The Betfred Derby Festival: Archival Video Editing and Sound Design

The Commercial Challenge
Epsom Downs Racecourse needed a video series to do two jobs at once: drive ticket sales and excitement in the build-up to the Betfred Derby Festival, and tell the story of a race with over a century of heritage behind it. The brief required a partner who could work within strict brand guidelines, handle historical footage responsibly, and turn it into a body of work that felt fresh on social media without losing the weight of the event's history.

Our Strategic Approach
We took full ownership of the edit, working through decades of Pathé archival footage alongside modern content from 2020 to present day. Rather than treating this as a nostalgia piece, we built a clear visual and sonic contrast between eras, letting the footage choices and sound design do the storytelling, so the difference between "then" and "now" was always unmistakable, never explained.

The Deliverables
• A series of five videos built from archival and modern footage
• Bespoke sound design combining historical audio with new elements
• A landscape "then vs now" film for both social media and on-site big screen playback
• Licensing sourced and managed in line with the client's requirements
• Strict adherence to brand guidelines throughout

The Production Reality
This was a video editing and sound design project from start to finish, with no shoot day to manage, which meant the entire commercial weight sat on curation and craft. We dug through Pathé's archive and the client's own modern content library, working to strict brand guidelines and handling all licensing requirements in-house so the client didn't have to. Sound design was central to the storytelling: we sourced historical audio to sit alongside the archival footage, layering it against newer sound to sharpen the contrast between eras.

The Commercial Outcome
The five-video series generated over 100,000 combined views on Instagram, giving the Betfred Derby Festival a pre-event content push that built excitement while reinforcing the race's heritage. The landscape "then vs now" film did double duty, running as social content and on the big screens at Epsom Downs on race day itself; a single asset serving both the digital campaign and the live event.

Client Verdict
"I have really enjoyed working with Novus Nine, they were incredibly professional, came with lots of new, creative ideas and I loved the finished result! I would recommend to anyone looking to tell their brand story through engaging content."
Tori Dexter, Epsom Downs Racecourse