Stories
News, project launches and thoughts from our team.
PROJECT LAUNCH: Premier Tech Home & Garden
This past November, Double Barrel partnered with Premier Tech Home and Garden to bring you ‘From the Garden Shed’ ~ a bite-sized branded content series featuring Canada’s top gardening experts Mark Cullen (‘The New Canadian Garden’), Owen Reeves (Marilyn Denis Show) & Albert Mondor (Le Tour du Jardin).
This series of 16 videos cover a vast range of topics ranging from de-weeding and spreading seed, to growing grass, herbs, vegetables and flowers throughout the different seasons. It was fun learning these proven tips and tricks directly from the pros!
Crafting the “From The Garden Shed” series was an homage to the fact that we actually spent 3 days shooting in Mark Cullen’s garden shed! It was such a great experience working with Premier Tech Home & Garden and our amazing cast and crew. We actually filmed all of these in the winter, so that we would be able to showcase them in the coming summer months. Finding the necessary props needed to stage certain scenarios was an interesting challenge, but we were able to pull it off!
Premier Tech Home & Garden had a robust video strategy which was really helpful in orchestrating these shoots. We had each video shot in french and in english and we created 1 minute and 30 second versions for social media. We’re so excited to begin rolling out this content so stay tuned for more in the coming months! We hope these videos are as helpful to you as they were to us!
Post Tags
PROJECT LAUNCH: Canadian Partnership Against Cancer
For people who have recently been diagnosed with cancer, one of the first challenges is overcoming the amount of information that exists when it comes to care and treatment options. In the digital age, opinions are everywhere, and sorting through them to discover which are accurate and which are bunk can be an overwhelming task.
At Double Barrel, we’ve all lost loved ones to cancer. So when Wayne MacPhail of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer approached us with an innovative way of educating patients about how to separate the wheat from the chaff we were thrilled.
This was a unique project as Wayne came to us with concept in hand. CPAC wanted to create an online educational series that was dramatic, comedic – and demanding. In fact, the entire piece depended on a pitch-perfect embodiment of our two leads, Franny & Zooey, two 12-year-old budding scientists.
Knowing that we needed rock-solid talent, we decided to reach out to ACTRA. For web series this can seem daunting, but their fantastic industry liasons walked us through the process effortlessly. Our two actresses – Chelsea Okyere and Zoe McGarry came in prepared and ready, doing such an amazing job in the audition that we ended up using their second rehearsal take in the completed video.
The final piece is everything we had hoped to achieve, and definitely goes into the Double Barrel vault as one of the most original concepts we’ve executed. Says MacPhail, “It was a pleasure (as always) working with Double Barrel on this project. From our first conversation about the unusual concept they got it and brought a ton of creative value to the end product. This is the type of idea, as we said in the meetings “that had a hundred ways to fail”. But, through casting, direction, animation and post-production, they didn’t let any of them happen. The result is delightful.”
We’re excited to see where this goes. Thanks for inviting us along, Wayne!
Post Tags
PROJECT LAUNCH: International Village BIA
Hamilton is a city in the midst of renaissance. Nowhere is that more apparent than the downtown core, where new businesses are emerging at a breakneck pace. A new company cracks open its doors seemingly every single day.
At Double Barrel, we live and work downtown too. So when the International Village Business Improvement Area asked us to help tell their story, we jumped at the chance.
Our challenge was substantial. First: to showcase the changing face of the downtown core. Second: to spur interest and get people excited to pop downtown to shop. Essentially, we wanted to get people out of their comfort zone and into these blossoming boutiques. Old habits die hard, and with so much going on for all of us on the daily, it’s just too easy to pass stores by. We admire the frontages but never actually venture inside, choosing instead to zip up to the cozy confines of our closest shopping mall.
Through needs assessments and working closely with the client, we developed the branded online series ~ My International Village. The friendly tone invites the viewer to come by and make the International Village their own. The consistent, broadcast style intro and extro let the viewer know what to expect in a style that is familiar, while each vignette focusses on a different shop and story. This allows the audience to build a personal connection to shops they might otherwise pass by without a second thought.
Overall, My International Village entertains and informs potential downtown shoppers. Through the content, the International Village BIA illustrates how the tapestry of the downtown core is changing. Every single entrepreneur has a story of their own to share, and a reason why for them – right now – downtown #HamOnt is the absolute best place to be.
Thanks to Susie Braithwaite and the International Village for inviting us to explore!
