The Brief:
To explain, in a very energised way, what it takes to achieve Tesco’s sustained level of success. To provide a concept, create a narrative and immerse the viewer in a very visual exploration of a typical ‘day in the life’ of a retail giant.
Our Solution:
Our concept was ‘From Plough to Plate’ – using food as a model for the great range of products that Tesco retails.
Our proposed narrative was a fast-moving explanation of the planning, processes and procedures involved in the plough to plate journey. It starts with produce scanned out of a store through the checkout … and ends with its replacement being scanned back on to the shelves in the same store.
With a very short time to conceive, write, plan, recce, shoot, edit and deliver the finished video, our own project management team had to work at top speed. The outline script was researched and written in three days as we assembled a director and 3-man crew used to working under great pressure.
Broadcast-trained and very experienced, our crew embarked on a three day, 42 shooting-hours marathon – with our unflappable editor digitising and logging each day’s rushes the same night. As it became clear that we needed some explanatory animation to fully illustrate the use of satellite technology in Tesco’s logistics operation, we also briefed our animator every night – to ensure we had sufficient time to work through the stages by the time we reached final cut.
Using a largely shoulder-held style with plenty of movement on/off our subjects, we had ensured the cut had the very energised feel needed and our in-house composer created the music to support this perfectly.
The DVD was completed less than two working weeks after the first exploratory phone call and we hit all Tesco’s deadlines.