If you live in the UAE, we’re going to guess that your Facebook feed is often populated by the latest videos of Dubai, some good and some bad. A popular favourite is the ol’ timelapse of the sun setting/rising, probably with some impressive building(s) in the foreground. Now while they are all well and good, we came across a video that is just that and oh-so-much-more.
The film captures the relentless pace of the city’s construction via a tracking timelapse across most of Dubai’s landmarks. Upon first viewing the immediate question is… How?! How is it was made? Followed quickly by, were films made of all those projects? Have the images been digitally created from scratch?
To find the answers, we spoke to Nigel Hunt, CEO of Black Rabbit Agency Group (BRAG) and producer of the video, how it all went down:
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Where did the idea for this video come from?
The BBC requested a film that demonstrated human achievement, with a focus on urbanisation and cities. With the challenges Dubai has overcome it was by far our first choice.
How long did it take to make, from the first shot to final edit?
After the BBC agreed to the budget and signed off the storyboard concept, it took four months to deliver.
How many people were in the team?
16.
What equipment did you use? Mainly drones?
Time was our enemy so we didn’t have the luxury of filming principal photography. However we managed to acquire all the shots we needed for the visual effects team to then manipulate and enhance. The visual effects team used the same software as used in Hollywood feature films, including 3D animation tools.
How did you show the construction of the villas on The Palm?
We wanted to show the development and construction of buildings with time-lined accuracy. Our production team researched the history of Dubai’s construction and created a timeline spreadsheet of as many buildings as we could find.
Talk us through the Google Earth-type shots.
The brief actually asked for a satellite view time-lapse, so we used Google as a reference and our texture artists then digitally painted rather large, 20,000 pixel photographic images. We created one for each year.
BRAG produces a few aerial style videos, was this just another one in the books or did it prove quite the challenge?
Given the fact we didn’t need any shoot locations, it was actually a relatively easy project. We’ve actually produced many photorealistic CGI time-lapse sequences. This film was a massive undertaking. I would say the main challenge was Dubai’s humid and hazy October weather which meant we couldn’t get aerial shots to capture the city wide views from the Creek. Sometimes it’s best to do it all in CGI, and not in camera!
Watch more creative films from Black Rabbit Agency Group here
