Edinburgh's Hogmanay

‘It’ll leave its mark’

Voted one of the ‘top 100 things to do before you die’ by The Discovery Channel, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay is a genuine bucket list event.  The 27-day festival culminates in a three-day street party, rivalling any New Year’s celebration on the planet.

Equipped with research and insight, Jaywing wanted to capture Hogmanay’s life-changing energy and portray the event as less of an experience and more of a ‘rite of passage’.  A new brand was created to convey human expression that would quite literally leave its mark.

It was our job to bring this to life in a short brand film.  A spine-tingling poem was written for the voiceover.  Beyond this and a list of locations to try and feature, delivering the film was up to us.  There was no storyboard, simply a brief to capture the energy and excitement that surrounds the December event… in July!

Typically, we’d opt for a thorough, methodical approach to the shoot and ensure a schedule was planned to the letter.  However, the spirit of the project (and budget!) required something much more free-flowing and ‘guerrilla style’.  Casting and logistics were turned around within a couple of weeks.  We identified key locations to capture at given times, but everything around this was up for grabs.

The shoot was directed by commercial film director Hardey Speight, with DOP, Stuart Luck.  The pair made an amazing team – battling against summer daylight, improvising and coming up with creative ideas on the fly meant the true spirit of Hogmanay was running through the shoot.

The cast were great too – starting at 7am and shooting right through to 2am the following morning.  Dashing from location-to-location, missing the last tram, blagging our way into night clubs, convincing a musician to let us film his set – the entire project was one to remember.  You’d imagine after a day like that, everyone would just want to sleep, but no.  Both the cast and crew were up for carrying on and heading back into town!  Edinburgh lived up to its promise and certainly left its mark.

A proud moment was on New Year’s Eve, just before the headline act came on stage.  The lights dropped and played on gigantic screens across the city was our film to kick-off the celebrations.  You could have heard a pin drop, followed by deafening applause and cheers from the crowd.

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Shot of the cameraman filming from the back of a tracking vehicle