The brief.
AB InBev wanted to put the farmers front and centre: the people growing the barley that ends up in Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois. The film had to feel cinematic rather than corporate: portrait-led, grounded in place, with the scale of the landscape doing as much storytelling as the interviews.
How we shot it.
- Sony FX3 with controlled lighting
- Aerial coverage of the fields
- On-the-ground portrait and interview coverage with the growers
- B-roll built around the working day: kit, hands, machinery, grain
- One day across two working farms near Cambridge, with two camera operators
The brief asked for a film rather than social content, and the kit and crew were chosen for that.
What made it work.
Weber asked early on whether a second camera, locked off on the interview with nobody behind it, could do the job of a second operator. I didn't think it would. It would have needed deep focus to stay sharp, it wouldn't have matched the main camera, and it was one more thing to watch while I ran sound. So the client booked two of us, which is also what fitted both farms into one day.
Farmers aren't actors. The only way to get honest material is to give them the time and the calm to relax in front of a camera, so I kept the crew small.
Delivery.
Footage for Weber Shandwick, who cut the main film and a shorter social version.
