Solent Stevedores: world-class port services showcased with drone videos
Specialist port operator Solent Stevedores approached us just before lockdown struck, with a brief for three ‘visually-stunning’ videos. One would cover their general operations; another would showcase their industry-leading freight rail services; and the third would capture their work within the cruise industry.
We got to work right away, kicking things off with an in-person recce. We checked out everything they do across one of their main sites, familiarised ourselves with the health and safety policies, and started planning the shoot.
We even learned the origin of the word 'stevedore' — it was a dodgy phonetic spelling of estivador (Portuguese) and estibador (Spanish), which worked its way into English through the British sailors who regularly heard it. The term means: 'a man who loads ships and stows cargo'. Neat!
As COVID began its spread, Solent Stevedores chose to focus on a video with a different narrative angle: one that showcases their commitment to their customers, to safety, and to their teams.
The first UK lockdown landed shortly after, so we proposed a plan: write up the storyboards while working from home, discuss them over Microsoft Teams, and then schedule the shoots whenever the end of lockdown came into view.
All of Solent Stevedores' key stakeholders approved our storyboards, so we put a date in the diary for a two-day shoot — all while continuing to maintain proper social distancing, of course!
We soon found out that, in spite of the port titan holding international reach and acclaim, Solent Stevedores feels like a family, with many employees having worked there for 10 to 20 years.
Naturally, they were awesome to work with. The shoots — as smooth as they look in our footage! — were quite hectic from a communications perspective, but the site’s staff went out of their way to keep information and instructions flowing.
We shot our footage in Apple ProRes, both on our Blackmagic ground camera and our Zenmuse X7-fitted Inspire 2 drone. A perfect format for making top-quality colour corrections and technical fixes.
We also used a couple of FPV drones for this project: the iFlight Bumblebee and the iFlight DC5, both fitted with a GoPro Hero 8.
The feedback to our three videos was overwhelmingly kind, with Solent Stevedores stakeholders saying things like: “this gave me goosebumps,” “visually stunning work,” and “you’ve exceeded our expectations.”
We’re incredibly grateful to Solent Stevedores for approaching us about their filmmaking needs! See more of our marine work elsewhere on our site →
Watch the videos below!
