Princess Yachts takes visual production to a new level with the premiere of its stunning new film, starring real people and real crew. Ambitious story boarding meets continuous motion, complex rigging, and an exquisite backdrop, all underpinned by a stellar soundtrack – and captured by iconic cameras and vintage anamorphic lenses.
Designed to bring to life the exceptional experience of life aboard a Princess – and to showcase the 35M as the ultimate family-oriented superyacht – the luxury yacht brand tells the story of a real family enjoying quality time together aboard their boat in Mallorca.
“When we first embarked on this project, the word ‘ambitious’ felt like an understatement,” says Nick Brown, Cinematographer, Craft Films. “We wanted to follow the interaction of the family and crew moving through every space, and that could only be achieved by rigging up the cameras to move from deck to deck seamlessly. From a technical point of view, our major challenge was moving smoothly through different rooms on the boat to truly capture the feel of continuous motion. And an added layer of narrative complexity entailed creating the sense of an experience moving through time, to emulate an entire day aboard within just a few minutes.”
KiranHaslam, Marketing Director for Princess Yachts explains: “Despite meticulous planning, we faced many challenges, and while not quite as epic as Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’, it was definitely the toughest film project in Princess’ 52-year history! In Craft Films we had some of the finest filmmakers in the world today, and the support of the yacht’s owner and his crew made the seemingly impossible, suddenly possible.”
To create this cinema-standard, six-minute mini-movie, Craft Films chose to shoot on the ArriAlexa coupled with Panavision G series anamorphic lenses, to capture the yacht with a luscious tonality. The lenses had to be lightweight as the film crew were using a handheld gimbal, often rigged with a complex cable and pulley system to enable the camera to track across the exterior of the yacht while out at sea.
Shooting on water in open conditions presented a number of other complications: keeping the light consistent, combatting changing winds, positioning the superyacht in a current over an ever-shifting tide, limits on numbers aboard while out at sea, and dealing with moisture in high heat and humidity, to name but a few.
The team met these challenges and produced a remarkable film with a soundtrack by Esperanza Spalding, and a striking animation sequence of the brand’s conservation champion, Enid.
KiranHaslam added: “We are enormously proud of this original film, and it is testament to the fantastic team involved both in front of and behind the lens. It was one of our most ambitious projects to date, and is a sign of things to come as we now plan our next epic cinematic experience to further propel the Princess brand, and raise the bar on audio-visual production in the marine industry.”
