Veracity Digital

We put forward three concepts. Imerys chose an approach that used a teaser introduction without any voice over, following the journey of a woman to work in a contemporary urban location that could be anywhere from Singapore to Toronto (actually it was Spinningfields in Manchester). En route she encounters talc wherever she goes, with discreet animated text reinforcing the message. At the end of her journey she is revealed as an Imerys Research Scientist and the remainder of the film uses motion control camera moves in a lab environment to frame information about the range of applications, innovation and attention to detail that help make Imerys the market leader.

It’s a lovely, stylishly told story that stayed very close to the original concept throughout filming and post-production. Manchester provided everything we needed in terms of locations within a 1 mile radius of the city centre. Fortunately the usual Manchester rain was absent for the 3 days of the shoot giving the city a distinctly Mediterranean vibe. We recreated the Imerys labs in an NHS Teaching facility, ideal for location filming. A warehouse apartment in the Northern Quarter was our central character’s ‘home’ and her walk to work took her via a waterside café in Castlefield to gleaming, modernist Spinningfields, with its cool international retail outlets, restaurants and offices. The apartment and outdoor location sequences were shot on the Phantom Flex, enabling us to insert elements of slow motion to highlight talc applications; the lab shots were a series of carefully choreographed overhead repeat moves on the motion control camera rig.

In post-production, motion graphics designer Michelangelo Girardi was able to “project” library shots on to the lab backgrounds, keeping everything in a context of research and innovation, concluding the film with the emergence of an animated 3D globe from the base of a laboratory flask to highlight all of Imerys’ international locations. Original music from our friends at the Music Jar completed the brand film, which was shown initially at a conference in Seville and has already received lots of positive comments for its content, originality and high quality commercial feel. Since completing the film we have travelled to the Trimouns Mine in the Pyrenees for Imerys to complete a separate time-lapse shoot at 2000m altitude. It is an exciting globally recognized client to work for and we look forward to developing our relationship with more film projects in the future.