Lounging around

The Brief 📝

As one of our final projects of the 2025/26 season for Liverpool FC, we were asked to produce a series of relaxed sit-down interviews with six of the LFC Women’s team for club main partner Standard Chartered. We wanted the players to be open, talk more about life off the pitch than on it, and enjoy themselves while we filmed the content. Standard Chartered were keen for it not to feel too corporate and to make sure we learned things about the players that most fans wouldn’t already know. Oh, and it had to look good too!

The Challenge 🤔

The shoot was locked in to take place on the indoor pitch at Melwood, so turning that into a ‘lounge’ was potentially tricky. The location also has a semi-translucent roof, which means overhead weather conditions can affect the look and feel of the shots, so that was something we would need to mitigate for. We would also have the players arriving back to back (for 20 minute slots), so we didn’t have the luxury of much re-setting. Given the budget, all set design, procurement and rigging would need to be done in house, so we were wearing many hats for this one. All had to be shot for 16:9. 4:5 and 9:16 formats, which added another layer of complexity to the set build.

The Approach 🎥

For the set, we ordered a 3m x 3m Kate Backdrop, which looked really cool and didn’t break the bank, and also hired in plenty of black drapes from our hire company, Lens Flare TV, to create walls around the players. The rug was an online purchase but the chair, coffee table and lamp all came courtesy of Callum’s living room. We also requested teas and coffees in Liverpool mugs for the players, to emphasise that homely feel. With our timelines being what they were (we also had to film a series of pieces to camera elsewhere at the training ground in the morning, we set up everything the night before, which did mean a lot of re-jigging of lights on the day thanks to that semi-translucent roof (the initial rig was mostly with external darkness).

We went for a three camera set up, with Callum running the roving camera while asking the questions, our good friend Graham Kirk on the wide and the audio, and Fergus looking after the tight. Both us and the clients were delighted with how it all looked and the great conversations we got out of the players. Who knew that Beata Olsson’s sister was a classical portrait artist? Or that Denise O’Sullivan was planning on becoming a barista?

Director & Camera Op - Callum O’Toole
Camera Op - Fergus Hatton
Camera Op & Sound - Graham Kirk
Photography - Shakira Allen