case studyfilm · harbourside hq
A leasing film flown at the height of the floors being let.
A renovated commercial office tower in Hong Kong, filmed for leasing. Everything measurable is already in the brochure. What the brochure cannot do is put a prospective tenant at the height they would be working at, looking at what they would be looking at.
Flown at the height of the floors being let
Commercial leasing material is a specification. Floorplates, ceiling heights, lift cores, efficiency ratios, end-of-trip facilities. All of it necessary, none of it the reason a company signs a fifteen-year lease. That decision is made on how the building feels to arrive at and what it looks out on, and neither is on a floor plan. So the tower was flown rather than walked.
The challenge
A tower is marketed as a set of numbers, because numbers are what a shortlist is built from and what an agent is asked for first.
But a shortlist is not a decision. By the time two buildings are being compared, the numbers are close enough to be a wash, and what separates them is unmeasurable: the arrival, the light, the thing you look at all day.
None of that survives a floor plan or a rendered elevation.
How we approached it
The film climbs the facade at the height of the floors being let, so the harbour arrives the way it will from a desk rather than the way it looks from the street.
Then it comes inside, through the lobby, the lift lobbies and the lounges, at walking pace.
It ends at night, when the district around it is doing the work of selling the address.
the filmthe delivered cut
Two minutes nineteen, ground to skyline.
Facade, arrival, floors, and the district at night.
Harbourside HQ · 2:19 · sound on
the floorsa sample high floor
The floor a tenant is actually leasing, flown end to end.
The tower film sells the building. This one sells the space inside it: a bare high floor flown in one continuous move, out to the glass, along the harbour side, and back through the lift lobby. An agent can send it to a tenant who cannot get to a viewing this week.
Sample high floor, flown in one take · 1:48
the cutthe viewing, in order
Two minutes, in the order a tenant meets the building.
Address, arrival, floor, amenity, owner. That is the sequence of an actual viewing.
beat 01
The mark, once, on white
Held long enough to read and no longer. A property film that opens on a long brand sequence has spent its best thirty seconds.
beat 02
One aerial, for the address
The tower against the harbour. In Hong Kong commercial property the address is most of the argument, so it is made immediately.
beat 03
Arrival, at eye level
The lobby as somebody walking in would meet it. This is the first thirty seconds of a viewing and it is shot at walking height.
beat 04
The building in use
People working at a table under the ring lights. Empty rooms photograph beautifully and let nobody picture themselves in them.
beat 05
The part that is not desks
Lounge, armchairs, breakout. This is what a tenant is actually comparing between two towers with the same floorplate.
beat 06
Close on the owner
The building is the product; the group behind it is the guarantee. The endcard is the covenant, not the branding.
the lawwhat this one proves
Property is decided at eye level, from a height you cannot reach on foot.
Every measurable thing about a building is already public and already matched by the building next door. The unmeasurable part is the whole margin, and drone is the only way to put a viewer at the fortieth floor before they have agreed to a viewing.
Converted from Hong Kong dollars at indicative rates. Work is quoted and billed in HKD.
A building that has to be understood before anyone will visit it.
Turnaround is agreed with you before work starts.
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