The Challenge
“under the river”
Produce a film for Colas Rail UK as they work in partnership with the South Rail Systems Alliance to renew 7,000 km of rail right the way through the Severn Tunnel. This is a huge undertaking for Colas, at 16 days, this is one of the longest rail works blockades in the year. The most challenging aspect of the project for us is covering such a long section of works. Furthermore, working inside such a tight, dark environment which literally runs under a river would make the filming process much more difficult.
In terms of the themes of the video, Colas asked us for a focus on:
- Safety
- Communication
- Constraints of the tunnel work
- Scale of the project
We would have to show all this and more through the footage we captured.
The Approach
We coordinated with Colas to establish 4 points across the project to capture footage of the tunnel. Three of the filming shifts in the daytime and one at night to try and record a breadth of works.
In order to communicate the desired themes of the video, we decided to capture interviews and updates upon each visit. The interviewees were asked to discuss safety, progress and project challenges.
Moreover, we wanted a good variety of footage despite the location of the tunnel being nearly identical throughout. To do this, we used GoPros to capture timelpase and moving shots on the man-carriers. Gimbal rigs were utilised to create dynamic shots in the linear tunnel setting.
Although the artificial lighting was passable for filming, we still opted for a number of low light lenses in combination with the Canon R5 mirrorless camera. The low light lenses greatly eased the capture process.
The Result
By the time we had completed the 4 filming visits, we’d secured a large bank of footage. There were 7 different interviews to cut into a video that really needed to be under 5 minutes. Our editor had his work cut out for him. After much deliberation on which interview clips most eloquently conveyed the desired themes, our editor was able to start shaping the video. A good portion of footage was used from each visit to show the progress of the project.
Once our editor had created a first draft we sent it off to Colas for review. They simply came back to us with a request for captions and were thrilled with the direction of the video.
“That’s brilliant. Well done indeed and thanks”
Shaun Hodges – SRSA – Head of Operations Wales and West