Slate and Mortar Ltd

For the launch of Leicester City Football Club’s 2019/20 football kit, the club wanted to move away from the traditional studio-based kit-launch photoshoot and work with a video production company to produce a creative, brand promotion film that had contemporary and urban elements to match the club’s and Adidas’ brand values.Working with Leicester City Football Club’s in-house Head of Creative, Slate and Mortar offered their video production services and provided a Director of Photography who filmed ‘run & gun’ style, in and around the streets of Leicester, to capture all the creative video footage for film.Alongside a selection of the club’s leading players, the shoot also made use of the club’s newest female football stars, academy recruits, local school children and footballing freestylers, all wearing a combination of street clothes and the new Leicester City FC launch kit.The talent was filmed playing five-a-side matches, performing ‘keepy-ups’ and showing off their football tricks whilst walking through recognisable local areas within Leicester. The brand promotion film was shot in a very ‘loose’ high-energy filming style, with a fast paced, jump-cut and retro-stylised edit to create a very authentic marketing video.The final output included four brand films (one for each kit and an overarching combined edit) with a suite of short videos to complement their social media marketing strategy. The outcome was so successful that the initial run of the film was extended throughout the entire footballing season and went from being an online-only marketing campaign to be heavily featured on its stadium and club shop screens.

This behind the scenes video gives a little insight into some of the creative processes and technical challenges involved in a large-scale video production, and a peek into all of the planning and logistics that go on behind the scenes when creating content for broadcast, online and social media marketing campaigns.The advert was the centrepiece of University of Hull’s student recruitment marketing campaign for 2018 and was broadcast across TV, cinema, and the universities social media platforms.The production was filmed at sea and required close collaboration with the university’s Marine Biology Department, and a specialist on-water filming crew. Our talent (and University of Hull alumni) Adan, even had to learn to dive specifically for this shoot!Filming at sea presents some unique challenges – schedules are dictated by the tide, cameras have to be kept very still (and dry) for filming and our actors could only go into the sea a few times on the day, so everything had to be organised extremely efficiently. This behind the scenes video probably shows our producer’s finest hour!

Slate and Mortar were asked to produce two videos that highlighted the Centre for Disciplinary Methodologies (CIM) research excellence and impact within and outside of the University of Warwick. Made primarily with the upcoming Research Excellence Framework (REF) in mind, but also with the aim of giving CIM’s research communications appropriate exposure to policy makers, industry partners and local & national government offices; essentially the non-academic, professional community.The underlying objective of the research film was twofold; to promote the vast array and range of world-class expertise on the science of Big Data at CIM; and for the audience to feel compelled to contact CIM as their first port of call when it came to Big Data research. Through the use of striking imagery, voice over and informative motion graphics, Slate and Mortar scripted an aspirational narrative for the film that looked at what Big Data actually is, and how CIM looks at it from a number of different perspectives; such as exploring human behaviour; power and politics; and as a future resource for social policy.To stay relevant and to engage with its target audience, the aesthetics of the video need to be ‘on-trend’ but also be appropriate for the subject matter. Therefore, a mix of contemporary music and graphics were utilised alongside the highest production values possible within the parameters of the budget.The video was released in a number of edited formats across the CIM’s online channels and social media platforms, alongside being utilised for the centre’s Research Excellence Framework submission and at a number of conferences and presentations. The client was extremely pleased with the final result.

Warwick Manufacturing Group were looking to recruit prospective apprentices onto its Academy for Young Engineers. However, the academy was still in the development and building stage and no actual physical assets existed at that point. Therefore, the challenge we faced was how do we promote something that has yet to be fully built and developed?When producing moving image content for a new idea or concept, animation or motion graphics can quite often be the perfect solution. It was decided in this case, that a fully bespoke, explainer animation that offered a dynamic glimpse into what the Academy for Young Engineers would offer would be the best solution.Primarily we needed to engage with an audience that was aged between 12 and 14 years old, generating interest for something that didn’t fully exist at that point, which is what led to the character animation and typography concept.As with all our explainer animation projects, there was a scoping-out meeting that helped us to refine the project brief so we could best meet our client’s objectives. This meeting helped us to clearly understand the tone and feel for the animation and It became clear through these meetings that, as a new brand, it was important for the client that the explainer animation sat very comfortably within their brand identity.We went through a number of rounds of amendments, setting ‘gate posts’ along the way so that we would only move onto the next stage of development until the client was satisfied with what was currently being produced. This ensured the client was extremely pleased with the final output.