Shoreham Port – Lorry Safety Induction Video

Shoreham Port approached us to produce a short training induction video for demonstrating how lorry drivers must operate when visiting their busy port. The difficulty they were having was that their existing paper-based literature was being overlooked, and it wasn’t making the right impact. Additionally, the written instructions were proving to be a challenge for drivers for whom English isn’t their main language, such as hauliers travelling from overseas. They knew that they had to move to video to make their instructions clear and we were quickly commissioned for the project.

The challenge for us was making the instructions clear without relying heavily on on-screen text. Additionally, the main destination for the video was a TV screen in the port’s driver check-in area, so we couldn’t rely on voice-over or verbal instructions either. With a port as busy as Shoreham, playing an audible video regularly throughout the day would be distracting and irritating for their office staff.

Given how big the port is, we very quickly identified that a significant amount of the video would be filmed via drone. This allowed us to follow our demonstration lorry as it manoeuvred the site from a vantage point that wouldn’t have been possible with a traditional camera on the ground – especially when illustrating that the lorry had to follow the port’s fork-lift truck.

Flying a drone on an active port could have posed an issue for some videographers, but because we have the correct permissions from the CAA to operate our drones commercially and are fully insured for aerial work, the port were very happy for us to fly and we were able to meet the strict criteria set out by the port’s safety team.

When it came to post-production, we were asked by the port to find a way to show the correct way of operating on site alongside the common mistakes that lorry drivers make. To minimise distraction and to guide the viewer’s attention we desaturated the “incorrect” footage and placed large ticks and crosses on screen. These were joined by some key messages displayed on-screen in brief statements. Finally, we added a music track so that the port could share the video with drivers in advance of them visiting their site via a web link. (The version shown in at the port’s offices is muted.)