The Brief for Kilchoman
Kilchoman has a unique story to tell. Since its inception in 2005 on Islay, an island in the North Hebrides, its location and craft symbolise the truest form of Scottish whisky production. Unlike the larger distilleries on the island, every stage in the creation of 100% Islay whisky is completed at Kilchoman.
Our film would take the themes of heritage, tradition and timelessness to explain Kilchomens’s 100% Islay philosophy. However, we wanted this to look and feel very different to the previous Kilchoman films. We chose to create an animation. This enabled us to reimagine the Kilchoman process in an inventive way to captivate audiences.
Our Approach
The decision to depict a beautiful, ever-shifting watercolour felt like the perfect representation of Islay’s landscape and the Kilchoman distillery. We wanted this animation to retain some of the rawness of the previous films. To do so, we captured all of the smudges and fading colours, evoking the sensory experience of wind-blown Islay.
The beauty of this piece comes from the dramatic movement of the watercolours spreading and unfurling across a textured canvas. The paints bleed into the negative space of the canvas, as if the viewer is diving into the painting and becoming fully immersed in this watercolour world.
Much of what we see is from the perspective of the barley grains. In this way we capture the interior world of whisky-making, giving a unique insight into the process that’s never been seen before. It was important that our animation spoke of the skill, care and attention that brings each bottle to life.
As the viewer watches paint fall on a canvas and a world unfurl before their eyes; parallels are drawn and we understand that Kilchoman’s whiskey making process really is a work of art.
