Leaving a rainy Scotland, our hero arrives in Hong Kong, and enjoys the cultural shock before adapting to his new life…

Collaborating with the very talented illustrator Harry Harrison (SCMP, Wall Street Journal), we concentrated all our efforts on animating his two-dimensional drawings.

We intially received them in black and white, then applied various composition tricks to bring elements of cinema to the illustrations. Additionally, we supplied the storyboards, sound effects and Scottish voice over.

Two weeks, roughly 160 drawings and several coffee breaks later, we delivered a unique anniversary video for a private event hosted by Eventsman.

Following the success of The Investigation, Filmages went incognito once again to uncover the latest mouth-watering line-up of La Rose Noire products.

Filming in multiple locations in Hong Kong and in the Philippines, our team pulled out all the visual storytelling tricks that would keep the audience informed and entertained.

Shaheen Sports Club, building character since 1982, celebrated their 35th anniversary partnering with Filmages to pay homage to their youth football and hockey teams.

Our videographers were just getting warmed up as they took to the streets of Mong Kok to visit Shaheen Home Base. Then, with a freshly broken sweat, we got stuck into the action as they battled it out at Adidas Sports Base.

With this tribute we thank the coaches for instilling the spirit of sportsmanship and creativity in the youth, and helping us shed a few ounces at the same time.

Having covered the event several times over the years, we pulled together a crew of videographers and photographers and high-tailed it to The Landmark's Boutique Boulevard.

Live performances by Rain and Bebe Rexha kept our team on their toes as they tustled through the crowds to cover every angle of the event.

While the guests partied on into the night, we did not rest until all photos and video were delivered the next morning.

With a city as dense and diverse as Hong Kong, virtually every neighbourhood has a unique quality and character.

Finding the right group of friends to explore Hung Hom was a good place to start.

How could our talents keep their cool and beat the excruciating summer heat?
Work hard by playing hard for the crew, of course!

What does the future hold? What are the major innovations that are going to deeply change the construction industry?
From robots to GammonBot, from exoskeletons to remote-controlled cranes, from 3D concrete printers to virtual dashboard, new technology is coming fast and implementation is on its way to 2030.

If you thought you could escape from your electronic devices when playing sports, think again! Coachbase's neat app is making its way onto the best basketball courts around the world.

In this 60 second explainer we needed to feature the app's extraordinary ease of use, so we put it to work in real-life.

We based our story around the character of a full-time professional / part-time coach, switching between third and first-person perspectives. To do this we built a custom "iCamera" rig to track the app while our actor was on the move.

Oh, and casting a team of American-looking teenagers in Hong Kong during the summer holidays was not the least of our challenges...

When you work in the creative industry, there is not much that separates your passion from your work.

The team at Passion By Gerard Dubois understand this labour of love and we endeavoured to reflect that commitment in this tribute to their retail brand.

Finishing touches in post-production added that extra dash of magic using creative visual tricks, motion graphics and illustration.

Standing high on the hillside, Hong Kong Parkview cultivates a lifestyle with an appreciation for art and a healthy, family-oriented community. Their exclusive members club has all the facilities and amenities to make it an oasis away from the city. 

The numerous athleisure spaces challenged our ability to show guests having fun without over-staging it. 

Their well-equipped gym facilities gave us the opportunity to make their talented PT's sweat, for once, as we were the one's calling for more reps, probably more than twice. 

Working with their tennis club members and a spritely trio of kids meant we could focus on getting the right drone and steady cam shots while they focussed on keeping their energy up. 

A Tale of Two Apps...

The brief was to create 3 different edits, showcasing the HK Disneyland Park app, PhotoPass app, and one edit that would combine both. Pressed by the upcoming holiday season, we had to pull the whole production - storyboarding, location scouting, talent sourcing - in just a couple of weeks. Shooting from sunrise to sunset on one of the hottest days of the year certainly added another level of difficulty, but made it happen.

During post-production, the challenge was to tell a story that demonstrated the two different apps' functionalities without being too long or confusing, and up to Disney's high standards.
 

We had two days to shoot all the footage necessary for three different edits - hotel, food & beverage and spa. Therefore, to avoid disrupting the guests at Banyan Tree Macau, it was essential that we planned production down to the smallest detail. 

Storyboarding each scene was crucial as our movements had to be carefully coordinated with access to locations limited to specific times during the day. 

Admittedly though, it was the first time talents asked for more takes. 

In 1969 the then British Administration of Hong Kong commissioned young architect Ron Philips to design what was to become a major post-modernist landmark.

How The Murray was to become a flagship of luxury brand's Niccolo Hotels was left to us to show and tell, using a bespoke mix of interviews, timelapses and breathtaking drone shots to create this pre-opening movie.

How could we turn a classic case of corporate need into a piece of entertainment? How could we engage an audience of existing customers with the details of the whole of La Rose Noire's processes?

We turned the story upside down! Instead of highlighting the positive points of production, we lead the audience into a dramatic exploration of LRN operations from the perspective of hired investigators.

For what was a rather dark movie, we had to come up with a positive resolution to ensure the audience came away informed and satisfied.
 

AsiaSat was launching their new corporate branding initiative, and needed a video to broadcast their revamped identity and reaffirm their business positioning.

Shot in 4K/Ultra HD over just a few days, we were particularly challenged by consistently bad weather over Hong Kong, so the time-lapse involved a lot of composition magic to look glorious.

For this Fall/Winter 2013 and third installment of One Central Macau‘s promotional movies, following Gaile Lai and Donnie Yen, it was no less impressive to work with Mainland China’s Megastar Huang Xiao Ming.

A renowned actor, singer and model with over 20 Millions followers on Weibo, brand ambassador for Tissot and ridiculously good looking, Huang Xiao Ming turned out to be very friendly and easy to work with. This was crucial as the whole movie was shot in just half a day since we had to share time with the photographer and keep the excited fans at bay.

But as Huang Xiao Ming played the game, reacting very positively to our direction, we were able to wrap the whole movie just in time for sunset on the One Central Macau promenade.

For this movie, we were given total carte blanche on the creative.
We wanted to stay away from the tired style of the step-by-step recipe video, but at the same time, we also wanted to avoid being purely abstract. We put Chef Alvin from Bo Innovation into the context of his hometown, as this segment will address a predominantly International audience, who may look to choose Hong Kong as their next gastronomic destination.

Classic Fine Foods is the market leading importer and distributor of the finest ingredients. It serves the vast majority of five-star hotels and high-end restaurants in Asia, with an expanding presence in the Middle East and Europe.
To pay tribute to their favourite Chefs, they have commissioned a “World’s Top Chefs series”, with a second movie about Umberto Bombana.

Shortly after this movie was released, Alvin Leung was selected as one of the renowned judges for MasterChef Canada, the popular reality/cooking show, and the producers asked us the permission to use some of the footage we produced with Alvin for the show's trailer. Alvin’s legendary showmanship is great fun to watch, as he is definitely not mincing words!

Being nominated in 3 categories at the prestigious the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) 2014 Annual Awards is quite an achievement, but this was only the beginning for Knight Frank because they only had days to piece together their 45-second video submission per category nomination.

We got a call just a week before Chinese New Year. That’s right; THE Chinese New Year that paralyses the entire region for a full week. By experience we knew that submissions would be judged on hard facts contained in the printed submission. However, we knew that we had to create something fresh and bold for the fastidious jury panel. Moreover, win or lose, we wanted the videos to steal the show!

So we proposed to intertwine 3 athletic disciplines with the 3 categories in order to surprise, delight, and leave a long-lasting impression. It was a risky pitch, but we were pleasantly surprised to receive the full trust and creative support from KF.

“Big thanks to you and your team in producing such high quality videos! We got two [out of three] of the awards nailed – Residential and the Professional Services. The videos were the talk of the town last night and we received big compliments in terms of our out-of-the-box presentation of our teams.”
Natalie Tsui, Head of Marketing & Communications - Knight Frank 

A jewellery box of handmade heart-shaped chocolates,
2,000 premium Ecuadorian red roses,
a fleet of 14 Rolls Royce Phantoms,
set amongst a breathtaking view of Victoria Harbour...

... all converge to create a timeless moment of gastronomic excellence and romance.

We love a challenge and Gammon has always made sure to raise the stakes when it comes to testing our shooting and story-telling abilities.

This year we turned our lenses towards the one's who make such iconic infrastructure possible: those unsung heroes, the unamed workers, and their commitment to the Gammon promise.

We used the workers' daily Qigong practice as a storyline, and created a double exposure aesthetic to show them as an essential part of the construction process.

A 3-minute compilation of 9 movies that Filmages produced for UK Trade & Investment’s “Business Opportunities in Asia-Pacific” campaign.

Our challenge was that we had only 2 days to shoot in each country over a 4-week period. During this time we endured the rapidly changing Asian summer monsoon season. Surviving no less than 4 typhoons, we directed the interviews in a plethora of places, skillfully managing our shooting schedule throughout these chaotic conditions. 

Additionally, editing each segment to promote the uniqueness of each country, finding 8 music tracks to match, whilst maintaining the overall consistency of the series was a tough nut to crack. Eventually, the entire post-production process for the 9 edits was then completed in 8 weeks.

“Very passionate, creative and dedicated team with lots of ideas and suggestions. We are very pleased and impressed with the video teasers Filmages has done for us. Two thumbs up.” Meeta Dancel, Marketing Manager – UK Trade & Investment, Asia Pacific & South Africa

Platinum Winner - AVA Awards 2010

The Challenge: Cosmo Supply Lab is a leading manufacturer of mix-material accessories, mostly for “Who Shall Not Be Named”. So we had to show without showing, explain without being specific, demonstrate without end products, yet convince uncompromisingly.
Yeah.

HK Tramways was bought out in April 2011 by a French JV between RATP (the Parisian MTR) and Véolia Transportation. Most low income people were worried that foreign investment would take advantage and raise fares. The general public was also very worried about the future of their beloved Ding-Ding. So far the new management has been very respectful of the tradition and is doing its best to modernize the fleet whilst remaining the lowest travel fare in Hong Kong.

With a limited budget and enormous logistical constraints due to the nature of the railways lines, Filmages chose to portray the evolution of the city and its architecture by following the same woman through 4 distinct eras:
- Pre-WWII (1904-1945) with elegant Cheongsam or Qipao
- The 50s and 60s, with the emergence of a growing female working force
- The eccentric 70’s
- Modern-day with a natural look with a touch of Chinese silk tradition.

Special thanks to Charlot Kryza (Stylist), Jan (Model) & Jojo (Hair & Make-up)
Another version of that movie was created for the Hong Kong Tramways 110th Anniversary
 

Datasource International, is a company who specializes in translation services. They contacted Filmages to help them develop a new brand campaign with video as a spearheading component.

Data is flowing faster than many organizations can manage. We produced a teaser video to attract I.T. executives to download a white paper on big data, converged systems, virtualization, cloud computing and so on...

A bit of a dry topic? Well, we managed to develop an original and catchy animation to raise the eyebrows of busy I.T. experts.

Our ITX character is simple, yet tells a rather complex story with basic movements and facial expressions.

One month later; a jazzy tune, casual voice over, an eye-catching color scheme and some delicate transitions bring the Hitachi Data Systems' technical findings to life.

 

We went behind-the-scenes and captured the glamour of a high-end photo shoot, and as usual we had to work discreetly around the photographer.

Back in the edit room we decided to highlight specific elements of fashion by using a magnifying graphic system. This allowed us to showcase details on accessories, wools, and furs and show how breathtaking winter fashion truly looked like. 

We cooked up some anticipation for the Mapic event held in Cannes, France.

To contrast the strict and practical expectations of a corporate evening we came up with an original approach that would surprise and entertain the attendees.
With animation we displayed the award process as a recipe, really attracting the attention of the crowd.  Using simple, yet strong design, with some special sound effects, the metaphor lighted some sparkles in the audience and really set the tone for the rest of the night.

Et voilà!

In the age of attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, 140 max-character IMs, and 15-seconds video clips, watching a 12-minute long documentary might seem like a sizeable task. But there are people who dedicate their lives to saving others, and that doesn't happen in a snap.
Hong Kong University - Pasteur Research Centre needed a corporate documentary to present their latest activities and appeal for research sponsorship. Filmages created a whole set of communication materials, including a brochure, a website, and a 12-minute long video.
This enabled HKU-PRC to secure an endowment fund and further contribute to the fight against infectious diseases.

We also produced a full scale exhibition at HKU Museum and Art Galleries (UMAG) "From the Plague to new Emerging Diseases"

Originally built in 1881, the historical site where Hullett House stands today is one of the four oldest surviving government buildings in Hong Kong. For more than 100 years it was occupied by Hong Kong’s Royal Marine Police.

To celebrate its renovation and re-opening to the public, as an ultimate lifestyle destination, we juxtaposed representations of the golden era of the 50s - a cheongsam dressed model with matching hair and make-up - next to modern day Hong Kong.

Additionally, we brought back to life old black and white postcards and, in doing so, encapsulated the rich heritage of this colonial era landmark.

Never forget where you came from. 

La Rose Noire may have an incredibly successful global enterprise now, but they never forgot their humble beginning as a single cake shop.
Although the high-demand grew them into a wholesale manufacturer, they always kept a deep love for retail.
So in 2012 they opened the “Passion” patisserie and asked Filmages to produce a social-media teaser.

Our main challenge was to introduce the audience to an unusually large array of products.
We decided to bring in two dancers with different outfits, choreography and mood lighting to represent various consumers and their respective appetites. 

Join Nicolas Chow, international head of Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, as he introduces highlights from the September 2012 sale of Qing Imperial Monochromes from the J.M. Hu Collection.