Debitam - The Ritual of the Accounts

Every year, small business owners must complete the tedious ritual of submitting their company accounts to HMRC. This process doesn’t have to be so taxing, however, with Debitam ready to offer a helping hand.

Read the case study on the McGill Production website

Debitam approached us to create another advert, following the positive reaction ‘We’ve Got Your Back’ received. With a rebrand on the horizon, they wanted a video that was attention-grabbing and crafted with the YouTube platform in mind.

The video aimed to showcase how Debitam can help small business owners, saving them time and energy by doing their annual accounts and tax filing for them.

Building on the high-quality, narrative-driven content we’d produced for Debitam previously, we began the production with a discovery call to get a better insight into the company’s content goals and to understand what they needed. From this call, we internally brainstormed a number of key ideas and created a concept presentation outlining seven of the best ideas.

Armed with the goal of capturing viewers’ attention within the crucial first five seconds, we used our expertise in humour and unexpected visuals to create a truly epic experience that fit Debitam’s friendly and approachable branding.

Once ‘The Ritual’ idea was selected, our creative team put together a series of moodboards to show what we wanted the video to look like. This provided us with a solid starting point to plan what we needed for the shoot. In addition, we drafted an early script and storyboard and refined these as we went along. Having a script and storyboard in the beginning of the process, allowed us to think about all the logistical elements we would need to consider when preparing this shoot.

Throughout the pre-production process, our producers worked closely with the creative team and our wider network to source materials, props, costumes, actors, equipment, and crew to help bring the idea to life.

This complex shoot required us to source vintage props and niche costumes, such as a medieval robe and accessories. Fire was a key element in the narrative of ‘The Ritual’ and using it on such a large scale, we brought in a pyrotechnic who could advise on how best to build a large bonfire that would burn continuously throughout the shoot. A fire performer was also brought on board to further boost the visual elements in the advert.

Working with the detailed script and storyboard, we pieced together the 90-second advert, as well as the 6 social clips, which were optimised for quick, vertical viewing on platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok.

The video was edited, mixed, and graded by our in-house team, with a voiceover provided by David Lambert. The video was delivered in a number of social-ready formats with and without captions, including 9:16, and 16:9, as well as our usual cinematic widescreen (2:35.1).