The Lakes Distillery - Elements
Brief
An exploration of a Whiskymakers Project to create a signature style for a luxury whisky brand.
Brief
We’ve been filming in the world of whisky for some time now - The Lakes Distillery has been on the rise in the industry and had something very special for us to look at. They were packing together not just a premium bottle of whisky, but the steps the whiskymaker takes to craft a premium cask of whisky. This was to be Elements. A 7 step journey of how the whisky takes its form, guided by the creativity of the whiskymaker. As our fourth collaboration with the Lakes Distillery, we were familiar with their setup in the Lake District and the product line. This required us to delve further into the process, of how the whisky changes direction during its creation and how it hints at what sherry cask whisky could be. There was a whisky film and a half to be made here.
Preproduction
The seven bottles captured the flavour, aroma and texture derived from different sherry-seasoned oak casks, presenting a snapshot in time of Whiskymaker Dhavall Gandhi's journey. We got hands on with the product early doors to look at how we would reflect this. Choosing to put forward soft and deep tones visually with music that would be thought provoking as a companion to this unique product. We shot test stills and footage, experimenting with the lighting so that we would get the cinematic feel we felt this deserved.
Production
Production was remarkably straight forward on the back of the preproduction. We had a working script in place alongside our shotlist and approach. The Ithica team took over a space in the Whiskymakers House at the distillery - a wall separating us from where the whiskymaking team refine their flavours. We set up shots of the product, of the materials that accompany it including a beautiful book and the certificate of authenticity. We then moved onto the pouring and nosing which are always our favourites in this type of production.
Postproduction
Bringing all of these together really brought Elements to life. The work we’ve done collaboratively with the Lakes Distillery on look and feel really brought the texture of the film out. Feeling the music with the movement of the shots and the classic fonts gave us a film that was very elegant in its simplicity when it would have been easy to have taken it in another direction and over complicated the message. One aspect we really paid attention to was the grade, making it deeper and deeper.
Results
We were delighted with the end result as was the team at the Lakes Distillery, hitting our deadline ahead of the product launch at the end of February. As a premium one off product everything needed to be right and this film sat at the heart of the marketing materials, forming a part of the initial mailshot, being front and centre on the main site and taking pride of place on the product webpage. The world of whisky is fascinating to us and this is our best piece yet.
