We were recently contacted by Wellburn Care Homes who were keen to produce a series of care home video case studies, interviewing a number of vulnerable adults and showcasing their 14 luxury care homes across the North East.  When they say luxury, they actually mean luxury! 

We’ve filmed in many care homes and assisted living accommodations over the years, but the facilities at these sites were something else.  Think huge stately manors, bespoke tea rooms styled by the residents, and stunning gardens. We saw residents enjoying personalised entertainment; a racing experience for the F1 fan, a VR headset for the ex-RAF pilot, and regular live performances for the music lovers.  They’re offering something a bit different and are laser-focused on the enjoyment and wellbeing of every resident.

COVID-19 has been tough for everyone, but we’re all very aware of the struggles faced by care homes over the past year and a half. Wellburn Care Homes invested heavily in COVID-safe “visitor pods” to allow residents the opportunity to keep in touch with their families. After coming through the other side of the pandemic, the team decided they wanted some video content that did justice to their high levels of care and quality of service.

Filming the Wellburn Care Homes video content - Turps Film

The key points for Wellburn Care Homes to articulate were that they are a family run business that truly cares for their residents and their staff. They wanted to show that they really got to know every single resident so that they could offer advanced, personalised care.

Lastly, they wanted us to talk to some of the residents so that they could share their experience as residents of a Wellburn Care Home.

So, the ask was:

  • 14 case studies to be shot in 3 weeks
  • 2 staff interviews and 2 resident interviews per site (14 sites)
  • Beautiful cutaways to showcase the quality of each site
  • Footage of the unique activities carried out in each home
  • Beauty shots showing the quality of a typical bedroom

What did we do? 

56 interviews, 2,361 cutaways across 2 cameras, and 1,171 miles!

Intense? Absolutely!  But this was a fantastically rewarding shoot. 

Our days would typically involve arriving at 8.30, taking our COVID tests and then getting set up from 9 am.  We’d take a tour of the home that we were filming that day and then get down to back to back interviews.

Interviews can be tough in all circumstances, but particularly tricky when dealing with older, vulnerable people who may be suffering from a variety of mental health issues. Luckily, we’ve carried out thousands of interviews in our time and have mastered the art of making people feel comfortable when being interviewed and getting them to deliver great soundbites without even realising – simply by keeping things natural.

Clever prompts and a normal conversation will deliver great content, we’ve learned to trust that process. We pride ourselves on our ability to empower our interviewees so that they come away from the experience feeling happy and proud of their contribution. Filming with vulnerable adults requires a special video crew and we are definitely best positioned to carry out the task.

I felt very lucky that this ended up being a huge part of my life for a month. Engaging with the elderly is wonderful. Being able to have a laugh and a joke with a 78-year-old lady from Yorkshire one day and then having an elderly cockney chap share his beautiful artwork with you (whilst deliberately calling me the wrong name) are such special memories.

I’ll always remember chatting to June who told me all about the time she travelled to India in her 60s to help distribute the polio vaccine. These are lovely memories and every single interview was either heart-warming, hilarious or utterly fascinating. The staff included in the interviews also came away smiling and laughing, relieved that the whole process wasn’t anywhere as uncomfortable as they were anticipating. I think I heard “Is that it? That was no where near as bad as I thought it would be!” at least once per visit!

The result? An honest campaign featuring strong content from vulnerable adults.

We’ve delivered a series of video content for Wellburn Care Homes that really showcase their homes, their staff, the fantastic residents and the core values of the organisation. 

Here’s a sneak peek of one of the videos: 

We also had additional work commissioned on the back of this project including an overview video and a video focusing on the amazing work carried out by Wellburn Care Homes’ Care Co-ordinators and we’re really looking forward to our continued work with the client. 

What the client said:

“It was a real pleasure to work with Luke and the Turps Film team. They were highly professional and made everyone involved feel comfortable, whilst also adhering to and respecting the advanced COVID rules we naturally have to have in place in our care homes. 

Turps Film has delivered brilliant, emotive video content for us that we’re excited to use in our messaging going forward. The videos really tell the stories of our residents, team and why we at Wellburn Care Homes do what we do, so we’re really delighted with the outcome.”

Charlotte Frankland, Marketing Executive at Wellburn Care Homes

“Whilst unable to allow visitors into our homes due to COVID restrictions, we needed to find an alternative way to deliver a sense of what life is like for residents across all 14 of our homes, to prospective residents and new enquirers.
We collaborated with Turps Film to produce a promo video for each individual home. The need for a fast turnaround was high on the agenda, and without compromising quality, they delivered to an exceptional standard – on budget and on time.
The videos have proved invaluable and highly successful. We’ve seen a marked increase across the board in conversion from enquiry to occupancy, which in large part can be attributed to the videos. The data and analytics also show an increase in time spent on individual homes pages on our website too, which means that visitors are spending time watching the videos – which has also resulted in an increase in enquiries too.
All of which has more than justified the spend on the project. With the ROI proving even more than we had hoped for.
With restrictions being lifted, we’re now able to slowly allow visitors back into our homes. But Turps Films contribution to our company at a time when we needed it most, has been noted and we couldn’t be more thankful to them.
They were professional, friendly and on point in every aspect of the project. It was a real pleasure working with them and we hope to do so again in the future.
Rachel Beckett, Chairman at Wellburn Care Homes

If you have a video production project you’d like our help and expertise with, give us a shout! We’d love to hear more and get your video content underway!