BEHIND THE SEARCH: Crafting a Story Driven Brand Film
COMMERCIAL VIDEO PRODUCTION
Behind The Search: Crafting a Story Driven Brand Film for Blue Sky Financial Planning
Late last year, Rowe Films was approached by Kate Chastey on behalf of her client, Blue Sky Financial Planning, A financial services company based in Dorset, UK.
They were looking into the prospect of creating a stylised brand film. Gary, Blue Sky’s CEO, was looking specifically for something that stood apart from the conventional corporate aesthetic. No boardrooms. No talking heads. No staged handshakes. Instead, they wanted something cinematic, with real narrative weight and emotional resonance.
Needless to say they were talking our language, and we were immediately interested in the project.
A Video Production Brief Unlike Most
Blue Sky’s CEO, Gary, is quite clearly a creative in his own right. He was keen to break away from the cliché heavy world of financial services advertising and do something bold. Whilst browsing the internet for inspiration, he had come across one of our earlier short films, ‘The Storm’, and was in his words, "blown away" by it (pun intended!). Inspired by its use of mood and metaphors, he wanted something similar, but tailored to reflect Blue Sky’s services, message, and values.
I gladly met with both Gary and Kate in Exeter and we had a fantastic discussion about the proposed project. I have since learned, thanks to Gary’s very kind online review, that he knew almost immediately that Rowe Films was the right video production company to bring his vision to life.
After a good thorough discussion about the project and how it could be pulled off, we were given the green light.
Creative Development
Together with Kate and Gary, we began an intensive pre-production process, which is something I always see as the foundation of any effective commercial video production.
We all agreed early on that this shouldn't feel like an ordinary promotional piece. Instead, we wanted to tell a story rooted in emotion, metaphor, and drama. This would turn out to be a great example of how we at Rowe Films like to go about commercial narrative storytelling; where the focus is not just on what the business offers, but on how it makes people feel, and how it impacts their lives in the real world.
We locked in the outline of a concept - a man caught in a storm, lacking in direction and purpose, is guided back to clarity by the light emanating from a distant lighthouse. This would be the foundation upon everything else would we built. We then turned our attention to the details.
I began by developing a full creative treatment outlining; the visual tone, narrative structure, key themes, metaphors, as well as ideas for visual elements that could be incorporated. It was supported by a mood board and visual inspiration I had found elsewhere. This helped communicate my vision for the look and feel of the piece; moody, dramatic, and overall ‘cinematic’ in look and feel. These assets formed the foundation of our pre-production documentation, giving us something to anchor the project and continuously refer back to, and it also ensured that everyone was aligned creatively before cameras started rolling.
During this process, I also began scouting potential locations for the ‘home’ setting. I wanted somewhere that visually reflected the emotional isolation of the character, but also felt grounded and real. Eventually, I discovered a striking holiday property in Woolacombe, North Devon, that matched the vision perfectly.
Parade House overlooked Woolacombe Bay and in the right weather conditions, would lend itself perfectly to the ‘home’ setting in our film. I reached out directly to the owner of the property who ordinarily doesn’t offer bookings for TV/Film productions. Thankfully, Briony was open to the idea and willing to accommodate us, so we came to an agreement and had secured the location for our production. The property would help to anchor the story in a real world space and give us a visual environment we could build the rest of the narrative around.
Together with Kate, we also handled the casting process, searching for talent who could carry a non-verbal, emotionally driven role. The client provided guidance on what kind of person they imagined for the role.
Having carried out a few online auditions, we eventually found Tim Seyfert, an extremely talented writer/director and actor who is originally from California, but now living in Cornwall. As a Cornishman myself, I did love the fact that Tim jokingly refers to himself and his family as “Kernowfornian”!
Tim fit the brief perfectly; expressive, able to act with his facial expressions alone, and he carried the kind of presence that could hold the audience's attention without needing dialogue. Not only that, but he seemed like a thoroughly decent chap who would clearly be very easy to work with. This is something that would be very important on a production like this one, as we would have some fairly big asks! Tim was up for the job, so we were very pleased to welcome him onboard.
A major creative focus during this phase was the Narration / VoiceOver, which would serve as the emotional backbone of the film and provide much needed context to what would otherwise be a heavily metaphorical, image based piece. As I knew how important this would be, I had set Gary to the task of writing the dialogue very early on in the process. Not only would it be very important to the piece as a whole, but creative writing is actually integral to the filmmaking overall.
Sometimes, you may find ideas spawned during the writing of a creative VoiceOver can in fact trigger new ideas for the narrative, or the visuals, and vice versa. For me personally, this creative and collaborative approach is a two way street. So the VoiceOver was something that needed to be put together pretty early on, even in rough draft form. It didn’t necessarily have to be the final version that would make it through to the final cut, as it would almost certainly need to be tweaked and nailed down in post-production, but it was worth making a start on the general narrative all the same.
Gary had written a thoughtful rough draft filled with metaphor and intent. I saw real potential in his ideas and suggested pushing them even further; more cinematic, creative, poetic, and narratively metaphorical. More drama!
I explained to Gary that in a film like this, you want to try to ‘show’, not ‘tell’. So we really needed to hold back on any overly-explanatory ‘corporate’ lingo, at least until the very end of the piece, at which point the entire purpose and message of the film would be revealed. This also helps to build intrigue in an audience and keep them hooked, especially important in a piece that would have a longer runtime than your average video commercial. We want them to be wondering what this is all about, and where it’s going, right up until the end. This is sometimes a fine line, however I was confident the audience would get it when the credits roll.
Gary and I collaborated closely over a series of conversations and drafts. I helped restructure and expand on his script, adding extra ideas and metaphors, whilst ensuring the VoiceOver not only mirrored the emotional beats of the character’s journey but also echoed the client’s brand values. It helped anchor the whole piece, giving context and emotional gravity to every frame. I wanted to avoid the prospect of the audience thinking “oh, it’s just a commercial for a financial services company”, too early on in the film. Instead, I wanted the film to look and feel like the opening of a drama or movie, and then reveal what it’s all about towards the end.
Whilst Gary didn’t end up incorporating all of my suggestions (I have a tendency to go full send when it comes to drama!), we eventually landed on something together that struck a really good balance between creative and filmic on one hand, whilst providing much needed context to the narrative on the other.
After some time in pre-production, we finally had everything we needed. Storyboards done, rough narrative voiceover written, talent secured, locations scouted, crew ready to go.
Production Begins
Our first shoot was carried out on location at Parade House in Woolacombe. Crew wise, we would be keeping things small in order to keep expenditure down;
Tommy Rowe - Director & Director of Photography (DoP)
Alex Toze - Camera & Production Assistant
Kate Chastey - Producer
I decided it would be best to start with the opening sequences of the film, in the controlled setting of Parade House. This would allow us to get to know each other a bit, and really take our time executing the visuals. Out on location in a storm probably wouldn’t have been the best time to meet face to face for the first time!
The first shoot went perfectly. The weather outside was bleak, with heavy cloud and fog rolling in off the sea. Interestingly, it was actually clear and sunny just a few miles away, so the conditions experienced in Woolacombe Bay happened to be very isolated to that particular bit of coastline. We struck very lucky there!
We set up a number of sequences in the property, getting creative with our lighting and storm effects, as well as dialling in a subtle ‘day for night’ look that would allow us in post-production to make it look much darker and moodier than it actually was. After a few hours of shooting, we came away with everything we needed for a perfectly dramatic opening to the film. It couldn’t have gone better.
Chasing the Storm
The most challenging part of this project was always going to be timing everything with the weather conditions needed for the exterior scenes, that would ultimately make up the bulk of the runtime in this film. On our very first meeting, I had already warned Gary and Kate - don’t expect this to be a quick one! We would be completely at the mercy of the good old British weather, which is absolutely notorious for not playing ball when you need it to.
Interior shoots are usually fairly straightforward because, provided it’s not bright and sunny outside, there are ways and means of using a bit of ‘movie magic’ to make conditions outside look stormier and more chaotic than they really were. However, out on location right by the sea, it’s more difficult. Sure you can darken things up and add in VFX such as lightning flashes, but if there isn’t a sufficient swell out to sea for real, or if the talent’s clothing and the foliage around him isn’t visibly blowing in the wind as you’d expect it to, then it’s just not going to sell. So for all the exterior sequences, the perfect weather conditions really were an absolute must.
Being an island in the North Atlantic as we are, the weather here in the UK is notoriously changeable and often quite difficult to forecast more than a few days in advance. On our very first meeting, I explained to Gary and Kate that the entire piece quite literally hinges on a physical and metaphorical storm, and therefore Mother Nature would be the one calling the shots. Not only would we have to wait for an unknown period of time for the right weather conditions to come along, but we would also have to organise all of the moving parts to all come together on one specific day, with only perhaps a couple of days notice in advance.
As a bit of a weather and meteorology enthusiast myself, I was constantly keeping an eye on the mid to long range weather models, in the hope that this would give us as much forewarning about weather potential as possible. I waited for what felt like forever for a change to the pattern that we were experiencing at the time, which was benign, slack and quite frankly boring, weather. Endless overcast skies. Neither here nor there!
Eventually, I saw an opportunity in the weather modelling for a bit of a switch up to more zonal weather with some potentially stormy conditions rolling in off the Atlantic in roughly 10 days time, so I gave notice to all involved. As the days ticked down and the models firmed up on the what, where and when, we took the punt and booked in our shoot. We could only really cross our fingers that the models were on the money because the exact track and timing of a storm system can make literally all the difference to the conditions experienced locally.
Storm Eowyn hit the UK on 24th January 2025. We scheduled our coastal shoot to coincide with the tail end of the storm. This would hopefully strike the right balance between dramatic enough conditions for visuals, but safe enough for cast and crew to be travelling on the roads, and out on foot around the coast. Safety always comes first! Coordinating availability for the whole team, along with a Porsche electric vehicle provided by Porsche Centre Bournemouth (an additional collaboration for the film arranged by Gary and Kate), required careful timing and planning. Everyone involved in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, were ready to move.
The Storm Sequences
The shoot in Storm Eowyn went as well as it could have. Planning a film around weather is notoriously difficult, so I had preempted the potential for things to not go according to plan.
On arrival in Dorset, the first of the locations we had originally scouted sadly didn’t look stormy enough. The eventual track of the storm ended up slightly further north than modelled, which meant some of our shoot locations ended up being more sheltered than forecasted. The sea conditions around Poole and Bournemouth were, believe it or not, pretty much as calm as a mill pond! This was an issue, so we had to think on our feet, pull up every weather app at our disposal, and find new ones. Thankfully, further West, local webcams were showing that things looked significantly more in line with what we needed. So we hopped straight into our vehicles and headed towards the Isle of Portland.
At Portland, the conditions were fantastic and we got straight to work. We captured dramatic visuals across the coast, doubling up on footage being shot with the help of Alex Toze as B Cam operator. This approach to the filming was important to maximise the time that we had available to shoot. Overall, we captured some fantastic dramatic footage and I was pleased that we managed to salvage the shoot.
A few shots from the storyboard weren’t possible on the day, so a couple of weeks later, I visited Tim near his home in Cornwall to film key inserts and additional B-roll. These would turn out to be essential in stitching the film together.
The Ending Sequences
Back in Dorset a few weeks later (having once again waited for the best conditions), we returned to Portland Bill Lighthouse to film the film’s final sequences, which would be a visual and emotional contrast to the chaos of the storm. This was the character’s moment of clarity. His journey was complete. The lighting was perfect, and we nailed everything in just 2-3 hours.
Apart from a few inserts I would need to pick up at a later date, it was a wrap!
The Final Cut
In post-production, Gary provided his temporary VoiceOver via a voice note recorded on his phone. I initially planned to visit him at a later date to professionally record the VoiceOver, but having enhanced the file using AI audio tools, it actually came out remarkably well. So well in fact, we decided there was no real need to re-record it. Believe it or not, the VoiceOver that made the Final Cut of the film is in fact Gary’s voice note, recorded on an iPhone, and sent to me via WhatsApp!
I paired the narration with a carefully selected score and assembled a rough cut for client review. Sharing this early version of the film allowed space and time for collaborative feedback, before the final polish. Kate and Gary both offered insightful thoughts, and after a couple of rounds of adjustments, we landed on a version everyone was very proud of.
A Powerful Result
The response to the completed film has been fantastic. Gary was thrilled. He reports that it is exactly the film he had envisioned from the beginning, and it now gives Blue Sky Financial Planning a standout piece of content for their website, social media, trade shows, and more. I am yet to see any other financial services company come up with anything remotely similar, so it certainly makes his brand truly stand out.
The end result is more than a brand film. It’s a story. One that speaks to the emotional landscape many people find themselves in when navigating their finances. And that was always the goal; not just to promote a company, but to connect. To create a piece of narrative commercial content that resonates far beyond what an ordinary corporate promo video would.
Final Thoughts
This project is a perfect example of what can happen when a client embraces bold, emotionally driven and narrative style ideas. When you're willing to invest in cinematic commercial storytelling, you get a result that doesn’t just sell what you do, but moves people.
It’s true that people don’t always remember brand names, or even logos. But they always remember good stories. Blue Sky’s brand now has a cinematic voice, and it’s one that truly stands out in today’s sea of sameness.
I’m super proud of what we created together, with relatively modest resources and in challenging conditions. I’m very grateful to have worked with such a dedicated team, and can’t thank everyone involved enough.
The 60 Second Trailer
The Full Brand Film
A huge thank you to Gary for this lovely review of our services. We always love a happy client!
If you’re looking for a narrative commercial or brand film for your business, get in touch today!