Big Happy Video

Video ad sponsored by Avent

We Say:
As a father of four, I’ve picked up a few tricks over the years to get the little critters off to sleep.

Despite their wriggling and wailing, chances are a hard session glugging down milk has left them somewhat pooped, so the key point to remember is that the little one is often desperate for you to help off them off to slumber-land. With that mind we all get to learn sneaky ways to get them sleeping.

Those creative peeps at The Viral Factory have been out and about talking to real mums to find out what gets their babies chuffing out the ZZZs. In the video above you get to see real-life solutions to the sleep-baby-sleep conundrum. Each one different of course, but all captured in real time for your delight and education.

The Viral Factory Explain How The Video Was Made:
“The campaign aim is to establish Avent’s facebook page as a forum where mums can exchange tips and help each other through the early years of motherhood. Our idea was to research and depict real mums tips for getting a tired and grizzly baby to sleep, and start the conversation.

The idea was a simple one, the execution was not. It was extremely important for us that the film was based on genuine research and featured real mums and their babies. A team of reaserchers carried out on-line and in person interviews with hundreds of mums, and we wittled that list down to the most compelling and also interesting tips.

The real issue was how to film the magical moment of transition from grumpy to sleepy. Babies won’t fit into a filming schedule, and a crew would make the environment unusual so probably corrupt the falling asleep behavior we came to film. So we devised a pretty radical process: We set about visiting the babies at their sleep times so they became used to our presence. We also devised filming techniques which where as un-invasive as possible. After days of doing this (and up to 3 times a day) we where able (in most cases) to capture that magical moment. It took a couple of months worth of filming in total to achieve, and we where enormously grateful to the mums for letting us into their homes and their babies routines.

I hope the film that comes out of it has the emotional power which comes with watching cute things fall asleep, but also helps a few mums with the tips and gets them discussing other ideas. While the babies falling asleep own the film, it is very much about the experience from the mothers perspective,and it was important to give it a shape which expressed this. From the tension, empathy and frustration of the tired crying, to the ever so delicate ‘drop off’, to peace and grateful relief.

The accompanying song I wrote with Tristin Norwell also mirrors this from the mothers perspective – frustration, desperation, relief and peace.
Making it made me broody.

So there is no CGI. Some minor editing to truncate time in one or two places but all the reactions and interactions are real. It was only possible by spending a lot of time with mum and babies with a very un-obtrusive shooting technique. We shot many more mums and sleep moments which didn’t get into the film.”