Who Let the Dogs Out?

The Brief 📝

When our friends at the Barclays Women’s Super League asked us if we’d like to be a part of a WSL/Crufts crossover, we’d have been barking mad to say no (sorry…). The aim was to take three players from two different WSL clubs (Manchester United & Aston Villa), putting put them and their dogs through their paces on an obstacle course designed and judged by former Crufts & Britain’s Got Talent winner Ashleigh Butler. They would be competing for the presitigous inaugural ‘Golden Paw’ trophy.

The Challenge 🤔

The old adage of ‘never work with kids or animals’ did cross our minds ahead of the shoot but, with experienced dog handlers on site, thankfully that aspect was taken out of our hands. Instead, we needed to consider how best to use our x2 camera operators to cover a large course, get immediate player and audience (and dog!) reactions, and film the judges commenting on the action without holding everything up.

The Approach 🎥

Go Pros. Lots and lots of Go Pros! As a crew, we had to give space to the competitors so the best way of getting up close was to mount plenty of static Go Pros to the course, so we could get those action shots. We had one camera operator shooting slightly wider from the start line in real time, and another shooting 100fps from further up the course, so we could get high quality slomo footage to use as replays in the recaps. James was positioned close to the start/finish line, so could capture instant reactions as the players crossed the line, with Callum hot-footing it down (while switching out of slomo) to provide the second angle.

The content went down incredibly well with WSL fans, with the Man United shoot becoming their best performing feature content of the season. And more could be in the pipeline - perhaps a full WSL Golden Paw competition for 26/27?

Producer - Carys Newton (WSL)

Production Manager - Siobhan Regan

Director & Camera Op - James Caldecott (MUFC), Callum O’Toole (AVFC)

Camera Op - Callum O’Toole (MUFC), Rick Bailey (AVFC)

Camera Op & Production Assistant - Fergus Hatton

Sound - Mark Schofield (MUFC) & Ed Eaton (AVFC)

Edit - Nicole Black & Lizzie Stokes