How would you feel if you came home tonight and a random teddy bear was alive and waving at you? 

 

Under the creative guidance (and commission) of Low & Behold agency and Director Chris Gaffey, ‘Take on the Night Shift’ was one of 2x adverts we produced for Ashton & Parsons, alongside multiple social media cut downs. The main focus was to produce the 2x adverts for a paid social media campaign across Ashton and Parsons main channels, as well as use on their website and organic postings. 

Ashton & Parsons trusted Teething Gel and granules provide effective, easy, teething pain relief, soothing discomfort and overcoming distress, for babies. To dramatise this proposition, Low & Behold worked up the concept of a capable mum, who applies Ashton and Parsons granules to calm her baby and then  enjoys a brief personal moment of triumph by fist-bumping a teddy bear that she earlier picked up from the floor, before returning to her own slumber. In the moment of her sleep deprived fist-bump with a teddy bear, her partner notices her and gives the look of surprise to her apparent madness! 

 

We ‘cast’ two bears for the advert; one that was our main bear (that begins on the floor) and then one that was our ‘stunt bear’ that was cut open, dissected and manipulated – not to mention manhandled repeatedly in areas we’d rather not have to mention (poor bear). 

The ‘stunt bear’ was then puppeteered from beneath a specially made bookshelf (with appropriately drilled holes), where there were three sets of ‘puppeteering rods’ that were used to control the bear; two for each arm and one for the neck. The seam around its neck was hidden by a neckerchief (in Ashton and Parsons brand blue of course) allowing movement to the bear’s head whilst covering the frayed stitching. Huge props (excuse the pun) must go out to the extremely talented Charlotte Timbrell who brought what was a normal shop-bought teddy bear to life – huge thanks for all her amazing efforts! 

 

We also collaborated with DoodleDo to work on some CGI elements, further bringing the teddy bear to life with a little wink and a squish of the nose to add more character. They also cleaned up and removed any evidence of the puppeteer controls. All in all it’s a lovely, heart-warming story both on camera and off it to produce yet another cracking film here at Standby HQ!