Showing everyone the delights South Cambridgeshire has to offer, to inspire them to take a trip outside Cambridge City.

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Project Overview

How did we help South Cambridgeshire District Council drive regional tourism?

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Our video production team created a multi-format digital out-of-home (DOOH) video advertising campaign for South Cambridgeshire District Council.

The high-impact video package was specifically engineered to capture commuter attention in major national travel hubs, successfully running on digital screens at London King's Cross train station, St Pancras train station and London Stansted Airport to promote tourism outside of Cambridge city centre.

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This is the final commercial video package we produced for South Cambridgeshire District Council to promote regional tourism. We designed these specific assets for high-impact, sound-free storytelling, making them perfect for capturing commuter attention in busy travel environments.

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What were the council's campaign objectives for this travel hub video project?
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South Cambridgeshire District Council required a strategic video marketing campaign to entice tourists to visit the wider county, moving foot traffic beyond traditional hotspots like the university grounds and punting routes.

Because the target audience consisted of busy commuters in bustling transit environments, the project demanded a highly engaging, visually striking content package. The video assets needed to be optimised for rapid storytelling, delivering a compelling message about South Cambridgeshire’s local offerings within restricted, few-second ad spots.

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How did our video production service deliver on the brief?
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To meet the strict technical and psychological demands of high-traffic transit advertising, we developed a tailored video production strategy that included:

• Ultra-Short Formats: Crafting pacing and visual hooks designed to convert viewer attention within a 3-to-5-second window.
• Multi-Platform Optimisation: Delivering specific aspect ratios and file formats required for large-scale digital billboards at Stansted Airport, King's Cross and St Pancras.
• No-Audio Visual Storytelling: Designing the creative concepts to rely entirely on striking imagery, ensuring maximum impact in noisy environments where audio is unavailable.

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Who did we work with?

Who commissioned this regional tourism video project?
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We partnered directly with South Cambridgeshire District Council to develop the video assets for this transit advertising campaign. All video assets were produced under the council's official tourism and economic development brand, Visit South Cambs.

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What is the role of the Visit South Cambs brand?
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Visit South Cambs is the official tourism authority dedicated to championing local businesses, regional events, and travel destinations within the wider South Cambridgeshire area.

Because the project required public sector approval, our production team worked in close collaboration with the council's internal marketing and stakeholders. We ensured that every video asset aligned perfectly with government communication standards, accurately represented local hospitality and heritage, and successfully promoted the district's diverse offerings to a national audience of commuters.

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Capabilities

What video production capabilities were required for this public sector campaign?
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We executed a comprehensive three-stage video production pipeline encompassing pre-production logistics, multi-location principal photography, and ad-network-compliant post-production, to deliver this multi-venue council ad campaign on time and within scope.

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1. Pre-Production & Creative Compliance

For a high-profile public sector campaign, meticulous pre-production is critical to mitigating project risk. We managed all moving parts ahead of the shoot days to ensure strict alignment with the council’s brand guidelines and timeline. Our pre-production capabilities for this project included:

• Talent & Crew Procurement: Sourcing and contracting professional actors and assembling a specialised commercial film crew.
• Logistics & Risk Management: Conducting detailed site recces (reconnaissance) across multiple South Cambridgeshire locations to map out scheduling and access.
• Creative Pre-Visualisation: Developing comprehensive storyboards and shot lists optimised for rapid-pacing digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising formats.

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2. Agile Production & Shared-Set Management

Cinematic efficiency on set maximises a client's budget. Our production phase was structured to handle a tight, fast-moving schedule across multiple geographical locations while maintaining premium production values.

• Full-Scale Commercial Crew: The set was led by our Director, Assistant Director (AD), and Director of Photography (DoP) to ensure precise creative execution.
• Photo & Video Integration: We managed a shared set, collaborating seamlessly alongside our campaign photographer. We coordinated positioning and scheduling so both teams captured high-res stills and video assets without interference.
• Mobile Unit Logistics: To meet the full schedule across scattered locations, we centralised transport with a dedicated production vehicle, keeping the entire crew, talent, and camera equipment unified throughout the shoot.

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3. Post-Production & Ad-Network Asset Delivery

Because the creative strategy was locked in during pre-production, the editing phase was streamlined for rapid asset delivery.

Our post-production workflow focused heavily on technical compliance for major transit media networks. By delivering the final cuts ahead of schedule, we allowed ample lead time to liaise directly with the media buying and distribution teams managing the digital screens at London King's Cross, London St Pancras International, and London Stansted Airport, ensuring all files met their exact delivery specifications, aspect ratios, and compression standards.

Because the transit ad networks utilised a mix of traditional and non-standard screen dimensions, our production pipeline accounts for both landscape and portrait formats simultaneously. During the pre-production and storyboarding phases, we engineered a "safe zone" framing strategy. This guaranteed that all captured footage could be dynamically cropped and optimised for diverse, unconventional digital billboard layouts without sacrificing visual composition or messaging clarity.

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Take a look at how our crew managed a fast-paced, multi-location film shoot across Cambridgeshire.

This video highlights our on-set logistics, from coordinating a dual photo-and-video crew to maintaining strict compliance with UK child performance and safeguarding laws on location.

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Shooting on Location

Where was the South Cambridgeshire tourism campaign filmed?
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To showcase the rich diversity of the region to national commuters, our production crew filmed on location across a curated selection of South Cambridgeshire’s premier cultural, historical, and leisure destinations. The video campaign captured the district’s unique art scene, heritage, natural landscapes, and culinary offerings.

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Featured South Cambridgeshire Destinations & Heritage Sites
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We managed on-site filming logistics and captured high-impact promotional footage at the following key regional landmarks:
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• Arts & Culture:
  • Stapleford Granary (Arts and music course centre)
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• History & Heritage:
  • Bourn Windmill (One of the oldest surviving windmills in England)
  • Denny Abbey & Farmland Museum (Historic site and rural heritage museum)
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• Nature & Wildlife Conservation:
  • Grantchester Meadows (Iconic riverside landscape)
  • Wandlebury Country Park (Countryside estate and nature reserve)
  • Shepreth Wildlife Park (Regional zoological park and conservation centre)
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• Local Food, Hospitality & Agri-Tourism:
  • Bury Lane Farm Shop (Regional destination farm shop)
  • Frank’s Farm (Local farm, butchery, and cafe)
  • The Royal Oak (Traditional Cambridgeshire village pub)
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How did we manage multi-location commercial filming?
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Filming across nine distinct, high-profile public and private locations required strict adherence to local council permitting, property owner coordination, and rapid crew deployment.
‍By categorising our shoot list into distinct thematic pillars (culture, nature, history, and food), we ensured the final video assets delivered a balanced, comprehensive representation of the South Cambridgeshire district within a highly compressed ad format.

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The Logistics

How did we manage legal compliance and strict logistics for child actors?
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Public sector video production demands absolute adherence to statutory regulations. For this campaign, our production team successfully managed the strict legal and scheduling requirements governing child actors under the age of nine, executing a high-speed, multi-location filming schedule without a single compliance or scheduling infraction.
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What were the strict working hour limits for the child actors?
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When filming with minors under 9 years old, working hours are strictly regulated by UK child performance laws to protect their welfare. To maintain total legal compliance on set, we structured our production days around two non-negotiable parameters:

• Maximum Daily Performance Limits: Ensuring neither child actor was on set or performing for longer than a maximum of 3 hours per day.
• Rapid Turnaround Windows: Engineering a logistics schedule where the crew could arrive at a location, set up, film the required assets, wrap, and depart within a strict 1-hour window per site.
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How did we execute the multi-location travel and shoot planning?
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Navigating nine distinct locations across South Cambridgeshire while bound by rigid child labour time limits required meticulous, minute-by-minute operational planning.

To eliminate the risk of transit delays cutting into the children’s limited performance windows, our production team conducted extensive route profiling ahead of the shoot. We mapped out optimised travel corridors, timed our movements to avoid peak local traffic, and coordinated precision arrival windows with every location partner. This rigorous logistical framework guaranteed that zero creative time was lost in transit and all child welfare and safeguarding standards were flawlessly upheld throughout the campaign.

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We captured the final video assets running live on the ad screens. This clip demonstrates our multi-aspect ratio framing strategy, showing how the creative design smoothly adapts to fit both tall portrait and wide landscape digital billboard formats.

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The Crew

What commercial film crew roles were required to execute this campaign?
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Our Production Crew Structure:Executing a fast-paced, multi-location public sector ad campaign requires a highly coordinated, specialised commercial film crew. To capture premium assets within a compressed schedule, we deployed an agile team structure where every creative and logistical role was explicitly defined.
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The On-Set Production Team & Responsibilities

To ensure maximum efficiency and high production values across every South Cambridgeshire location, our crew consisted of the following key specialists:

• The Director: Responsible for the overarching creative vision, storytelling, and guiding the professional actors to deliver the exact performances required by the council’s brief.
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• The Director of Photography (DoP): Managed the camera, lighting, and framing strategy. The DoP focused on capturing cinematic, high-impact visuals optimised to perform on large-scale digital out-of-home (DOOH) travel hub displays.
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• The Assistant Director (AD): Served as the on-set logistics manager. The AD closely monitored the timeline, managed the master shot list, and orchestrated crew movements to ensure the strict one-hour location windows were perfectly maintained.
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• The Campaign Photographer: Operated seamlessly within the shared-set ecosystem, capturing high-resolution commercial still photography that perfectly mirrored the video assets for a unified cross-platform marketing push.
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• Professional On-Screen Talent: Provided the vital human element needed to create an emotional connection with busy commuters, making the regional destinations feel welcoming, active, and accessible.

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Procurement & Accessibility

How do we streamline video procurement and accessibility compliance for public sector clients?
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We understand that public sector video production has a lot of moving parts ahead of creative production; it demands strict adherence to legal accessibility laws and straightforward vendor onboarding. Our video studio is fully equipped to meet the administrative, compliance, and procurement standards required by local government bodies and public institutions.

Statutory Video Accessibility Compliance (WCAG & Public Sector Bodies Regulations)

All digital content produced for UK public sector bodies must be accessible to everyone. We build accessibility into our post-production workflow as a standard practice, ensuring your campaigns remain fully compliant with the law:

• Open & Closed Captioning: Delivering high-contrast, perfectly timed subtitles optimised for both silent transit screens and assistive technologies.
• Audio Description & Transcripts: Providing complete text transcripts and descriptive audio variations where required, ensuring compliance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations.
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Frictionless B2B Vendor Procurement

We minimise the bureaucratic friction often associated with council and corporate onboarding. We are structured to accommodate:

• Official Purchase Order (PO) Workflows: Aligning seamlessly with internal council finance structures and standard public sector payment cycles (e.g., 30-day terms).
• Pre-Vetted Standard Compliance: Maintaining comprehensive Public Liability Insurance, Professional Indemnity Insurance, and strict GDPR data privacy compliance for all project data and footage storage.

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