Weight Watchers Come Out to Play

On New Year’s Day, as the world nursed its aching hangover, Saatchi & Saatchi London took over a full commercial break on national television to launch its new influential campaign for Weight Watchers. Fronted by former Strictly Come Dancing judge, Alesha Dixon with real Weight Watchers members, the unique 3’10” film aired across all UK commercial channels on Sunday 1 January. It was shot over two days in Soho by Academy Films’ directing duo Si & Ad.

“The whole project was a massive challenge for everyone involved. That’s what made it so exciting – a must-do job. We wanted to do a continuous, three minute, hand-held camera sequence,” say the directors.

The piece sees 180 members of the weight loss scheme singing and dancing to Dixon’s feel-good track, Do it our Way (Play), in their own individual styles and improvised moves, which were encouraged by the directors, and offers viewers a natural demonstration of how the programme can help them achieve their personal goals in the new year.

“We’ve had plenty of experience of street casting and working with inexperienced bands to be confident of getting performances from our real Weight Watchers,” say Si Atkinson and Ad Townley, who first met as in-house designers at Virgin Records and have been shooting as a duo for a decade. “We wanted to get a real insight into each of the women, so we encouraged them to do their own thing. A few were a bit overwhelmed by the whole affair, but the majority were simply brilliant.”

And the Academy directors employed a similar style of improvisation behind the camera to add to the natural feel of the whole project: “Our inspiration for the film and its execution stemmed from Soy Cuba, a Cuban film from 1964. We loved the hand-held feel throughout the long shots in the movie and we chose to emulate this by using several cameramen and wires instead of cranes, dollies, steadicam operators or motion control rigs.”

Saatchi & Saatchi has also developed an interactive digital aspect accompanying the film, allowing viewers to get closer to those personalities that feature. As the video plays out a different story can be clicked on at various points throughout, relaying the different journeys and experiences of the real Weight Watchers.

Most explain how the programme has helped them, whether by allowing them to wear the clothes they want to, or how they’ve adapted the Weight Watchers iPhone app to their everyday lives using the dieting points system advocated by the programme.

The campaign sees a massive collaborative execution with Saatchi & Saatchi, Academy, Finish, MPC and The Assembly Rooms all joining forces to ensure a successful execution. “We’d like to say a big thank you to all involved. It really was an emotional shoot, in the best possible way,” say the directors.

The complex shoot saw the camera weave in and out of interiors including windows, doors, through a car (which had to be filmed with the door off, which was later replaced in CGI ) and even dip into a swimming pool before it reaches the final destination with Dixon leading a final hurrah in the street.

“The passing of the camera between operators created the trickiest moments for the Finish guys to stabilise, but they dealt with it amazingly well, creating a whole new technique in order to smooth out the tricky transfers,” the directors muse.

“Shooting in Soho on a weekend, a couple of weeks before Christmas was tricky to say the least, but somehow our production team pulled it off. Hats off to Lucy Gossage and her crew.”

You can follow the reaction and campaign activity on Twitter and Facebook or download the track on iTunes.