City and Coastline: Using film to empower your destination marketing

Lancaster Council Case Study

Destination Marketing Films are an incredible way to communicate the unique spirit of a place. At Paper Films our team of passionate video producers love the chance to get to grips with what makes a place tick and devise engaging ways to boil it all down into a punchy social media friendly film.

One of our favourite recent projects was for an area of the country that we love – Lancaster and Morecambe Bay. As a long-established Manchester film production company, our team regularly enjoy the beautiful walks, fantastic views and deep sense of history offered by the area and the chance to create a tourism film to celebrate everything it had to offer was impossible to resist.

What we did…

Our challenge was to create a film that appealed to tourists, businesses and people looking to relocate for a better quality of life – a very broad remit!

Our first step was spending time in Lancaster and the surrounding area; immersing ourselves in everything it had to offer. We took long walks, explored its winding, historic streets and sampled a fair few of its atmospheric pubs.

We then worked closely with the client to create a film script that captured this spirit; developing a tone of voice that matched the cities earthy, straight-forward charms. Then came logistics…

At Paper Films we’re a hand-on film production partner and help manage every stage of the production. From site recces to permissions, risk assessments, method statements and much more we are experts at unknotting pre-production challenges and getting our projects moving quickly.

This proved invaluable on this project as there was a huge range of different destinations to feature and messages to get across in what was a tight production schedule.

The final film was a rich tapestry, putting the people of the region at the heart and centre and taking the viewer from a chance encounter with a Roman Legionary, to a luxurious afternoon tea in an art deco hotel, and from a moonlit meeting with the ghost of the Pendle Witches, to an ad-hoc opera performance in an independent brewer.

It was fast-paced and dynamic whilst being honest and home-spun.

How it was received…

The film was premiered at a major launch event in Lancaster where it was very well received. It then formed the centrepiece of a major marketing campaign. It’s still live and regularly used to promote the city region.

To maximise the value of the shoot the rich archive of footage we collated is regularly repurposed to create short landing page films and social media edits to celebrate the city. Meaning the work we did several years ago is still working hard for the city today.

“Working with Paper Films on creating a compelling new story for Lancaster and Morecambe Bay was a brilliant experience – they quickly understood our requirements and impressed us with their creativity and professionalism at every stage of the project. Developing a new story for the region that got to the heart of what makes it so special a challenge; but Paper Films made the whole process straight-forward, and we couldn’t be happier with the final footage and project assets created."

Alison Gardner, Lancaster Council

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