Six Nations Rugby | The Nations Championship

There’s something special about being trusted to launch a world first. There’s something even more special about pulling it off against the clock.

Bringing together twelve of the world’s biggest rugby nations in a brand new competition deserved more than a standard launch campaign. It needed to capture the anticipation, pride and ritual that rugby fans know so well, that feeling before kick-off, when everything else stops for 80 minutes.

There was just one catch. We had eight days from commission to the first day of filming. Challenging, for sure. Impossible? Not on our watch. 

The Brief

Launching a new sporting competition is one thing. Launching one that spans two hemispheres, twelve nations and multiple time zones is something else entirely.

The Nations Championship team wanted a hero campaign that captured the scale of the tournament without relying on match action alone. Instead, the brief focused on the universal feeling every rugby supporter recognises, the anticipation before kick-off.

From early mornings in New Zealand to late nights in Argentina, the campaign needed to celebrate the shared rituals that bring fans together. Different countries, different routines, but all building towards exactly the same moment. One particular line in the brief captured the essence of the concept; “time zones may divide them, but excitement connects them.”

The idea also needed to establish a visual identity that could extend beyond the hero film into social content, out-of-home and future campaign activity, introducing audiences to a brand new international competition with enough flexibility to grow alongside it.

The Creative Approach

The starting point in the brief, was a room full of clocks. It captured the idea of different time zones counting down to the same kick-off, but it never quite felt like it belonged in the world of the film. During development we kept coming back to the same question, ‘What’s actually happening in this room?’ The answer became the maestro. By introducing a single character quietly orchestrating the countdown, the campaign suddenly had a narrative. It wasn’t about reinventing the concept, it was about giving it a stronger cinematic identity while protecting the original creative.

Instead of clocks simply existing, someone was now controlling them. A mysterious maestro sits at the centre of the tournament, triggering alarms and notifications around the world as kick-off approaches. It gave the film a clear narrative and made the countdown feel intentional, without changing the core idea behind the campaign.

With our narrative in place, the other big challenge was geographical; representing 12 different nations in one shoot… With only eight days between commission and the first shoot, filming overseas wasn’t realistic. We even explored virtual production for a while, but in the end we felt we’d get a more convincing result by leaning into practical filmmaking.

That meant asking every department to do a little more. Wardrobe sold the supporters. Art direction added just enough local character. Lighting shifted the time of day and the feel of each location. We also kept the camera in close. By concentrating on people’s routines instead of wide establishing shots, each location only needed to convince you for a few seconds, and that was enough.

Looking back, the biggest creative contribution probably wasn’t adding ideas, it was knowing which ones to leave alone. The brief already had a strong central thought. Our job was to sharpen it, solve the practical problems and make sure the finished film still felt like the one we’d pitched, just better.

Production

Around the world in…8 days.

If the creative was ambitious, the schedule was even more so! We had eight days from commission to the first day of filming. In that time, we cast 21 actors to authentically represent twelve different rugby nations, secured 15 locations, built the command centre set at The Hush House, RAF Bentwaters, sourced wardrobe and props, and prepared three full shoot days. Once filming wrapped, we had just three days to complete the edit, grade, sound design and final delivery.

It was obvious that a traditional workflow wasn’t going to work. Instead of waiting for the shoot to finish before opening an edit project, our editorial team was embedded on set from day one. As cards came off the set, footage was ingested and assembled into the timeline while the crew moved onto the next scene. By the second day, the fan montage was already taking shape. By the third, we were largely focused on the command centre sequences.

Visually, DoP David Stafford approached the two worlds very differently. The fan sequences were shot handheld using vintage Cooke Speed Panchro lenses for their softer, less clinical character which helped the audience forget the camera and focus on the small rituals that make match day special.
The command centre was designed to have the opposite effect. Filtration disappeared, camera movement became controlled and compositions became much more deliberate. Without saying a word, the audience instinctively understands they’re stepping into a different world.

Filming overseas was discussed early on, as was virtual production, but neither felt like the right answer within the time available. Instead, the team leaned into practical filmmaking. Every department played a part. Lighting shifted the time of day, wardrobe grounded each nation in recognisable supporter culture, and art direction introduced just enough local detail to sell the illusion. By keeping the camera close to the action, the audience was invited into each ritual rather than encouraged to study the background.

The pace of the production forced every department to work much more closely together than on a typical commercial. Art direction, wardrobe, camera, editorial, colour and sound weren’t working one after another, they were feeding into each other throughout the shoot. Conversations that would normally happen days later were happening between setups, often with the timeline already open on a monitor. Looking back, that’s what made this project so special. It wasn’t simply that we delivered the film in 14 days. It was that the pace never became an excuse to compromise the work. Everyone understood the brief, trusted each other’s judgement and kept moving in the same direction.