Lifestyle Branding Commercial for The Chaddsford Winery!

We were recently tasked with making a 30 second lifestyle commercial for the Chaddsford Winery, featuring many of their services and amenities. They wanted a fun, lively video that would make their winery feel like a craft brewery. The brand is all about having a diverse portfolio of approachable, food-friendly wines, which needed to be reflected clearly in the video as well. This is a lot to squeeze into just 30 seconds, but we were up for the task! A lifestyle video is all about using beautiful imagery to show people enjoying life with a specific brand. The key is to hone in on what makes a brand unique and to figure out the best, most creative way to show it off.

We started by listing all the amenities at the Chaddsford Winery, including their show floor, wine tastings and bottling in their cellar, private parties, picnics, an on-site gelato truck, social events, and live music. From there, we could create a master shot-list (with a total of 27 shots) and schedule for the entire day. We then put together a cast of actors, models, and some members of the wine club for on-camera talent.

We kept the crew small. Brendan acted as director and cinematographer, with Chris as the assistant camera operator, and Aidan as production assistant. The camera package was our RED Scarlet-W 5k cinema camera with Cooke S4i lenses (the same lenses used to shoot Game of Thrones) and a 4 foot long camera dolly to create some dynamic movement. The lighting package we used was 2 Neweer LED panels, 2 Quasar Science LED tubes, and a Kino Flo 4 foot 4 bank fluorescent light. We also used a portable golden reflector for some of the outdoor scenes to enhance the “magic hour” look. We didn’t have to worry about recording sound for this production because it was decided early on that the video would be silent, with just a music track in the background to set the tone.

The shoot day lasted from 9am to 6pm. We filmed a total of 27 shots, with multiple takes of each shot, averaging out to a rate of 3 shots per hour or one new shot every 20 minutes. The final 30 second video includes 19 of the 27 shots we filmed, meaning we had plenty of options in post to pick the absolute best material, with enough extra content to make multiple variations of the video so that Chaddsford Winery can have as much value and as much content as possible!

We couldn’t be more happy with how the video turned out! It’s an extremely cinematic, fun, and lively rendition of the Chaddsford Winery. The look of the video is very unique, which comes from a lot of tiny creative choices. The choice to shoot on a very high end camera with a lot of resolution and dynamic range makes a lot of difference. We also chose to rent very nice cinema lenses which are tack-sharp and have a warmness and dimensionality to their look that is really beautiful. We also used a special filter in front of the lenses called a 1/4 Black Pro Mist filter which creates a subtle glowing effect, blooming the highlights and making the image feel very organic and almost dreamlike. The footage was color graded using one of our favorite orange and teal LUT packs from Tropic Color, which makes a huge difference for the final image. These are just a few examples of the extra value that we brought to the commercial. The attention to detail and artistry on this production truly brought it to another level, and we know it will be an extremely useful marketing tool for Chaddsford Winery moving forward!