If your brand is eager to showcase its achievements dedicated to providing extraordinary products and services to customers, what can you do to extend your connections authentically, provide more in-depth insights, and stimulate further affinity? For Nutrien Ltd., the world’s largest provider of crop inputs and services, and its Nutrien Ag Solutions retail division, one approach would be developing an original documentary web series.
Starting in October of 2022, in partnership with Farm Journal Studios, Nutrien Ag Solutions launched its original “Leading the Field” web series, aimed at highlighting America’s farms and farmers with the goal of better-connecting consumers with the vital sources of their food. Hosted by veteran NASCAR spotter and entrepreneur Brett Griffin, the series’ first two seasons powerfully showcase the ways growers are feeding a growing world from a unique point-of-view: for, from, and of the farm.
In the weeks ahead, the series will launch its third season, bearing a new title and focus. With “Feeding the Future, Together” coming soon, Farm Journal’s executives and their collaborative production partners from commercial production and post company Bella are very proud to detail their joint efforts in bringing this heartfelt series to vivid life.
“It’s a great honor for us to work with the brilliant team at Farm Journal,” began David Perry, Bella’s Executive Producer. “With many brands doubling down on creating original series, we are well positioned to partner with them. By leveraging our experience in developing ideas and episodic formats, as well as our network of talent, there is a lot we can do to ensure success.”
Perry continued, “As a company, we are dedicated to making beautiful work that stands out and has a cultural impact; every talent we have brought aboard has been mission-critical in achieving this objective on this innovative original project.”
For Perry and Bella, this project has grown from their extensive explorations with Farm Journal’s leaders into the development of original content for agricultural brands. Since their first discussions in 2021, the firms have shaped numerous ideas and approaches for developing highly original branded content.
From those discussions, “Leading the Field” became the first of several digital series pairing Bella with Farm Journal Studios. “Based on the idea of capturing different growers and crops across North America, and illuminating how Nutrien plays a big role in their success, we worked together to figure out the right narrative approach,” Perry confirmed. “We knew we were going to be working with Brett, who has an amazing charisma and personality for this, and that the show needed to feel personal, authentic, dynamic, and big.”
Led by Perry and Bella’s Producer Rockie Britzman, for the first two seasons, the production company filmed 14 episodes, spanning ten states and one Canadian province. Relying very heavily on Britzman and their deep database of production talents, a key to Bella’s cumulative efforts has been its diligence in assembling a spectacular crew for location shoots all across North America, which are often very remote. Notably, these talents have also included directors and showrunners who have been instrumental in crafting the story on set.
Generally speaking, each 8-10-minute episode begins with something Brett loves, then goes straight to the source, with help from Nutrien Ag Solutions. Using a combination of original b-roll and location interview footage, Brett illuminates where the product comes from and highlights the people and processes bringing it to market.
To organize the production for each episode, Farm Journal Studios and Nutrien Ag Solutions identify a star crop and grower, leading to in-depth research by Bella to absorb everything about the grower and its base of operations. With local production talents secured through both Farm Journal Studios and Bella, all arrangements are made to facilitate location scouting, pre-production, and production. Given one full day to shoot the principal locations, including drone photography, the crew also captures multiple interviews for each show.
“I’ve worked with Bella on Leading the Field for two seasons now and have come away both impressed and grateful for their creativity, work ethic, and commitment to quality,” said Brian Conrady, General Manager for Farm Journal Media and executive producer for the series. “Shoots for this series have taken us all over the country (even Canada!), where the Bella team captured one stunning visual after another in some very challenging locations.”
“Once in post we had so much good material to work with, it was hard to not use it all,” Conrady added. “I greatly appreciate the professionalism Bella has shown throughout the entire production process.”
