooting schedule around the time the meetings would take place and when people would be available.

The client was very appreciative of how flexible we were in accommodating all of the staff’s availability during the filming period, ensuring we had no down time and that the interviews could take place around without disrupting or altering the normal working day of any of the staff.

Overall, the video was a great success. The client was very happy with the final outcome, and as a result we have been to film many more similar videos with them.