Hong Kong, China. 2007.10.30 - When a photographer asks for a 30-40 meter crane from which to shoot long exposure images, in a city notorious for fluctuating winds, lateral thinking is mandatory!
When a Producer has decades of film-making experience, in a multitude of countries and a wide diversity of projects, a massive knowledge base ensures a capacity to solve almost any production problem which may arise.
Essential Asia's Executive Producer Andrew W Morse and Producer Andy Chan Wing Kei considerd the problem and arrived at the decision that only a fixed structure would work. Therefore lateral thinking might be more accurately described as perpendicular thinking! Andy secured permission from the Commander of a Hong Kong Fire Training facility to shoot from a 35 metre training tower and turn his helicopter landing pad and large training area as a film set!
The photographic shoot, for the launch of an international hotel chain, required constructing 2 sets on this makeshift 'backlot' and populating them with 80 extras. After these challenges, contesting with rain during the night shoot, was merely a minor irritation.
Andy Chan, who has worked with Andrew W Morse of Essential Asia since 1991, has the excellent guanxi (relationships) with both Hong Kong and mainland China authorities, necessary to enable smooth application processing and flexible response to production requirements.
Essential has an extensive heritage of stills photography. Over almost 3 decades, photographic projects have encompassed a wide range of sectors and locations. These have included the stills for the launch of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, images for the long running Absolut (bottle shape) campaign, and pro bono photography with Jackie Cheung for the community service organisation "Helping Hand".
About Essential For decades, Essential is a brand which has been delivering film production services to advertising agencies and recognised global brands. Since 1979, the company has provided production personnel for television mini-series, major Hollywood studio feature films, television commercial, corporate films and photography on locations around the world. Clients have included: Absolut, Citizen, Mercedes-Benz, Merck, NBC, OOCL and Twentieth Century Fox.
In 2002, Essential was acquired by communications solutions provider, Digital Tsunami.
About Digital Tsunami Digital Tsunami's delivers effective marketing communications solutions including: eStrategy, film, identity, interactive, photography and print for global brands, MNCs and innovative SMEs through offices in Australia and China. Digital Tsunami was founded in 1996 in Hong Kong.
