West Cork company produces music video starring Ed Sheeran

AN AWARD-WINNING West Cork creative agency recently teamed up with pop sensations Burna Boy and Ed Sheeran to produce the music video for their latest hit ‘For My Hand’.

Heritage were co-founded in Skibbereen in 2017 by former CEO of The Ludgate Hub, Gráinne Dwyer. Burna Boy’s video featuring Ed Sheeran has amassed an incredible 17m views on YouTube in just over 2 weeks since its premiere – raking in 5m views in the first couple of days.

It came about through Heritage’s close relationship with the music production company Atlantic Records, who they have worked with on multiple projects, including music videos for Rudimental and Irish band Pillow Queens.

Speaking to The Southern Star, CEO Gráinne said that they were delighted to get the chance to make the video back in April, and had to work hard to plan everything in just seven days around Easter. ‘Ed was in Ireland at the time ahead of his gigs in Dublin,’ she said. ‘Burna Boy flew over from London to film.’ The video was shot in a day in a studio in Dublin.

Ed’s connection to West Cork is already strong, with two of his cousins having attended Schull Community College, and an aunt living in Baltimore – where it is believed he may have been looking at buying a house, as reported in The Southern Star last year.

West Cork roots

Heritage’s roots are in West Cork, and one of their first projects was with Fields in Skibbereen, when they created an advert telling their story as a business.

It was the success of the Fields ad that showed Gráinne and cousin and co-founder Fiona Dwyer that they could make it in a business dominated by men. Gráinne, speaking to The Southern Star said: ‘After that we knew we had a knack for video production and storytelling.’

Gráinne says the fact they are a female-led production company helps convince female-owned brands approach them. ‘I didn’t go to film school so I was perhaps naïve to the fact that the industry is lopsided,’ she added. ‘0.01% of creative agencies are owned by women.’

The success of the video has delighted Gráinne, who says that video production was always something she wanted to do. ‘I did a lot of the marketing in the Ludgate Hub and enjoyed the process,’ she said. ‘As a kid I wrote scripts and made films so I always knew I wanted to come back to it.’

The company still have two people working from Skibbereen - with more in Cork and Dublin - and their love for West Cork remains. ‘There’s a running joke in the company that we’ve filmed in nearly every Georgian House in West Cork,’ Gráinne said. ‘It’s such a great landscape to film in. It’s a really good canvas.’

That connection is set to continue, as Heritage have plans to shoot a short film in Ballydehob in the coming months, and are looking at other locations around the country for another short film in October.