This project saw me working with Hayward and Green Aviation on a repeat booking – it’s always a privilege to be invited back.

Hayward and Green are a family-run aviation supply and support company in the south of England – and the name might be familiar to you because my previous experience with the company was to shoot their fantastic charity cricket event, in support of local charity, the Kangaroos (If you haven’t checked that out yet, you definitely should and, as luck would have it, the video and article about it are on my website.

The history, their story, the ethos

For this project, Hayward and Green wanted to come away with a flagship video. That is to say, not video based on a specific event they were hosting or a job/company they were endorsing, but rather a celebration of their company – the history, their story, the ethos, and something that would inform collaborative companies and customers alike. The beauty of video products like this is that they can tell your story again and again, as many times as you’d like, and in almost as many formats as you’d like! Companies who work with me get the advantage of being able to splice videos up for social media shorts, or tailor them into a banner for their website, or tour with them to Expo exhibits.

Hayward and Green wanted a five minute video that told as much of their story as possible – their origin, their current successes, and the bright future they are forging as we speak. They also wanted to make sure they didn’t lose the human touch in amongst all the focus on business, since the personal care and quality assurance is at the core of everything they do.

Telling a story

Since I was dealing with this family-run company’s origin story, I wanted to make sure I did them justice, and it was important to centre the narrative of the video on the sheer wealth of knowledge behind Hayward and Green. The founder and father of the current directors, David Green, established the company back in 1968 when he saw a gap in the market - being able to speedily deliver necessary parts to grounded aeroplanes all over the country, especially nearby International airports, such as London Gatwick, where maintenance on their aircraft was going to be against the clock and of high importance!

In fact, one of David’s first jobs was installing a radio into a two-seater Spitfire at Shoreham Airport – and that became a natural place to start our story and the video! If we were going to show the timeline and share their story - from their origins into where the company is today, and beyond - it became almost poetic to start at the very beginning.

Because of the nature of this being a flagship video, designed to present Hayward and Green as a succinct and successful package again and again, the video itself needed to feel dynamic and never ending. H&G wanted everything to feel like it continually moved and progressed, because that’s how they envisioned themselves as a company – constantly striving to better themselves, constantly on the cutting edge. Form had to match content, product had to embody ethos, etc. And since Hayward and Green were usually jet setting all over the world to go to meetings, conferences, client networking, expos, or indeed shipping parts off to places and liaising or buying the next asset, it’s not hard to see how we were going to show that they were constantly on the go!

Never a dull moment

Since a big aspect of the brief and the ethos of the company revolves around a very hands-on approach to working, it was critical that I caught a high number of people doing things. Quite simply, as a cameraman, this involved often being closer to people, watching for hand movements and dynamism - watching for opportunities capturing interaction between the employees. I was very aware that with a ‘parts’ company such as Hayward and Green, quite a lot of their stock and their outward-facing identity might seem quite static as many of their assets are stored and ready in warehouses. Although I worked to creatively show dynamism here, we turned the focus back on the employees. After all, it’s the people who make up the beating heart of this company. Getting the chance to film seasoned engineers, qualified and knowledgeable workers doing what they do best was a real privilege. Getting up close and personal, chatting to the people but also climbing in and out of these incredible aircraft, awoke that ever curious part of me that reminded me of being a kid, assembling and admiring replicas of these machines on my bedroom floor. How cool to see real people working on the stuff that little kids dream about! To be able to pick their brains, and see them light up when they talk about what they do. That’s what I love about helping a company showcase themselves – when they’re proud to do what they do and want to share that with the world.

I incorporated aerial cinematography to convey the true scale of Hayward & Green’s operation - from expansive warehouses to aircraft hangars housing significant engineering assets. The elevated perspective allowed the film to communicate both magnitude and capability in a single, fluid visual language.

Such was the nature of this shoot – capturing so many moving parts – delivery, stock, workers, maintenance of the aircraft themselves – that I had to respect that everyone was on the clock, and this was a living, breathing operation with a purpose: there would be no do-overs with many of the shots. We either had it, or we didn’t.

Something different

Almost every shoot gives me the opportunity to experience something new, and one aspect of this shoot that I really enjoyed was the chance to work on Hayward and Green’s logo. They wanted an animated version of their established static logo – a swirl of tiny diamonds, spiralling inwards (or outwards!), much like a propeller blade – in order to add movement and dynamism. Following the movement of the swirling spiral seemed like the obvious place to start, but I was also inspired by graphics that they had previously had done. These featured aeroplanes and aircraft in a styling of a Hanes manual - quite wired diagrams - that they had created for their 50 years celebration, and it now features as a centrepiece to quite a lot of their marketing brochures. So, incorporating this I thought was a nice touch, and really helped tie all their promotional material together!

I imagined that, for each aircraft that they were able to provide a service for, they would be represented by one or two diamonds within the crest of their logo. I was slightly restricted by the amount of vector files that I had illustrating the different aircraft, but being able to have those aircraft ‘fly in and land’ on independent diamonds and melt into Hayward and Green's presented logo I thought brought a neat and significant symbolism, showcasing an all-encompassing brand – literally one that was built out of the aeroplanes and aircraft and helicopters.

Not only that, but plenty of animation went on to layer other frames of the footage, drawing images from the manuals I mentioned, adding the sense of constant work, consideration and technical expertise behind everything they said and did.

Such a pleasure to work with you again.

You made it all feel so easy! Everyone even seemed to actually enjoy being part of the process. I'd been dreading getting this project off the ground but it's been so worth it. Thank you also for the extra bits and bobs you did and for bringing it together on budget and in the agreed time frame.
Hope we can work again together some time and I'll be recommending you to anyone and everyone henceforward.

At the end of the day

The finished video can be found on my website and also through Hayward and Green – and at an expo, since that was the plan all along!

The video gave Hayward and Green a window for people to see their operation in motion, in the style that they wanted to be presented in, at the place that they wanted to be viewed. For me, it’s like giving someone an opportunity to put their best foot forward. It was clear that Hayward and Green understood that the video, like them, worked 24-7, relentlessly, and it allowed them to present the best version of themselves – like I said earlier: a neat, succinct and successful package, ready to be discovered by future companies and customers.

One of my main takeaways from this project was the extra use of visual effects. It allowed me to draw metaphors and utilise narrative tools through visual storytelling – giving it new purpose. This was a way that editing could pick up the baton from where filming had left off and help solidify the story or the message that I was trying to tell. I’m definitely enjoying more of this in my videos at the moment, so do keep an eye on what comes next! And, if you enjoying storytelling and a good extended metaphor like me, make sure to check out my back-catalogue on my website, and meet some of the amazing clients I’ve been lucky enough to work with.