TSB Business Commercial
Hey Gang!
I thought I would just fill you in on another Job I got to do during the crazy time that was covid! Initially like many industry film and TV production came to a stand still(other than news & weather). But things like soaps, dramas and commercials all literally came to a crashing halt for a few months to allow time for networks and production companies to try and figure out how and if things could carry on. I literally watched my diary rapidly empty out as gigs got cancelled or postponed. But after a couple of months things started to come back!
One of the jobs I got to design was a new TSB business commercial. It was a fun brief - set in a cute independent bakery. The camera rolls on what appears to be one smooth move as the owner of the bakery excitedly makes her way through the kitchen distracting her workers, telling them what a great job they are doing. Then making her way through the kitchen door, into the cafe to greet customers and a delivery guy. As she comes head to head with the delivery guy she has to sign for a parcel, she is so distracted, rather than signing the clipboard, she signs the mans chest. As there was no direct cut before this action, we had to film the whole scene every time we wanted to do another take. So in the end we went through 35 t-shirts for the delivery guy! A lot of takes! Thank you Primark!
When designing the colour palette for the costumes I wanted to pull in the TSB brand colours as-well as use some soft pastel tones that would compliment the cafe environment. So we used those softer tones in pastel blue, light pinks and corals for the cafe staff. I found some beautiful brushed denim aprons from H&M Home, which they wore they all wore the classic striped baker/catering trousers.
The Costume for the Cafe owner was slightly elevated, we wanted her to feel more senior compared to the staff of the bakery. So I put her in an oversized fuscia blouse, tucked in to a pair of navy tailored trouser. She had the same denim apron on as the staff which tied them together nicely. We also tried to add personality into each character by tying their aprons differently or adding the odd accessory here and there. for example we gave the owner a light pink smart watch, a silver gingerbread necklace and some in keeping hair accessories for the makeup designer to use. I found some absolutely fabulous trainers from John Lewis with three pastel coloured metallic stripes, which unfortunately never made it to the final cut. Honestly if they’d had them in a mens 11 I would of also had a pair!
Now due to covid, during casting the production decided they needed to have a backup cast encase any one of the leading talent fell ill or tested positive. So for us as a costume department it literally doubled our load. So we had to make sure we could create looks for the stand-by cast as well as the main cast. We fitted all of them! Creating similar or exact replicas of original looks I designed(depending on if they worked visually for the stand in cast as well).
So on the fitting day myself and my assistant Karl spent the day trying on looks with the main cast and the stand in cast, photographing them for client approval. We were all tested on the morning the fitting to make sure we were all negative. Luckily we were!
In the end, none of the stand by cast were used. But it was a precaution worth taking as if any one of the main talent had gone down, the whole production would of gone with them!
Anyway despite covid, it was a fun shoot. I was really happy with the way it all came together.
Px
