RNLI commercial recreates sea drama

The UK Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has created a new commercial shot using a combination of high definition and standard definition footage. The spot, titled Bring Them Home, was directed by Michael Caton-Jones, the Scottish-born director of Memphis Belle, Rob Roy and Scandal. It was shot with several formats, including HDCAM and DVCAM, capturing different elements of a dramatic rescue operation.

The action is presented as a real-world sea-based drama that turns out to only be a training session in an RNLI tank. The audience sees a life raft containing RNLI crew precariously being thrown about the water, which then capsizes with its crew going overboard. One crew member asks the others if they are okay and tells them to remember their training. The boat is then flipped back up and we see the blinds in a room go up with light streaming in revealing where they really are and the fact that it is only a training session. The spot highlights that the RNLI is a charitable organisation relying on donations for their crew’s safety training.

The commercial was created by production company Plunge for the ad agency Proximity. London post house Rushes did much of the post production work. Rushes’ producer Anthony McCaffery says the HD and DVCAM footage “gave a variety of looks very suited to what is an exciting and intimate piece. It was filmed in the RNLI’s training facility in Portsmouth but was required to look like the open sea at night. Several elements had to be removed during post production. These included ropes used to restrain and capsize the craft as well as underwater lights usually used to light the tank.”

16 November 2007