Project Description
Cheshire pub shows off multi-million pound restoration with new promotional video
What do you do if you’ve just had millions of pounds spent on your building, to make it as attractive as possible for people to visit?
The owners of the White Lion in Hankelow, Cheshire, decided a promotional video was in order!
They wanted content which they could use on their website and social media to convince browsers to pay them a visit; so they wanted to show off how gorgeous the building is, as well as the range of food and local drinks they serve at the pub.
What was the filming process like?
With a video like this, it’s essential to capture people actually enjoying the experience at your pub. Therefore, it was only right that I popped over to do the filming on a busy Friday evening!
There was actually an England World Cup match on at the time – but fortunately it was that boring 0-0 with the USA so no pints got flung over my expensive gear when celebrating a goal.
It was winter for the filming session, so I headed over early in the afternoon to capture the exterior of the pub and accommodation rooms while it was still light outside.
But for the filming of punters enjoying the pub, it was fine for it to have gone dark – the warm interior lighting and gorgeous wood panelling gives the space such a cosy atmosphere.
I also headed into the kitchen (that was a new experience!) and filmed the chef’s putting together some incredible dishes.
At this point, I kicked my Canon C70 into slow-motion mode, so that quick moments like tossing the salad and flames sparking from the stove were captured in incredible detail. Footage like this is where the expensive camera really shines.
What was the editing process like?
With hours worth of footage captured, it was back to the editing computer to look through all the best moments, and compile them into a video which really showed the White Lion at its best.
One of the key elements to this project was the production of both vertical and horizontal versions of the promotional video.
This means that if people head onto the website on their computer and watch the video, the horizontal version is the perfect resolution for their screens.
But equally, if people see the promotional video on the instagram page on their phones, they don’t have to rotate the screen or click to full screen view – it’s the correct size for them to view. Little changes like this really boost how many people watch the video.
After producing the two versions of the promotional films, I then created libraries of clips which they could use on their social media.
Therefore they now have around forty clips – many of which weren’t in the original promotional video – that are around 5-10 seconds each, and can be used on social media posts and instagram reels.
This means that, say there’s a good weather forecast for the weekend and they want to encourage people to pop over to the beer garden; they’ve got a perfect clip they can add to that post.
How is the video content being used?
The pub was closed for a couple of weeks after the busyness of Christmas and New Year, so the promotional video was used across social media to get bodies back into the pub when they reopened.
The main horizontal version of the promotional video is also on the website as one of the first things you see; the perfect introduction to the pub.
Finally, the two libraries of clips (which are in square and vertical formats) are being used on social media as their own personal library of stock footage; there when they need to add it to a post. Posts with videos on them perform really well on social media, so it’s amazing for them to just be able to look into the library and find a clip which works for that post.