August tends to be a pretty quiet period for much of the creative sector and in this respect we’re typically much like the rest of the industry. This year however, was a stark contrast that saw many of us here at Hurricane canceling our holiday plans and working flat out over the summer months to produce one of the highest profile projects we’ve ever delivered. I thought I’d put together a quick blog post to bring you up to speed with what’s been keeping us busy.
The vast majority of work that we produce is created in partnership with media, PR and events agencies of all sizes, and recently, the number and scale of agencies that we count as clients has increased exponentially. We’re very fortunate in that the brands that we produce content for, and the agencies that we count amongst our clients give us the ability to punch well above out weight.
For a long time we’ve been keen to work with global integrated communications agency Imagination, who handle live and experiential marketing for some of the world’s largest brands including Canon, Sony, Shell, Land Rover, British Airways and Aston Martin. After presenting our portfolio over the summer we were in discussions about producing content for a massively exciting project, perfectly suited to our skill-set. As a production company we use Canon products on an almost daily basis and we were delighted to be discussing producing content for the Canon Expo events, held every five years, revolving around the theme ‘We Speak Image’.
Within a matter of weeks the event plans had been finalized and Imagination had asked that we produce a number of stereoscopic 3D video projects for Canon, to be used to promote their range of Canon Xeed projectors at major events in New York and Paris. With the New York event only a matter of weeks away we had a lot of work to do, with the first 3 stereoscopic films needed on a very tight deadline. After a couple of weeks of long days, and even later nights, phase one was ready for delivery and our weary eyed graphics department were very much looking forward to a well earned rest before we commenced on the second phase, the much larger scale Paris project.
One of the aims of the second project was to look at how car designers were using stereoscopic 3D in order to design and visualize new vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover kindly agreed that we could spend a day filming with them at their design facility in Warwick. This gave us the opportunity to film inside their £2 million 3D cave, one of the only systems of its type in the UK. Because the content we were producing was to be delivered entirely in 3D the filming also had to be done on a hugely elaborate 3D camera rig, which would be more at home on the set of one of the world’s biggest 3D blockbusters. We got to see the interior and exterior of new vehicles, from precisely the same perspective as the designer would see, with the ability to manipulate dials and instruments in a virtual 3D space. We also visited Holovis to look at how S3D was being used by architects to design landscapes and buildings within a virtual environment.
Once we’d finished filming the laborious task on post production began, because of the nature of the project every stage of proofing also had to be done in 3D, which meant Jon spent a lot of time sat on the M4 with a giant 3DTV screen in the back of the car.
It’s quite rare that we ever get to see the content that we’ve produced being used for its intended purpose. The project had run smoothly from start to finish and the client was delighted with the work we’d done so when we were asked if we would like to visit Paris to see the film being screened to Canon’s 15,000 delegates at Canon Expo Europe we jumped at the opportunity. After a boozy night out in Paris we eagerly made our way to the venue the following morning to see Canon’s vast range of products filling over 8,000 square metres of exhibition space. After a tour of the various exhibits we were led to the projection dome area, beneath which we were handed a pair of 3D glasses and led into the stereoscopic imaging room where 2 giant screens displayed the content we’d been busily working on over the summer. It was a truly cinematic experience that we were all glad we got to enjoy. The rest of what was on show at the Expo easily justifies a blog post of it’s own but as the Eurostar is slowly approaching St Pancras I think I’ll leave that for another day. Suffice to say, we all had a great time and we look forward to working with everybody that worked on the project again in the future.