Client
Agency
Tongal
Content Type
Micro Doc/Help Content
Released
2023
The Brief
We were commissioned by Silicon Valley-based tech giant PayPal to capture four testimonial pieces featuring Sydney-based customers and how they use PayPal products in their day-to-day lives.
Authenticity was crucial for this project; we were tasked with telling genuine stories in a sincere way, using real locations. The customers’ personalities and lifestyles would shape the content, making it essential to delve into their personas to create a mise en scène that truly represented them as individuals.
The Shoot
Over the past six years, we’ve built an excellent network of filmmakers in Australia. We leveraged these local contacts and assembled a crew of established heads of department, with three of our team members flying out to oversee the production.
The campaign directors for this project, London-based agency Studio Hansa, provided a comprehensive PPE deck outlining the creative, technical requirements, and logistical details. This gave us a solid foundation, but we still needed to source suitable locations and build the look of each video from scratch.
Our UK-based producer team sourced and secured locations remotely, while our Sydney-based director and DoP handled location recces. We collaborated closely with our Production Designer, Stylist, and Director to develop the aesthetic, creating detailed style decks outlining the set dressing and wardrobe for each video.
The shoot lasted three days, including one day where we shot two setups at a single location. Our DIT set up a live stream via Vimeo so that stakeholders in Los Angeles, London, and Singapore could attend remotely and provide live feedback, which our on-set producer relayed to our director.
The Edit
This was a shoot-only project for Ether/Awe, with the edits handled by Studio Hansa at their London studio.
At the end of each shooting day, our DIT uploaded compressed proxy files to WeTransfer, allowing the London team to download and begin editing remotely. Full-resolution footage was backed up onto four hard drives: one remained in Australia, and three traveled back to the UK, with two of these hard drives delivered to Hansa upon our return.
In total, over twenty deliverables were created from the content captured in Sydney, including four ninety-second hero videos and sixteen cutdowns for social media.
The Results
Working across three continents—with a London-based campaign director, a Los Angeles-based client and agency, and a Sydney production team—was a significant challenge, but we embraced it, and all parties delivered outstanding results!
The final videos were released on PayPal Australia’s official YouTube channel as part of their ‘Tips and Tricks’ series, spanning both 16:9 master versions and 9:16 YouTube shorts.
We had an absolute blast working with PayPal, Tongal and Studio Hansa, and are very excited to work with them again soon!
