It’s not news that long-form social media content is changing audience engagement for younger viewers, but it does involve a different approach to your traditional commercial advertising. So when Footasylum got in touch with us, and asked us to create a series of programs for their YouTube channel, we were excited to get involved and explore how we could approach this new challenge.

Footasylum came to us with a vision, to enlist social influencers and create a series which put these influencers at the heart of their narrative, helping to engage them as brand ambassadors. This is how we began working with KSI and his friends, working with the team to help craft audience content. At the heart of this series was the audience, who are shouting for reality-based brand broadcasting, over a clear and glossy approach. 

The plan was to create organic, original content that would be published every Sunday to a reoccuring audience. We wanted to encourage continued watching, and we created content teasers and behind the scene’s stills to support our programming. Our content was informed by Footasylum’s distinct social style, enforcing brand engagement over a sales approach. 

This attitude was encompassed by our fantastic crew, we wanted to capture as much content as possible. Most importantly we wanted this content to be natural, it wasn’t the size of the crew, or whether or not we were using cutting-edge kit, but if were agile, and could think on our feet - whether we could interact with our cast in a new way. I remember one day in particular which summarises this perfectly, working with two of the teams in Soho we were constantly winding them up behind the camera with information on the other team’s progress. The result, high energy content which appealed to our target audience. 

We set out to reach Footasylum’s existing audience, as well as capturing a new crowd of viewers and creating as many organic views as possible, and I think our stats talk for themselves. Our first video reached nearly two hundred thousand views, and our following videos consistently reached between sixty thousand and one hundred and forty seven thousand views. We are of course thrilled with the stats, but what we really took away from this project was the dynamic way of working with an immersed crew. 

Co-director James Clancy says :

“Shooting the Footasylum UNLCKD series was a brilliant way of showing how The Gate Films are able to deliver longer form content in a fluid, fast paced and flexible fashion. Working with the guys at Footasylum we were able to create and deliver five episodes of absolutely mental challenges with the likes of KSI, Chunkz, Yung Filly, and LV General in a very short timespan. With views already climbing towards the 1M mark, it has proved to be a very successful project and it was a proper crack to be involved with. “

Co-director Graeme Hill says :

This was not your typical long-form, obs-doc shoot. This is the world of YouTuber, influencer-anarchy. Run-and-gun to the nth degree. Cameras always rolling, plans always changing. Shot list? What’s a shot list? 

This shoot was all about allowing the vibrant personalities of our subjects form the narrative, and for us to be able to react fast and keep moving. 

You can watch here on the Footasylum Youtube Channel -https://www.youtube.com/user/footasylumofficial/videos

If you have an upcoming project that you’d like the Gate to help you turnaround, be sure to contact us and let’s bring that script to life