When we were first briefed on the Paralympics, only 14% of the population said they were looking forward to them. We set out to overcome this, and do that in a way that was noisy and had plenty of Channel 4 attitude. The ad captures the grit and determination of Paralympians in training, and the way they’ve triumphed over adversity to become elite athletes. We wanted to jolt people to see the ability beyond the disability. The Paralympics sold out for the first time ever, and 11.2 million watched the opening ceremony – the biggest Channel 4 audience in over 10 years.

'Meet the Superhumans' was filmed over 14 days at various locations across the country. The main challenge was finding time with the teams and the individual athletes. By the time production had begun all the athletes were in the midst of intense training regimes. The shoot days were spread over a number of months so that we could coordinate the athletes availability and ensure the venues we had recce'd would be available at the same time. Alongside that we also had to film our other elements, which involved recreating a war scene explosion and flipping a car over on a motorway.

Every shoot day was scheduled with the athletes in mind, ensuring it had a minimum impact on their training sessions. Often the crew would travel to locations close to the athlete so we could maximise the amount of filming time. This took the crew to Cardiff, Newport, Sheffield and the original home of the Paralympics, Stoke Mandeville as well as various locations in London. Ultimately we were fortunate that all the athletes (and coaches/management) were keen to take part.

During production we were given access to a number of test events such as the Paralympics GB swimming team selection heats in Sheffield and an athletics test event in the Olympic park. We often had no time to recce or rehearse at the events but those competitions gave us a lot of the powerful shots that are in the final cut.

The promo was shot using a variety of cameras, including Alexa, Phantom, 5D and Go-Pros. We used various rigs to try and produce as many interesting shots as possible, from a hydrascope crane for filming underwater to go-pros rigged to wheelchairs.