In July we launched a new TV advert for Age UK’s Weekly Lottery and Raffle featuring some very cute new friends. Stanley, the Lottery dog is back, but this time he has a friend, Paddy. If you haven’t seen the lottery advert yet, you can take a look here
The Age UK Weekly Lottery TV advert started long before the filming, it started with an idea that built on the previous ad. We wanted to bring back Stanley, our lottery dog, who you may recognise from the TV show, Doc Martin. But we thought he needed some company, which is where the idea for bringing in Paddy came from.
A storyboard was created and once we all agreed we loved it; a date was put in the diary to start filming (once we had managed to pin down the busy dogs’ schedules!).
The Age UK Weekly Lottery advert was filmed on 13 and 14 May in a beautiful house in Pinner, London. This stunning home looked quite different after the crew were done rearranging the furniture. We had various props, as you can see in the advert and we needed to make room for all of these.
Day one
Filming started with the scene of Stanley and Paddy watching the TV with our previous advert. We were pleased to see the dogs were very well behaved. Each dog had their own trainer, and despite hearing 2 different sets of commands, they both knew who to listen to. Once that scene was finished, the two dogs had a rest while the crew set the scene for the various jumping, spinning and rollover scenes. They also showed us how clever they were by picking up the phone and joining the Age UK Weekly Lottery using the laptop.
Day two
We started day two filming the scene of the dogs running down the stairs, you could tell they were having great fun doing this, but they soon got tired. We also had a photographer join us so we could get some lovely shots of Stanley and Paddy for our website and other information pieces.
Whilst the dogs rested, we shot the scene of the envelope coming through the door. We thought this would take a lot of takes as we needed to make sure the envelope landed so we could see what it said, but would you believe we got it on the first take!
The dogs were ready to go again, and it was time for the ‘tug of war’ scene with the winning cheque. Who was going to win?! Once they started playing, they didn’t want to stop, they were having so much fun with each other. It was brilliant to see the dogs enjoying being on set and each other’s company.
Just before lunch we had a lovely gentleman join us on set as our actor walking out third dog. We had a call the day before to say that the original whippet for this scene had got gastroenteritis, poor thing. Luckily for us, the lovely Hannah at our agency has a beautiful whippet called Wallace who she kindly agreed to bring in for filming. Wallace was a superstar and walked beautifully in front of the house looking back at Paddy and Stanley peering out of the window
We ended the day with our favourite scene, Stanley and Paddy sailing off on a cruise with their £25,000. The dogs were so cute in their little sailor’s hats and they absolutely loved the attention and treats from the crew.
That’s a wrap!
But it doesn’t finish there. We still had to record the voice overs which we did at a studio in central London a couple of weeks before launch. Once again, the lovely Hugh Dennis of Outnumbered and Fleabag fame, plays the voice of Stanley.
We love the finished result and hope you do too. Who knows what Stanley and Paddy will get up to on their next adventure?
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