Stories
News, project launches and thoughts from our team.
Promotional Vignettes
Hamilton is a city in the midst of renaissance. Nowhere is that more apparent than the downtown core, where new businesses are emerging at a breakneck pace. A new company cracks open its doors seemingly every single day.
At Double Barrel, we live and work downtown too. So when the International Village Business Improvement Area asked us to help tell their story, we jumped at the chance.
Our challenge was substantial. First: to showcase the changing face of the downtown core. Second: to spur interest and get people excited to pop downtown to shop.
Essentially, we wanted to get people out of their comfort zone and into these blossoming boutiques. Old habits die hard, and with so much going on for all of us on the daily, it’s just too easy to pass these new stores by. We admire the frontages but never actually venture inside, choosing instead to zip up to the cozy confines of our closest shopping mall.
Through the creation of 1:30 second vignettes, each one focusing on a different shop and story – we helped the International Village BIA show the greater public that the tapestry of the downtown core is changing. Every single entrepreneur has a story of their own to share, and a reason why for them – right now – downtown #HamOnt is the absolute best place to be.
Thanks to Susie Braithwaite and the International Village for inviting us to explore!
Program Overview
Team Unbreakable Awareness Building Campaign
How do we encourage adolescents to be the best versions of themselves? The research is proven; getting motivated, staying active, and expressing yourself can lead to a happier and healthier mind. And no-one knows this better than the team behind therapeutic running group for teens, Team Unbreakable.
Team Unbreakable teamed up with CameronHelps, a charitable organization that works to raise awareness and reduce the stigma against mental illness. CameronHelps achieves this by bringing teens together through social groups such as Team Unbreakable. Dedicated volunteers team up with teens all across Hamilton to explore the benefits of physical activity through running. It really was an incredible experience being a part of something so special and we look forward to running with them again in the future!
Broadcast Commercial
We teamed up with the DeGroote School of Business to create a video campaign that would showcase their current focus on the transformation of technology in business. Using DeGroote’s unique vision, our animation team took iconic symbols in business such as Newton’s cradle and the globe to depict the evolution of technology around the world.
Small Business Story
Most of us can easily describe our hopes and dreams for the future. For some, it’s a big happy family. For others, a bustling, successful business. Still for others, it’s an exercise in simplicity, maybe just a satisfying work life with a vacation home by the beach.
No matter the goals and dreams you may have – one thing is certain. You will need a rock-solid plan to achieve them.
No-one knows this better than Burlington CGA & financial advisor Tim Miron. He calls this ‘building your empire.’ And he passionately believes that the key to unlocking your life’s goals rests on searching out your deepest motivations, then clearly plotting the steps to fulfill them.
When Tim asked Double Barrel to assist him in putting together a video showcasing his new passion project “Igniting Empires,” we couldn’t have been more stoked. Bringing 14 years of experience in personal finance and taxation to the table, Tim has created a workshop & coaching series which will offer the financial planning strategies and visioning methodologies you need to turn your dreams into a reality.
At Double Barrel we’ve personally benefitted from the knowledge and advice Tim brings to the table, and we’re so excited to participate in the launch of this video, and his next chapter! Congratulations Tim!
30 Second Broadcast & Theatrical Commercial
Engineering is the invisible thread that holds so much of our day-to-day lives together. And when it comes to getting teens excited about a STEM career – it pays to reveal just a bit of the science behind their everyday experiences.
We set out in October of 2014 to create a 30 second broadcast commercial that did just that. Using skateboarding as our metaphor – and an extreme slow motion camera – we aimed to capture the forces of friction, momentum and gravity.
The end result is something we’re all so proud of. Screened in theatres from Hamilton to Toronto (in IMAX no less!) and also in Calgary, we hear this piece is on its way to theatres in Hong Kong!
Many thanks to our amazing crew, as always. Shot in slow-mo by Ty Tekatch and Christoph Benfey, with animation assistance from Antenna Visual Communication. Edited by Taylor Heres. Starring skateboarding superstar Alishia Stevens. Many thanks to New Line Skateparks for allowing us to shoot at their construction site in Oshweken, Ontario!!
Commercial Trailer
Today’s engineering graduates have a tough job ahead of them. From water quality to sustainable living, from climate change to aging infrastructure, the engineering classes of 2015 and beyond will be expected to have the skills necessary to tackle the grand challenges of tomorrow.
The W Booth School of Engineering Practice provides recent grads with that skill set, through interdisciplinary education combined with experiential learning and mentorship. Their tagline: “Inspiring innovative leaders who will transform the world.”
No small task.
When the W Booth School came to us for help with their new commercial, we were excited to get involved. Double Barrel has a long history with McMaster’s Engineering department, but we hadn’t had the opportunity to work with the Master’s program. We knew that this would be a particularly tricky project – within a tight timeframe, showcase the depth and breadth of experiences and opportunities a W Booth graduate would attain.
After much discussion, we decided to go with a combination of green screen, animation and live action in-the-field footage.
After one particularly long shoot day with an amazing team of W Booth Graduates, our animator Taylor Heres set to work in the edit suite. Sketching, animating and keying out the green under the guidance of director Tyler Tekatch. We couldn’t be happier with the end result.
Many thanks to the W Booth School for involving us in such a great project!
Original Educational Series
For people who have recently been diagnosed with cancer, one of the first challenges is overcoming the amount of information that exists when it comes to care and treatment options. In the digital age, opinions are everywhere, and sorting through them to discover which are accurate and which are bunk can be an overwhelming task.
At Double Barrel, we’ve all lost loved ones to cancer. So when Wayne MacPhail of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer approached us with an innovative way of educating patients about how to separate the wheat from the chaff we were thrilled.
This was a unique project as Wayne came to us with concept in hand. CPAC wanted to create an online educational series that was dramatic, comedic – and demanding. In fact, the entire piece depended on a pitch-perfect embodiment of our two leads, Franny & Zooey, two 12-year-old budding scientists. Knowing that we needed rock-solid talent, we decided to reach out to ACTRA. For web series this can seem daunting, but their fantastic industry liasons walked us through the process effortlessly. Our two actresses – Chelsea Okyere and Zoe McGarry came in prepared and ready, doing such an amazing job in the audition that we ended up using their second rehearsal take in the completed video.
The final piece is everything we had hoped to achieve, and definitely goes into the Double Barrel vault as one of the most original concepts we’ve executed. Says MacPhail, “It was a pleasure (as always) working with Double Barrel on this project. From our first conversation about the unusual concept they got it and brought a ton of creative value to the end product. This is the type of idea, as we said in the meetings “that had a hundred ways to fail”. But, through casting, direction, animation and post-production, they didn’t let any of them happen. The result is delightful.”
We’re excited to see where this goes. Thanks for inviting us along, Wayne!
