Director Jamie Rafn shoots a one-shot-wonder for Johnnie Walker

A piper wails in a misty glen, surrounded by craggy highland scenery - not the most surprising start to a Scotch whiskey ad perhaps. And the spot's star agrees. Into the screen marches Robert Carlyle, who tells the piper to 'shut it', before launching into his story.

The film, for Johnnie Walker, The Man Who Walked Around The World, sees Carlyle stride through a landscape dotted with doors and bars and portraits and TV stacks as he recounts the tale of how a humble Scottish farmer grew an international brand. The story itself is gripping enough, with compelling copy from BBH London's Juston Moore, but what makes it all the more mesmerising is the fact the whole spot was shot in one take, with Carlyle and the camera operator navigating the treacherous countryside.

Shots caught up with HLA director Jamie Rafn.

What were the key things you wanted to achieve from Robert Carlyle's performance? What was he like to work with?
The key thing I was concerned about when we started rehearsing was making sure that the audience remained engaged with the story Robert was going to tell. Six and a half minutes is a very long time to be walking and talking without any cutting. It is also a very long time to be essentially talking about whiskey.

The other thing I was concerned about, having never worked with Robert before, was how he was going to handle the shear technical feat that is shooting a six and a half minute single take. As soon as we started rehearsing however I quickly realized that Robert is an utter genius. Not only was he (as you'd expect) absolutely professional and determined to get it just right, but he also had this abundant natural charisma. He just filled the screen and possessed it. Robert is a natural story teller, and between takes had me utterly rapt with tales from his extraordinary career. I knew as soon as we started shooting, that we were in very safe hands.

What was the brief and what did you bring to it?
The brief was essentially the speech. Justin (Moore at BBH) always had it in his mind that it should be one shot and I loved that idea. Everyone else (quite sensibly) thought that that just wouldn't happen in the two days we had to get it. We had all these meetings with post production about how we could cheat it and stitch shots together but the more we talked about it the clearer it became that the thing that would make this special was the fact that it was going to be a single shot. I did loads of research into single takes and soon discovered that six and a half minutes is pretty up there in terms of the longest ever - which was exciting.

The challenge was then to make it visually as exciting as I could and so I had to think in terms of what props to use to signal what parts of the story and what those props should look like. I didn't want to over-do the prop thing but I wanted to keep the audience engaged. My two favourite moments are the highland cow at the beginning which turns its head to camera so perfectly that it looks like a machine and the banner at the end which ended up being this great finishing line for Robert.

In terms of blocking, how precise did you have to be? What was the pre-production preparation like?
Blocking was a huge part of the challenge. Me and Steve (Plesniak - producer) started blocking it out in Hyde Park as soon as the job was confirmed. Steve would read as I scuttled backwards holding a small HDV camera. The results weren't spectacular, but it taught us a lot about where we would be placing the props, and how long it would take to walk between the props.

Steve and I then headed up to Scotland and repeated the process in the mountains in the pouring rain. We had a stack of index cards with things like "Bank of TV's" written on them and as Steve walked he'd drop the appropriate index card at the appropriate point in the story and that would be where we knew (approximately) that we'd have to place the relevant prop. By the time Robert turned up we were pretty well prepared - from a camera/technical point of view.

How many takes did you have to do to get the whole thing perfect?
The take that you have seen is the very last take we did at 8pm on the last day of the shoot. Take 40. The tension as we watched Robert do this take was unbelievable. It was such a good take at every stage and so the longer it went on without any fluffs the greater the pressure grew for nothing to go wrong. When he got to the end and I got to call cut there was this huge roar and applause from the crew and agency and I knew we had it.

Where was the film shot and what did the location add to the film?
It was shot near Loch Doyne in Scotland. The landscape is a huge part of it. It's like another character. Its hauntingly beautiful up there and we were blessed with these lovely clouds that gave us this really lovely brooding look.

How did the steadicam cope with the bumps and stones etc of a Scottish country path?
Amazingly. We also had one of the best operators in the world - George Richmond. He was sat on the back of a rickshaw being pulled up and down this rocky hill by two grips. At one point they hit such a large bump the whole thing came tumbling over and we were paranoid we'd damaged the camera. Fortunately all was fine. Everyone dusted themselves off and got on with it. The crew were brilliant.

What was the most challenging element of the job?
By 5pm on day one we hadn't managed to do one complete take. We therefore had nothing. We soon worked out that the reason for this was the huge bank of TV's which we'd placed 2 meters in the wrong position. Robert was having to slow down his walking and speed up his talking in a way that was artificial and was throwing him. There was nothing we could do but rebuild the TV's which meant wrapping and staring again the next day having achieved nothing on the first day. The following morning there were a lot of anxious faces and murmurings of "fixing it in post". Then Robert turned up and did the very first take of the day in one. As I said - the man's a genius.