Danny Hunt of MCBD, comprising a set of "mood films" constructed from stock footage, and the idea of "the perilous journey a young boy takes through 122 years of British history to bring the small brown load back to his mam." The pitch was presented to Qualitative Assessment, a focus group of consumers, where it met a very positive response. From there, Goldman took the proposal directly to Robert Schofield, the head of Premier Foods, who greenlit the project immediately. A budget of £1,000,000 was put aside for production of the commercial alone, over three times as much as had ever been spent on production of a Premier Foods commercial to that date. With permission to go ahead, MCBD began searching for a director to lead the production, eventually settling on Ringan Ledwidge. Ledwidge, who was working with Daniel Kleinman at the London-based production company Rattling Stick, had a reputation for good work on "magical realism" projects, with previous work including Forever for Volkswagen in 2002, and Rewind City for Orange earlier in 2008. The Hovis campaign, now assigned the title Go On Lad, was the most expensive and complex commercial Ledwidge had directed to date. With only four months set aside for production of the commercial, work began in earnest on scouting for locations and cast capable of presenting the desired tone for Go On Lad. Several locations across the United Kingdom were looked at as potential sites for the six-day shoot, but while the producers of Boy On Bike had dressed a street in Dorset to appear Northern, Ledwidge opted to film in Northern England itself. Liverpool's Sweeting Street was dressed for use as the setting for the opening Victorian scene, while Falkner Street appeared as the World War I and interbellum scenes. Workers for the City Council partially demolished three buildings to set the scene for the Blitz section, bringing in over fifty tonnes of rubble for the set dressing. Locals of Hardy Street in Garston were recruited as extras for the Coronation scene, which was filmed at that location. In all, over 1750 people were hired to act as extras in Go On Lad, including over 200 members of historical reenactment societies for the World War I scene alone. In casting for the role of the boy, Ledwidge wanted to eschew the "stylised blonde healthy child seen in most modern European advertising" in favour of someone