Unify Ordering | Branded Documentary Case Study

A throwback to one of HyperJump Productions’ earliest projects, an international collaboration with Irish food industry software company, Unify Ordering.

Today I will be discussing the first project I ever worked on for HyperJump, our 2021 collaboration with Irish software development startup, Unify Ordering. While it would not be until 2025 that I would move to Dubai to join HyperJump Productions full-time, I joined the project as a local producer, bridging the gap between the Dubai and Dublin crew, and supporting with scheduling, communications, and interviews for the videos. 

For some quick backstory: two of HyperJump Productions’ co-founders, Dennis Chehade and Hector Romero, were both contemporaries of mine when we studied Film & TV Production at Griffith College, Dublin. Over the years, we worked together on numerous projects, both for college and outside. After we graduated in 2020 (during COVID), Dennis and Hector moved to Dubai (where Dennis had grown up) and founded HyperJump Productions along with Saif Khan. 

I remained in Dublin, where I was working as a Cinema Manager at the time, but I maintained contact with Dennis and Hector, and was thrilled when they contacted me to work on the Unify Ordering campaign in the summer of 2021. 

In 2021, Unify Ordering was a new startup, a “mobile-friendly platform for foodservice buyers & suppliers to manage ordering, stock and invoicing”. Since then, they have gone from strength to strength, now managing over a million orders a year. Dennis and HyperJump were recommended to Unify Ordering by Kieran Lucid, who we had worked with on previous projects, and who at the time was a stakeholder in Unify Ordering. 

The brief was to create a series of branded mini-documentaries for Unify Ordering. To humanize the idea behind Unify Ordering, by creating a campaign video from these mini-docs, with a total length between 5 and 10 minutes. We had approximately 1 month to arrange everything for the shoot, which would entail interviews with b-roll at 3 key locations, and a further b-roll shoot. 

To show how Unify connects suppliers and clients across the food industry, we captured three key businesses who utilize the app: Toonsbridge Dairy, where we interviewed founder Toby Simmonds, Happy Out Cafe, with co-owner Brian Hanratty, and the upscale Junior’s Restaurant, with chef Fiachra Kelly. 

At each location, we conducted detailed interviews with each company’s representative, ensuring to compose the interviews with clear views of their workspaces behind them, allowing each scene to give the audience that feeling of being there, right in the heart of the business. We combined these interviews with b-rolls, whether it was showing Brian serving customers at his seaside cafe, to Fiachra cooking up a gourmet dish, or Toby interacting with his herd of buffalo. I conducted the interviews - a favorite job of mine! - and had a blast speaking to each of these guys about their passions and the day-to-day challenges of running their business.

This, combined with footage from Cork’s iconic English Market, allowed us to build a mosaic of small business stories that shows how Unify connects companies from farm to plate.

The video itself employed an upbeat, fun style that brought out the personalities of each interviewee. It starts with the classic behind-the-scenes shots that show the interviewees sitting down, ready for their shoot, clapping their hands to sync the mic, etc - a candid flourish that HyperJump would refine in future documentary shoots.

The end product came together nicely and left the client very happy with HyperJump’s work, and it has been repackaged from time to time since then for continued Unify marketing. As a founding example of HyperJump’s offerings in the corporate video space, it was a great early step for the team, with a blueprint that we would refine - and continue to refine to this day - for sleek, enjoyable-to-watch testimonial videos that the client can be proud of.

Have a project you’d like to talk to us about? Contact us now at info@hyperjumpproductions.com or at (+971) 058–599-8064.