We thought we’d take a look back at the making of Rolling Wisdom; the short film we made for our Spring/Summer ‘24 collection, and share a little more about how it all came about and what went on behind the scenes.

The campaign concept was originally inspired by ‘Sports and Social’, a tagline we often use in our collections, and which comes from the idea of a fictional sports club based on the message from Aesop's fable “The Hare and the Tortoise”. We used a game of indoor bowls to nod to this; the careful and considered approach employed by members of a local club contrasted against a slightly more rough and ready attempt from the Universal Works team. The result was a mood film capturing the ambience of the space and showing the two teams playing against each other, we’ll let you guess which team won in the end…

But how did we get there? Well, it all began with an image on a mood board of a beautiful indoor bowls club that just so happened to be 3 miles from UW’s Nottingham HQ. We immediately picked up the phone to enquire about shooting there, and after some explanation and reassurance, our team made their way down to Gedling Indoor Bowls Club to meet the members – amongst them were Jeff, Pete and Dale: experienced players who would soon be featured in our shoot. What struck us almost instantly was their passion for the sport and the sense of community that surrounds this club, with people visiting multiple times a week to play bowls and hang out with friends.

We spent a full day there, welcomed by the lovely Carole: Director, Bowls Secretary and Ladies Club Vice Captain. We had varying access to the rinks throughout the day which meant weaving our shots between some league games, this just added to the mood in our opinion. We had some time before the doors opened for some much needed bowls practice before filming of the game got underway. Naturally, we left enough time to unwind in the bar afterwards. Once the crew had packed up their equipment and left, it wasn’t too long before we had the pleasure of welcoming Jeff and Pete back to our studio for another shoot (see more from that here). When the good news reached the wider UW team, many were in favour of a rematch… only for fun this time! Tune in for more on that later.

Here’s some extra behind-the-scenes shots from Rolling Wisdom...

Head here to see more from the Rolling Wisdom shoot.