Ancestry: Together Forever

Genealogy company Ancestry has launched a new campaign which takes Britain's political decision to move away from Europe as its main theme. 

Together Forever is created by Droga5, directed by Biscuitfilmwork's Noam Murro and has music produced and recorded by String and Tins and sees people from across Europe singing to 80s track Together Forever [originally sung by Rick Astley, below]. It turns out that most of us have European DNA.

The track features the voices of real people from different European countries, with characters based in settings typically associated with the countries in which they are located. The commercial closes as all of the voices sing together with the addition of instruments recorded by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.

Directing a cast of untrained singers meant several approaches had to be taken to make the song coherent to the many different dialects. “Not everyone was familiar with the 80s track, which is more famous in the UK than Europe," explains Sting and Tins' co-founder and sound designer, Mike Bamford, "so we had a full day of vocal coaching to run through the lyrics. In a few cases, the actors weren't English speakers at all and I had to direct them through translators. The Italian grandmother, one of the most charming people on the shoot, had her husband write out the lyrics in Italian phonetics for her to learn.”