case studyfilm · hong kong tourism board
A tourism film for Hong Kong, with no skyline in it.
Made for the Hong Kong Tourism Board. A fisherman takes a boat out in the early light and the egrets follow the wake. No harbour front, no Peak, no light show, none of the images a traveller has already seen a thousand times before they book.
The birds, following the boat out
Hong Kong's tourism imagery is a fixed set: the skyline, the harbour, the tram, the neon. It is accurate, it is exhausted, and it describes a city the viewer has already seen, which gives them no reason to go and look. So the film takes one small true thing instead, out on the water at first light, and lets it stand for everything the postcard leaves out.
The challenge
A destination with famous imagery has a specific problem: the famous imagery is doing all the work and has stopped persuading anyone.
A traveller has seen the skyline. Showing it again confirms what they already assume, which is that they know what Hong Kong is.
The job is to suggest there is a version they have not seen, without saying so.
How we approached it
One fisherman, one boat, and the birds that follow it, shot in the early light out on the water.
No landmark appears. The city is present at the edges of frame and never announced, so the viewer places it themselves.
The result is Hong Kong without a single postcard in it, which is the only version that implies there is more to find.
the filmthe delivered cut
Two minutes twenty-six, on the water.
One boat, one morning, and the birds.
Hong Kong Tourism Board · 2:26 · sound on
the lawwhat this one proves
A place is sold by the thing the brochure left out.
Famous imagery confirms what an audience already believes and therefore changes nothing. The persuasive material is always the specific, small and unfamiliar thing, because it is the only evidence that the visitor's assumption about the place is incomplete.
Converted from Hong Kong dollars at indicative rates. Work is quoted and billed in HKD.
A place, or a product, that everyone thinks they already know.
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