How To Handle Sheep

Audience Productions were contacted by the Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre for the Department of Education and Training and Communities to shoot a livestock-handling series over five days, covering both cattle and sheep. We pulled together a three-person crew: two cameras and a sound recordist, with the second camera operator also acting as producer and director.
NSW Department of Education
Explainer

Learning Livestock

We had a five-day shoot, flying to Dubbo to do a half-day familiarisation of the Livestock Research Station at Trangie. Over the next four days, we were up before the sun and at home after it went down. We learnt all there was to know about sheep, cattle and Boyd Holden – our talent. On these types of how-to shoots, we are essentially learning about the process as we are shooting. During post-production, we share what we have been taught in order to educate viewers. This series was comprised of 15 videos – eight for cattle handling and seven for sheep handling, which added up to more than 280,000 views on YouTube. Not bad for very niche subject matter.

“I have worked with Ashleigh since 2012 to produce 13 different series of educational videos comprising 132 individual videos suitable for secondary school students. One of the series received over 275,000 hits between 2013 and 2019. This is an extraordinary number and reflects the quality of these videos, resulting in their use by industry as well as school teachers. I really enjoy working with Ashleigh because he really engages with the content of the videos. He has an extremely professional approach to his work and openly discusses his ideas in a friendly and positive way. He provides creative guidance without being too overbearing or dogmatic. He is very thorough and always pays attention to detail throughout the production process.”
Sally Bannerman
Animal Welfare Co-Ordinator
NSW Department of Education