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First-person view of a hand holding a phone showing a client meeting reminder, beside a rowing machine in a gym.

Sunlife: Go Digital POV

Client: Sunlife
Industry: Finance
Video type: Product Video, Campaign
Team: Producer
Director
DP
Camera Assistant
Grip 1
Grip 2
Swing
Grip truck driver
Editor

Who it's for

Sunlife's financial advisors and their clients. Each one got a personalized video showing how Sunlife's app and website could save them time.

One helmet camera, two languages, and a personalized video that knows your name.

Sunlife had launched new digital tools and needed advisors and their clients to start using them, so Go Digital POV shows each of them how those tools fit into their own day: two personalized videos, one through an advisor's eyes and one through a client's. To make that feel real, we tracked down a carbon fibre helmet camera rig, one of only two in Ontario at the time. The app and website on every phone and laptop were added in post, so accuracy notes and French versions never sent us back to set. Once advisors in the pilot saw theirs, they asked Sunlife for more.

The challenge: Busy advisors and their clients already had their routines, and new tools are a tough sell when nobody has time to learn them.
What we made: Four films (advisor and client, each in English and French) with every viewer's name built into the shot, filmed over 2.5 days.
The result: 88% open rate vs. 73.5% benchmark, 4000+ unique views of the client video, 5700+ page views after the video.

Crew member adjusts cables on a POV helmet camera rig strapped to an actor during a Sunlife video shoot.

88% Open rate vs. 73.5% benchmark
4000+ Unique views of the client video
5700+ Page views after the video

Deliverables

Sunlife › Go Digital POV › Films

2 films, in English and French.

4 deliverables · English and French · click any file to play it

Behind the work

How we filmed an advisor's day in first person

Most videos about a new app are a phone on a clean background with a voiceover walking through the features. Sunlife's brief asked for the advisor's side of the story, and our pitch took that further: put the camera where the advisor's eyes are and follow them through a normal day, tools in hand. Sunlife signed on, and we wrote the scripts with their team, then storyboarded every scene from the advisor's eyeline before anyone picked up a camera.

The shoot ran two and a half days, with both films shot back to back to keep costs down for Sunlife. The advisor's day starts at 7:30 a.m. on a rowing machine and moves through a yoga studio and a home office, kids and all. The helmet rig was heavy enough that a grip walked alongside it to help hold the weight, take after take.

The edit is where it got precise. Every viewer's name was motion-tracked into the scene with an After Effects template we built for Vidyard, so it moves with the shot like it was there on the day. Sunlife's tech team rewrote the phone notifications to match what their systems could send, and the French versions got their own touches, like a cheque that reads ANNULÉ instead of VOID. Even the call-to-action button changed colour so everyone could read it.

Then the deadline moved. Sunlife's AGM came up sooner than planned, and we turned the advisor film around in time for its premiere there. The client film took the slower road: a pilot with a group of advisors first, then the full Go Digital email once the response came back strong.

Crew member wearing a POV helmet camera rig with a wide cine lens and follow focus, facing the camera. — Business casual from the neck down, a full camera department from the neck up.

Behind the scenes

Every first-person shot had a few third-person helpers just out of frame.

Crew member adjusting a camera mounted on a POV helmet rig, set on a stand in an office.

Close-up of a camera with a wide cine lens and follow focus mounted on a gimbal.

Actor in a suit seated at a desk, wearing a POV helmet camera rig with a wide cine lens.

Two crew members fitting a POV helmet camera rig onto a seated actor in a suit.

Wide view of two actors at a desk, one wearing a POV helmet camera rig, in a bright office.

Director explaining a scene to an actor wearing the POV helmet camera rig at a desk.

Over-the-shoulder view of the helmet rig as an actor smiles across a desk in an office set.

Director leaning over a desk to give notes, with the helmet camera rig in the foreground.

Crew member in a grey hoodie and toque holding a camera gimbal in an office.

Crew member on a ladder rigging a light above a framed print on an office wall.

Two crew members watching a monitor while one pulls focus with a wireless remote.

Crew waiting between takes in a juice bar, with lights and a diffusion frame set up by the counter.

Oak + Rumble crew member wearing the POV helmet camera rig, giving two thumbs up on set.

Crew member wearing the POV helmet camera rig with one foot on a box in a juice bar.

Film crew gathered around an actor in the helmet rig at a table with a laptop and a coffee.

Director pointing at a laptop as an actor in the helmet rig films the screen under a studio light.

Two crew members adjusting the helmet camera rig on an actor seated behind a laptop and a coffee.

Crew member pulling focus from a monitor while a helmet rig shot is set up behind him.

Grip smiling as he holds the helmet camera rig steady for an actor at a café table.

Wide view of the crew filming an actor on a rowing machine in a gym, with lights and a diffusion frame.

Grip supporting the POV helmet camera rig as an actor rows on a rowing machine.

Great people to work with who have a lot of awesome marketing insight. Very good at meeting deadlines and keeping projects on task. A pleasure to work with!
Todd Lennox, Creative Manager, Sunlife

About Sunlife

Sunlife is a Canadian financial services company offering insurance, wealth and asset management to individuals and businesses. It's based in Toronto and works in markets around the world.

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