Behind the scenes with the West Country Hedgelayer Paul Lamb

Client:

Simon & Schuster

Brief:

Films and stills to promote the launch of book by first time author, hedgelayer Paul Lamb.

How we did it:

Our key niches may be science & technology and higher education but we are often approached to make films outside these areas and it’s hard to say no when it’s as interesting a project as this, for repeat client, publisher Simon & Schuster.

We’ve been working with them since 2022 when we made a series of films at Cheddar Gorge with Professor Alice Roberts to showcase her books Ancestors and Buried. We didn’t have long with Alice so we had to be super creative to make the most of a key interview and a few hours b-roll.

In this case, the nature of the book meant we had the chance to film more actuality than normal with woodsman Paul at work laying hedges in rural Somerset. We were also asked to reflect his lifestyle as he lives in a converted lorry and travels across the region from job to job. As well as the video we took a wide range of stills, both for promotional use and for the book cover.

Our crew was director / photographer Hamish Beeston, camera / drone operator Dion Owen and assistant Joe Astill. We met Paul on the location recce and immediately his personality and warmth was obvious - it’s no surprise he has amassed almost 200,000 Instagram followers with his videos of his life and work. We checked out possible shooting locations and wrote the shortlists / scripts.

On the day of the shoot we were joined in sunny Somerset by the client Richard Vlietstra, Deputy Head of Marketing at Simon & Schuster. Rich led the interviews and oversaw the whole process. It was particularly useful to have his instant feedback on our attempts to capture the perfect iconic book cover shot.

The day ended with a beautiful sunset sequence of Paul sitting by a fire outside his lorry sharpening his axe. A good day which produced some lovely films and stills.