Design Principles Pod
Architecture. A hot topic, a buzz word, a realm for the rich and famous, or the thing that your step uncle does? We will be unpacking the good, the bad and the downright reality of the architectural and construction industry. With insights from industry professionals and personal anecdotes from our three hosts Ben, Gerard and Sam, you will be given a look behind the closed pages of those fancy looking moleskins. Tune in and redline out.
Design Principles Pod
The Narrative Power: Architecture & Film, Take Two
What if a building could be more than an object on a pedestal and instead feel like a living character on screen? We sit down with two architectural filmmakers, Nikolas Struger from ravens At Odds and Veeral Patel who show how to move beyond glossy hero shots and capture the heartbeat of design: process, people, and emotion. From software and cycling photography to architecture practice and brand strategy, their varied paths lead to the same conclusion—storytelling is the missing bridge between architects, clients, and the public.
We unpack the craft behind compelling architectural film, starting with strategy. Short, vertical cutdowns can spark curiosity and build trust, while longer pieces on your site deliver depth and nuance. Preproduction is everything: treatments to align on tone and references, storyboards that map scenes to sun paths and locations, and schedules that protect the moments you can’t fake. On set, preparation meets improvisation as documentary instincts catch the unplanned gestures that make a space feel alive.
This conversation goes beyond formats to focus on value. Forget chasing view counts. Strong films create social proof, clarify process, and strengthen pitches by reducing perceived risk. We discuss budget tiers, when to choose interviews over pure visuals, and how music, sound design, or even silence can carry narrative. Nik and Veeral share examples of process-driven edits, client-led arcs, and long-form projects that track a home through years of delays, decisions, and everyday life—proof that architecture resonates most when it reflects human stakes.
If you’re tired of slick reels that say little, you’ll find practical guidance on planning light, collaborating with crews, and structuring stories that audiences remember. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs a narrative upgrade, and leave a review telling us: which project in your world deserves a film—and why?
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Mum mummy, it's windy out there. Time to settle down with a tasty drop. Limited Release 34 is a European style pilsner brewed with German Pilsner malt, including Italian ground barley, and a blend of German and Czech hops. In the modern Italian style, this bear is also lightly hot, bringing yuzu, red berry, and subtle spice notes to complement the bready malt character and snappy bitterness. Bello. Take two. We're back, chatting about the place of film and architecture. After our last episode with Simon and Claire, we had heaps of feedback and some interest from a couple of architectural filmmakers from across the ditch. This episode, Veral Patal, aka Mr. Verrell, and Nicholas Struger from Ravens at Odds join us to unpack how film can deepen our understanding and relationship to architecture. Thoroughly enjoy this chat and the opportunity to dive a little bit deeper into a topic, especially with a different lens. Let's dive back in. Both of you guys um wrote in last time saying great chat, but we want to kind of continue things and look at it from a probably more of a filmmaker's lens and maybe even a longer format lens. So for those out there that don't know your work, um, do you guys want to quickly give uh a brief introduction to yourselves before we jump into the chat?
SPEAKER_01:Hi, um so I'm a Melbourne-based photographer and filmmaker. So my original background was in software engineering and had a midlife crisis, changed careers, took up cycling photography. From that, I met a bunch of architects who started feeding me a lot of work in architecture. And I sort of moved from shooting bike races in Europe to shooting architecture in Melbourne. And because of COVID, I decided to pick up filmmaking. And that has been a very interesting career transition in my arc because it's it has allowed me to learn a whole heap of new heap of new skills and the way you approach creativity as well.
SPEAKER_02:Shooting bikes into shooting architecture seems quite a common jump. I feel like Simon David might have done the same. And we've got a friend who we both, Gerrard and I went to university with Logan Sweeney, who um well he kind of did architecture and now shoots ski jumping and cycling. But I don't know why they seem intrinsically involved, but they seem to be.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a former cyclist as well, so yeah, it all checks it out. Um but yeah, so I I'm a former architect turn architectural filmmaker, I guess. So I run a production and branding company called Ravens at Odds here in Brisbane. Um and we're working like day in, day out within the architecture industry. But I guess I kind of I started in architecture and then I jumped out, moved around the world, did a whole bunch of different things, explored different interests from graphic design to music production, web design, marketing, live sound, probably farming or something as well when I was living overseas, all sorts of different things kind of, you know, in that in that arc of kind of figuring out what you want to do when you grow up. Um and at some point along the way, kind of came back to architectural practice, but not as an architect, working in more of a production and and communications role. At some point I had this idea that I wanted to make films about architecture, which I guess was a way to pull in a whole lot of interests and influences that I had personally, but to bring it back into the profession that I was passionate about and so heavily involved in throughout my life. And yeah, since since 2020 have been making full uh making films full-time about architecture. Awesome. How long were you practicing? Probably not as long as I could have. Um I I practiced throughout my undergrad and masters and then worked for about probably four or five years after that, before kind of taking off overseas, and then I came back to practice for about five years, but not that was not as an architect at that point, as I was saying. But I've been throughout that period, I've been working adjacent to architecture the whole time. So it's something I kind of love and understand.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, that perspective would help a lot, wouldn't it? I wonder if a lot of it is is some of what you do sort of in response to things that raised whilst whilst you were practicing? Maybe things weren't being presented in a way that you thought they could or something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely. I think I think I formed a whole lot of ideas whilst I was in practice, either as an architect or as a whatever other role I had, particularly around communication and storytelling. And that that was probably a a realization that I came to quite recently. Was that at the core, that's the thing that I'm quite interested in is telling stories, whether that's like a a bigger, kind of, you know, more encompassing thing about architecture and the world and life, or whether it's a, I suppose, a more commercial thing of just kind of helping helping a brand or a practice communicate their story or their ethos or something. But I've kind of looked back on my career across different fields and been able to see that that's the common thread, whether it's telling stories through graphic design or through text or websites or whatever. That's always that thread that's been there. So that I guess that's a thing that interests me quite a lot. And it's a thing that's like so so intimately entwined with filmmaking.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting. Reading both your guys' sort of bios, I did a little bit of research, you know, went all pro on this. But you're both you both really highlight that, you know, the narrative side um in the work that you do. And it's interesting that you both have come to this, not later in life, I'm not saying that you guys are old, but it wasn't like first-stop career point of view, and you kind of both have look, you know, come at it from different perspectives, but obviously with that narrative in focus. And Gerard, like what you were seeing was Nick's response to moving into film reaction, I guess, to not issues, but maybe shortcomings within the industry. Do you feel that we as architects or the architectural community don't portray the narrative that well? Because I always find as a designer, while you're designing, you're generating a narrative in your head, right? You what your building needs it to be successful ultimately. But then there's almost a disconnect of what you imagine and maybe what you try and encourage your clients or then the way that they use the building to do. And then the general public's absorption of that or their own use. Is that something that you are looking to bridge that gap?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think there's I think there's a lot of things to unpick there. Um because there's those those narrative ideas probably across a whole series of domains within architecture. Definitely I I've seen things that we probably don't do well enough as a profession and could get better at, and that's one of the things that I'm kind of interested in doing whilst working with practices. But we, yeah, we I think we quite often we don't communicate a whole range of different things in the right way to the right people. I think too often we're thinking about architects communicating with architects, and like there's that disconnect between architect and client or architect and general public. And I think that, you know, like if if we get that right, there's a whole lot of benefits. There's commercial benefits to your practice, but there's industry and professional benefits and you know, much more far-reaching benefits to communities and and things as well. So yeah, they're there we could we could dive into each one of those things, I guess.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. We're pretty good at preaching to the choir, aren't we, architects?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I mean, I was about to say like that architect-to-architect thing is almost a reason why we started the podcast in a way, is because so much of this content that we as architects create and all of the publications, award systems, and everything that we like really strive to achieve in or, you know, be recognized in are essentially just a client circle jerk. We're not promoting it that well to the general public. And it's how do you like how do we change that in a way? And it sounds like you guys are looking at mechanisms to do so, which is really interesting.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think there's anything wrong with like architects talking to architects. We've got to have that kind of basis in the profession. There's, you know, there's there's other things as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's just yeah, but we can obviously talk to each other and that conversation's really important. But when it's like totally insular, then it then it besides, I think it starts to become not necessarily a problem, but we kind of get caught in our own world far too much. And when ultimately the people that we're looking to serve is everybody, not ourselves. Yeah, lots of buzzwords.
SPEAKER_03:What's how do you sort of see film, longer form film sort of helping helping communicate this architectural void between architects and the world?
SPEAKER_01:Nick comes from an architectural background, so you know he can sort of understand both rounds really well, but I come from more from a creative perspective. So for me, the way I sort of see photography, like film over photography, is that that you can show the process a lot more clearly. So, for example, I had worked on a project with a studio last year, and it was just a small fit out, but there were just so many things happening, this fit out, that the video just captured it so well. And it was an interview with the lead interior designer, but you know, you can actually sandwich in not the drawings, but just showing what the process looked like during construction and showing that together with the finished with the finished product, right?
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting that you're capturing the process because I think that's something we touched on very, very briefly in that last conversation was we seem to we really champion that finished product, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of content within the process, and actually almost the richer content is the process, you know, and that's that's where the deep understanding comes from. So is that something that you look to do with a lot of your work, or is that just a one-off case?
SPEAKER_01:I know I'll I'll look at doing that as well, but it's like how you tie everything together, right? So at the moment, like the the issue I face is with these, what do you call these content producers? They run into a building side just, you know, with a gimbal and they quickly show what's happening, but you don't get to really understand what's actually happening. So you have a drone flyover and all these things, and it's just very flashy. And what is it that you're trying to show to the end user who's gonna commission you to either design and build your space? And it just becomes very flamboyant and it's just not addressing what architecture is all about and how an architect and a builder work together.
SPEAKER_03:How's that sort of worked out, perhaps in that previous project you're talking about? How did you come to that conclusion? Because that kind of requires you to be early in on the project as opposed to a lot of the film about projects is very post-rationalize. It's here, we've got this nice building.
SPEAKER_01:Was that the client coming to you wanting that early the whole narrative, or was that you going to So initially, okay, so for this particular project, like the client was made for studio, like a small studio, they're very highly nimble. And they said, look, we want to capture some of the process of what's happening on site just to update as to what this project is doing. And then they wanted an end video just to show the project. Because the space was so small, it was hard to kind of show the end product in nine, in like to take up the full 90 seconds that we had allowed. So that's why sandwiching in the process, drawings, an interview, and showing. You can do that really effectively in 90 seconds. And the thing is, you've and if you're gonna use it on Instagram, you can't show long form content, right? Like you gotta either take them to your own website and host it and show that. But on Instagram, short form always wins. And the speed of it wins as well, like how you put everything together. If it's gonna be slow and drawn out, you're gonna lose viewership.
SPEAKER_02:Is that something I mean that that you can already see the conversation starts to spread, right? The social media aspect of it. I mean, is that something that you guys still look to target? Or do you feel that that it's not a rich enough, or there's not enough time, like you said, to actually tell a proper story within that format and you're actually trying to maybe give people a taste, but pull them to, whether it be a Vimeo channel or YouTube or your own website, like you said. But is that the goal or is the goal to cover all bases?
SPEAKER_01:From my experience, the goal has been to cover all bases, right? And definitely you can create um like a what do you call a cut down of your video share on Instagram just to gauge the interest and to show the interest and to show what's coming along the pipeline and then take them to your website. But it's just like how do you go from Instagram to your website, right? That's always a challenge because you can't click links on your Instagram app.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That's they're pretty much they're pretty disconnected, really, which we've found. I mean, and Nick, you probably know this from like your brand the brand side of things. They're all but completely two different entities, really, and you have to treat them as such. And that's why that the film thing is, I guess, and and why we're having this conversation, such a broad topic, because I think when we think of film, we probably think of clips, short, like six seconds, 90 seconds being probably long format in the social media aspect, and then nothing in between to maybe like a local project, 10 to 15 minute project overview, to almost nothing beyond that bar feature films, which often are not about a building and often more about an architect or an architect's body of work or something. Do you find that there is scope and is that an interest in you guys to try and maybe fill those those time voids between those sort of three key aspects, or do you think that that's enough that Canvas isn't? I guess what I'm trying to lead to is why is there not like a 20-minute, you know, half-hour TV show series, not in the vein of grand designs, that focuses more on architecture? Because I imagine it'll be good, it'll be good viewing.
SPEAKER_00:I think maybe architecture is such a such a niche thing in a way that there may not be viewership for that. And maybe that's why Grand Designs is popular, because it is kind of dramatized and it it is targeting more of a broad audience. I mean, I think they're I think they're I think you could probably find a an architectural film in lengths from 15 seconds all the way through to an hour and a half in five-minute increments. There'd be something, you know, across the whole span. But whether there's a lot, it's true what you're saying. It's like there's the short form stuff, there's that medium kind of five to ten minute stuff, and then there's like full-length features, which is kind of a different thing again. I don't know. I mean, you could probably you could probably argue the same is for kind of any industry that engages with film as well. I think it's just to do with like what people are how people are engaging with those different formats. I guess what what I do as a filmmaker and what I do as a as a designer or content strategist, there's crossover, but they're they're two kind of different things as well. So with a filmmaking hat on, you know, I'm thinking about story and narrative, and I'm thinking about how like the pacing of a film and how long it's going to be and how much we're trying to get in there. But from a kind of content strategy point of view, there's there's probably a few different things to consider there. For me, it's really about getting someone to watch the 15-second clip so that they can go to the website and watch the 10-minute clip because most people don't do that. Most people are on social media scrolling, they want the quick dopamine hit, and that's fine. And I'm totally happy to engage with that. Like, I love doing 15, 20, 25-second cutdowns. Like, I love everything in vertical as well. Like, I don't see it as an assault on my artistic process or anything like that. It's just a it's just another format, it's another way to tell a story. It's gonna have a slightly different lens, it's gonna have a different purpose, but they're all purposeful, they all serve a purpose. From a kind of content or marketing point of view, I guess it's like what we're doing on social media quite often is is building social proof and trust and brand recognition for practices and and companies. That can kind of sit separately to somebody watching a longer film. Like not everyone's gonna click off and go and see the longer one, but maybe there's a client who's quite interested in your work, someone that's you know considering commissioning you, and they're gonna move from your Instagram to your website and start doing a deeper dive, and that's when they'll uncover the longer things, and that's when that you know they can take the time and understand who the architect is, what the building's about, what the process is like a little bit deeper. I don't feel like the content needs to kind of bridge every gap and get every viewer to watch every length. But I think, yeah, I think the the longer format stuff is is certainly interesting. Um again, it's probably a it's probably a different target audience, though. Not every single person that's scrolling on Instagram is going to want to watch an hour and a half long film about architecture.
SPEAKER_02:You touched on enjoying making the short stuff, but do you have a preference for length that you that you work with? Like is there a do you feel like there's a sweet spot for being able to really capture the essence of a project? Or you've already alluded to, you can kind of cover the basis in a myriad of ways.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I think it I think it depends what the story is, what you're trying to actually document or convey. If it's a if it's a snippet of a project, like yeah, 15 seconds can deal with, you know, one aspect of the space perhaps, or even just a very quick overview. If it's more of like a brand story, something that's more involved, or like a really big project that had a whole series of moving parts and different parties, and you know, then then probably a longer format thing with interviews probably works better. But I think it really comes down to what you're trying to do with the content, who who you're talking to, um, and then what the what the idea of like that particular story is really. So I don't think there's I don't think there's necessarily a sweet spot. There's lots of kind of best practice standards that we always draw on when we're going into these productions with clients, and we always, you know, advise them what we think works best and what's going to suit their project or their idea, whatever it is best. Um but I think it changes from from production to production.
SPEAKER_02:You are you guys going in, you know, commissioned by a client architect, whoever are you guys making storyboarding, planning this thing quite thoroughly? Is you know, kind of continuing on from that conversation, the last conversation where a lot of the moments were captured at the time, you know, or like something caught somebody's eye and they and they captured it in that moment, is that something that you guys do more of, or are you more focusing on this is the building that we're going to capture, this is the narrative, or this is the story we're trying to tell, and creating a bit more of a framework to be able to deliver that?
SPEAKER_01:So I mean I would say for me, I'm thoroughly prepared for that. So that's just part of the process. And when I talk to a client who wants to commission me, like I try and scope out what the project is, what is trying to what they're trying to achieve. And from that, I will suggest an idea of what the project, the video film should be based around. And then to get their buy-in, like storyboarding and creating what we call a treatment document where you outline, okay, what the visual imagery will look like, where are your references coming from, what is the editing style, what is the color grade style, what is the sound design, what is the music reference going to be? Like when you encapsulate all this in a document, you gotta give your client some confidence in you that you'll be you'll be delivering an uh agreed upon vision. Right. And like from that storyboard, you can then dissect, okay, if it's gonna be a multi-day shoot, then how do you schedule out your shoot days as well? And you know, what time of the day you're gonna shoot, what part of the building.
SPEAKER_03:So how do you go about like how do you go about developing that sort of initial story for your storyboard? Can you a few tips through a little window into a world?
SPEAKER_01:Like for me, I do a lot of side visits.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And so I'll be architect like what they're trying to convey, or I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I just can just talk about for some of my previous projects, right? So the last big project I shot was called International. It was designed by Carr, and I was commissioned by two developers, Landrim and VLeader. So, I mean, Landrim was the key client I was dealing interfacing with, and they just gave me a set of requirements they wanted to capture it, and they knew from another agency about how I work, and they knew they were gonna get something creative out of me. Not your, you know, your cookie cut of thing. And I sort of looked at some references I get my inspiration from. And it was just a matter of going to the site, seeing the apartment we're gonna be shooting inside, and then seeing what's around the apartment in terms of, say, amenities, and deciding that, okay, for me, the way I like to create my visuals, it has to be either late in the evening or early in the morning. I don't do a lot of midday shots um because I just want the quality of light um that needs to be uh really manageable. Like I don't like a lot of bright light in my work because it just sort of when it comes to so say editing it, it I I want to have enough data in my footage to for the images to look beautiful.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Golden hour. So yeah, golden hour, early morning, midday, and then you know, and then like for that particular project, I had a a gaffer who will who's a lighting guy who will come and we had to scrim out all the windows in the first thing in the morning. And and for that, you need so he needs information from me, what the sh what shot we're doing and how is it gonna be looking like. So I'm already dialed in before going in that for this particular shot, we need I need this light to be here. I need, you know, you need to black out these windows for me and do all that. So I know what the shot will look like. So there's just a lot of envisioning. Like I have to envision my head what the shot is gonna look like. And you know, when you have say 25 shots to capture in a day, and you've got a whole team waiting on you, you need to be fairly dialed in, very dialed in. It's a lot more involved than I.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I feel like it's way more extreme than just a photography project if you're coming in with a narrative and a shot list.
SPEAKER_01:It is, right? But the thing is, it's it's at the end of the day, it's your brain and your project. And who you engage matters, right? And for me, I'm not I'm not someone who's gonna go, oh hairy fairy, it's just whatever comes, I'll shoot, because it's just uncomfortable. And you look like a run into some idiot. Yeah, because then there's nothing cohesive. So, like for that project, I had like a full post-production team working with me as well. So I had a colorist, a sound designer, and a composer. So, you know, they need some pre-warning as to what I'm achieving and they need information as well. So having everything dialed in, it makes their life easier as well.
SPEAKER_02:It's interesting, and this is very much a film thing, I think. You know, filmmakers very much have a maybe, maybe it's all visual art to be fair. Everyone has a style. And I kind of see, you know, the way that you're already speaking for Al is like you have a very distinct style. And I've seen your work and you do have a very distinct style. And I assume people that come to you for your style, is there any instances where the building or the architecture doesn't feel like it would suit your style? Because I always feel like there could be sometimes a disconnect there, you know?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, look, sometimes things aren't ready in a building, too. Yeah. You've got to work around it. Yeah. You know, and there are times where, like for this particular, I had to come back because the fireplace wasn't ready when we were shooting. And I needed in the lobby area the fire to be glowing because that was all part of the story as well. Yeah, interesting. So I had to come back at a separate day without my crew and just, you know, eyeball the image in. And then hopefully in post they can fix it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Nick, do you work with a similarly scaled team? Like that kind of blows my mind that I mean and and it makes sense. That's the big production and the stuff that you guys, particularly when and I assume Varral, what you're talking to is a longer format pace. Yeah, you're not gonna have that size team for 90 seconds, are you? 90 seconds.
SPEAKER_01:I always do 90 seconds, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's just it works, right? Yeah. And the thing was, like, I only had two days to shoot everything in. And if I had more time, then sure, I uh you know, I'd love to do something a bit longer. But it's about uh what do you call the attention span?
SPEAKER_02:That's your golden that's that's your golden time stamp, 90 seconds.
SPEAKER_01:90 seconds, that's all I all I work towards. And when you look at all the big ads, it's all 90 seconds.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I suppose my my process is a little bit more varied between productions. Um I would say that I'm prepared to the teeth every production. Like I don't do anything without preparation, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every production, every single shop is is planned out. Some some productions are, but others there's a lot of run and gum. A lot of my influence comes from documentary filmmaking, and I'm quite comfortable rocking up and like approaching it like a documentarian and kind of working out what's there, but that doesn't suit every production, so it depends what it is. So, I mean we we do a lot of short form content, like also bringing in the process of these things. So we're doing a lot of stuff with builders, architectural builders, um, where we're actually documenting their construction sites, and that stuff is me rocking up with a handheld camera and moving around and just capturing it in a couple of hours, working with natural light, no, no real direction, no storyboarding whatsoever. Um but that's a much smaller, like smaller budget, quick turnaround kind of thing, versus much more involved brand campaign films. One that I did recently up the Sunshine Coast, which was a obviously a much bigger budget, but also a lot more planning, kind of like probably six months went into that before we actually got onto site. And that involved doing a treatment, doing a storyboard, working out what all the different scenes were gonna be, coordinating with I think six different talent, and then basically putting that into a Google Sheet, which was ordered by sequence based on the storyboard, but then could be reordered based on shooting sequence because I knew that I wasn't gonna shoot it in sequence of the of the it was gonna have to be out of sequence because there's so many different things to consider. Locate like I think there were like five or six different locations. There was some some stuff we were shooting on a boat, other stuff we were like trail running through the national park with cameras and lighting and doing things. There was like several different days at a house with different groups of talent. It was a project that I knew intimately that I've filmed probably four or five times over the last five years, so I knew exactly where the sun came in at every moment. Like I knew exactly which spaces would work at different times of day. So I was able to plan out, well, we're doing this thing down by the spa, and that's gonna have to be at this time. We're gonna be in this room inside, but I want to make sure that the outside's not blown out, so I knew that that was gonna be at a certain time. So it's like managing all these different things, and then I could, it was a it was a task in itself just putting the schedule together because I could I could re-order the spreadsheet based on sequence, like video sequence or shooting sequence. And so it's managing all those different things. So, you know, that's not the kind of thing you can just rock up and do, especially when you've got all this talent and crew as well, because I had about three or four people with me for the production of that one. Um that's not the kind of thing you can just rock up and just kind of wing it on the day. But that said, there's there's always improvisation. So even on a even on a production where I have a full storyboard and and a schedule down to 15-minute blocks, things never go to plan. Like there's always going to be swapping things around because something happens, someone's late, or the light looks better here, or you know, you see something, you see something happening on site that you want to capture and you want to adapt and be flexible with it.
SPEAKER_02:Do you often get happy mistakes through that mechanism?
SPEAKER_00:All the time. That's the beauty and the fun of it. Like you're prepared with a schedule, you know exactly what you're gonna do, but you've also got to be prepared to be totally unprepared and just like to react to what's going on there. Because yeah, there's there's always stuff that you can't plan for.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I love that. So these things sound monumental, just trying to think like how how many architecture firms are in a position to sort of commission something like that.
SPEAKER_02:Or is it more developers and clients that are driving that are driving this? I mean, maybe we're just a bit small time, but no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00:Look, I think um yeah, like there's there's some really big budget stuff that um like sure, it's it's it's a lot more expensive than a photography production, but that's not to say that every architectural practice should invest 20, 30, 40 grand in in a video. Like quite often I would talk people out of doing that because it's it may not actually be necessary for what they're trying to achieve. Um it it comes down to the practice that you're working with, what what the intention of this the video campaign is. Quite often it's it's maybe other brands or organizations, maybe developers as well, that are putting a bit more money into it. But but I've also had architectural practices, even small ones, I decide that it is worth spending the money on something because it it's a particularly important project, something that they've put a lot of time into. And they want it done well or they want it done in a way that's not just the kind of s cookie cutter thing that most content producers would turn up and do. So, you know, they want it they want the nuance of the project captured, they want the feeling of the project captured, the experience of the project. Um and that sometimes does take a bit more time.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe it's in New Zealand, but I feel like a lot of myself included, we probably undervalue the strength of marketing and the buying power of spending, actually investing in good photos. But I mean film I think clearly works a lot more effectively at spreading a message than photographs.
SPEAKER_00:Both are important, they both do different things.
SPEAKER_02:In New Zealand, I'd say that we are we don't, from an architectural profession point of view, like we don't embrace film enough, I would say. Like I can't think of many architectural practices of any scale really that regularly have films produced for their work at all. Whereas I feel like a YouTube channel? Yeah, internationally. You didn't there, yeah. And Gerard Dombrowski, number one. Whereas internationally, I feel like it's a little bit more prevalent. Would you guys agree? I mean, I I don't know if you've done much work here versus just in Australia or internationally, but I I feel it's maybe a shortcoming from our profession here is that we don't maybe don't value or don't recognize the value in film as much as we probably should. And I think that's something that I was trying to tease out in the last conversation was I feel like that that shift has happened and we're maybe towing the line a little bit on it.
SPEAKER_00:I feel like Viril's foaming at the bit for something to say, so I'll let him Yeah, man.
SPEAKER_01:So you know, you know, you know, I'll tell you this. Back in 2018, I came to Auckland and actually caught up with Andrew Mitchell from Paterson Associates. And they were talking about I wanted to come and shoot because they did really beautiful work, and I really wanted to come and shoot one of their projects. And we started talking about video work, and he he he wasn't one of the first iClics to actually encourage me to get into video.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, there you go. So the thing is that Did he shoot any did he get you to shoot any video though? No, I don't know. Oh, there you go. In a world where design speaks louder than words, what story does your space tell? At Ortex Acoustics, they believe great design is more than aesthetics. Every product they create strikes a perfect balance between form, function, and sustainability. Made to enhance how space sounds, looks, and feels from using recycled materials to pioneering carbon negative wool, their commitment is to help you shape environments that inspire people and respect the planet. Explore the future of acoustics design at ortexacoustics.co dot nz.
SPEAKER_01:But the thing is, like what I tell my clients is that okay, I mean, like for me, I can photograph architecture really well and I can shoot videos. I can do both, but I can't do both in one day. It's just it's just impossible, right? So why compromise your projects? You know, either you go for spectacular or you go for mediocre. And if you've sp if you sell the drain view. It is the truth, but like the thing is like when I'm on photo shoots, it's just balls to the wall, you it's full gas. You can't even think about, oh, uh, there's a light changing here, let's just, you know, let's just get the curtain blowing. It's like no time, you just gotta you know, like and like some of the architectural shoots I've been on, you know, you finish one room, the style stylist assistant is packing everything up because the truck's gonna come in the afternoon and pick everything up and off it goes back to the showroom.
SPEAKER_03:Further further, our chat with Lisa where she said she had amazing uh reception to a video that NZIA did on her, which was was it about a particular project? I think it was 90 seconds. And I feel like those videos that are quite engaging and have real narrative. I just I just think a story is king. And the the more you can bring a story into thing, the more people love it. That's why I'm super into that idea, Vero, of you getting on the construction site and showing footage from construction and all the way through. Like if you could have these little micro, your 90-second little construction through to completion, like I think it's captivating to watch. Sit there staring at your screen, scrolling, and then you're singing construction, bam, bam, bam, finished. That must be like a pretty epic thing to see.
SPEAKER_01:The way I sort of say story can take many forms, right? Like you can do the client process thing, or one of the so quite a number of years ago, like back in 2021, like Milan Design Week normally happens in April. And actually, and that yeah, I think I believe it happened in September, October, because of all the lockdown issues. So Molteni Dada, one of the top Italian furniture makers, they released a video called a short film called White Note, 17 minutes long, and their products took a backstage. Right. And when I saw that, it was just about this woman. She was at a junction in her life, she was getting ready to pick up an award that evening, and she gets an envelope, and an envelope was a tape, and it triggered her former life, a former lover. And it was just a really nice way to show her dilemma with the furniture, and the furniture just plays second fiddle. Like that's another way of storytelling about island reality. Yeah, and you know, this is something I would love to do in architecture. And recently I had a chance to do something not similar to that, but there was another really amazing video done by Nyanus a few years ago called I think it had the word bookworm in it. And it was just fascinating to see snippets of a house with people reading books, right? And a couple of months ago, this architect who lives around the corner from me, she is just working on a house for this 70-year-old woman. She designed her a two-bedroom house made from rammed earth. And I got on site and I met the client, and she has traveled all over the world, right? And this design was influenced by her travels. And she is an avid book reader, and the amount of shelving the architecture design in the house was unbelievable. And as she spoke to me, and I just remembered, you know, like, and she was talking about this central courtyard, and she wanted this courtyard because it reminded of a garden she walked through in Kyoto. Now, so you imagine, right? Like you're you can show her walking across a courtyard and a flashback to a Japanese, you know, a garden in Kyoto. And I think that's like that's another form of storytelling. And what I wanted to do with that one was for her not to talk about how the house makes her feel, but talk about her travels and how it has influenced the house, but not mentioned the architecture in any shape or form.
SPEAKER_02:It's an interesting mechanism. I like that approach where it's more about the client because the architecture is a response to them and their life and their brief and their needs. And oftentimes we focus too much on the built form and not the story. It is interesting though, because I was looking at some of you guys' films as well, but a lot of the time it is focused on the built form and you know, the the building is the building's creating the narrative and be that paired with a soundtrack. Do you have a preference or do you think it's just a case-by-case thing where whether you have maybe a speaking track over the top or the way that you form the story, I mean probably or at least the stuff that I was looking at, you tend more to the to the sort of audio, audio dub rather sorry, like um music dub rather than actual storytelling.
SPEAKER_00:That was one of the things that I think was missed in the last discussion, if this is the part two to the to the part one, that this idea of storytelling and narrative being limited to something where there's somebody speaking, something textual, which I just I disagree with fundamentally very one-dimensional. Well, it's just na narrative is inherent in so many things. Narrative and storytelling doesn't come down to somebody speaking about something. So there's visual storytelling, like you know, a painting tells a story, graphic design tells stories, music, listening to music, like that's that's a story as well, like whether it's instrumental or vocal, and whether it's music in another language that you can't even understand, there's still feelings and emotions and things that evoke ideas and responses in the listener. I come from a kind of musical background. I've played in bands for years and have recorded and produced my own albums either on on my own or with other bands. Um so music's a very music and sound design is a very big thing for me. Um I actually wrote my master's thesis on architecture and music or architecture and sound. That's a whole nother thing. But yeah, like music and sound is is always a big thing. But I think it's again, it comes down to the production. So I did the film about a year ago with some friends, Red Hill House and Studio for Zusannah and Nicholas Architects. Um and Nick and I had a band years ago when we were at uni together. But in that particular film, he's actually playing guitar. It starts off as off-screen music and then it becomes on-screen in a certain scene, which is a classic kind of narrative filmic trick. Um, there's a scene where he puts on a record and it's one of his friends' records that are playing, and that becomes the overlay music in the scene as well. And then, you know, there's other productions where we don't use music as at all because we actually just want to focus on the natural sound or the ambient sound that's going on there. Yeah, but I think narrative and storytelling can happen in so many different ways. Um, there's a lot of films that we do that there are people talking about a process or an idea, and there's other stuff where it is just kind of visual where the the building itself kind of becomes a character or the people using the building become the characters that effectively tell the story about what this place feels like, what the day-to-day feels like in a building. You know, so there's lots of different ways that you can tell stories and lots of different ways to create narrative.
SPEAKER_02:Are you guys driving that decision or is that more client-driven? Or like let's let's put the architect in the shoes of the client here in terms of getting you guys to make the film. Are they the ones? That's one something that I kind of want to dive into. Are they are we the ones that are driving that narrative decision, whether that be the focus on the building, the focus on the process, the focus on the client, what have you, and then how much say are we having and what's being produced versus the reins being kind of handed over to you guys?
SPEAKER_00:I think it again it's one of these things that vary from production to production. I I work with a lot of clients, a lot of them repeat clients that we've worked with over the years who will come to me and just say, you tell us what we think we need, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Do your thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, kind of. Um, and sometimes there's clients that say, Well, we want you to do your thing, but we're thinking it's gonna be this. We want to do some interviews and sit down and talk with the client. And or sometimes, you know, you're working on productions where there's there's absolute like they're absolutely certain that they want a particular thing. So it it varies from production to production, from client to client. What I always try to do though, I guess, is give them some consultation and suggest what I think is gonna work best for their needs as well. Because a lot of people see these kind of let's call them medium format styles where it's like a faux documentary where there's people sitting down talking about the project, whether that's architect, client, consultants, you know, that kind of five to ten minute format. And everyone sees that and it's it's very popular. And everyone kind of wants to do that. And I quite often get a lot of clients coming saying, Oh, we we want to we want a film that looks like one of these ones. And that's great. Like they're they're beautiful, but they're not always the best thing for that particular project or for that client or for what their intentions are, you know. That's amazing if you've got a platform of millions of viewers that are going to sit down and watch it and are gonna be dedicated to watching it. But that may not always be the case. And it's something that I talk about with my clients when we're getting into strategy is that like numbers, like just chasing numbers, chasing viewership is kind of the worst way to think about return on investment of a video. There's so many other ways that we can actually make a video work for a practice that has nothing to do with going viral or thousands of views.
SPEAKER_02:That answer that answered it perfectly. What I what I was looking for was how much, not say, but how much kind of directive we give through the process versus how much expertise you give back, which I've I always find, not that I've had video made, but you always feel when you're going in photography say you kind of have a depicture in your head of what the shots might be and things like that. But ultimately, it's a little bit of a stick to your lane type situation. Yeah, because we often don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Ideally, you'd probably pick a filmmaker like you'd pick an architect. Ideally. Exactly. Go and there is that that does come into the thing. All their professional services, and you'd hope they I don't know, if if you're designing the film, there's probably something going wrong.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. We can come in with our vision, just the same as you as an architect could come in with your vision. But if you're not collaborating and working with your client, you might you might get a great sculpture that's that fulfills your own ideas, but it may not be the thing that fulfills their needs. And so I think I think it is a conversation and a collaboration. So And if you're looking for if you're looking for guidance, I would say go into it with as as much directive as you feel you want to, or, or as little, like whatever, whatever kind of feels right for you, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Do you ever get disappointment when your things have been chopped on the editing floor and clients come back and be like, but what about that part?
SPEAKER_00:Disappointment from the clients or disappointment?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Or either either way. You can't fit everything into a vi into a clip, right? Or a video.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that that's right. There's usually got to be, you know, some ruthless decisions that get made at some point. But I mean that happens both ways. Not every project, not not every production goes the way that I want it to go, but it's not about me and my ego. Um that's how some sometimes the client wants a certain thing, and by sometimes you've got to chalk it up and go, alright.
SPEAKER_03:If we if we push the conversation a little bit towards longer form, what are we doing with the the future of or what do you guys want to do with sort of longer format? Do you want to do are we are we talking film architecture movies? Next resine film festival.
SPEAKER_01:Look, my I mean, I would love to submit something to the film festival, right? And and I would love to do something.
SPEAKER_03:Half of them are rubbish, so you'll get in easy.
SPEAKER_01:But like for me, I mean I the way my ideas are evolving, I need some sort of a narrative on top. I can't do these plain pictures because now what I'm seeing is every architectural photographer wants to shoot a video and they're just doing pretty pictures. I can't be competing on that level. I need to go up. And having a level of sophistication, having an idea, a thread that can support the architecture is what I know. The example I gave with white noise was super important. That's what I liked. And I would love to create something on that level. Another good example is there's this British cycling brand called Rafa. Back in the day, they used to just do this really rough documentaries, right? It wasn't it wasn't scripted at all. And one of my favorite episodes was when they went, Ben Ingham went to Italy to um to shoot a video about a bike builder called Dario Pecoretti in Veneto. And it was just following Dario around his workshop and his home for a full day, and they made this into a 15-minute video, and it was amazing. Unfiltered, Dario swearing, Dario going get it going off at his colleagues, and and I would love some ruiness like that, especially on a building side between an architect and a builder.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You should get into an architecture studio when we get questions from council or builders during the construction process and how much we cuss.
SPEAKER_00:I might go stand fly, so over the next time you've got a client meeting or meeting the next year or whatever. Oh, of course. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You would love to be a fly on the wall sometimes. I get quite opinionated, especially on um architecture movies. A lot of the like we we had one last night. It was the Schindler Space Architect. It was a really beautiful story, actually, and guess the story I didn't know too much about them. It was very long. But we go to a lot of these movie nights and you especially the Rasine film ones, just a lot of the old architecture films just very dry and very boring. It's like this is a house, and now we're going to this is another house, this is another house, and you just like them. Whereas I always refer back to Ice Cube's celebrate the Eames little two-minute video where it's Ice Cube talking about uh Eams House and just how punchy and direct. I just think there's there's so many different ways to skin a cat. Look at all the vast world of film we have, and then so much of architecture film is so dry and lacks any like excitement or any storyline, any any range of emotion. Yeah. Monotone, how do you bring some emotion or some intrigue and excitement into film about architecture?
SPEAKER_00:That that's that's a question I guess that I'm grappling with at the moment, because I'm I'm working on a longer format documentary about architecture, about a particular building. So a a friend of mine is designing and building his own house up the Sunshine Coast. Um and it's something that we're documenting like most of the stages throughout construction. It's something that I just go up every now and then, and when there's a kind of milestone or something happening on site that's particularly special or interesting or dramatic, yeah, we go there and and try to capture it. And it's something that's going to evolve over several years because it's already been a year of just site works and they're still just getting posted out of the ground. I think they I think there is a coming on site, you know, maybe next month.
SPEAKER_03:Like I think so much of the architecture documentaries are post-rationalized, so you're screwing for footage or you're listening to recordings overlaid on papers. Whereas if you're there getting footage all the way through, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, what what we're trying to do with it as well is is approach it like you would typically approach a documentary too, that we're documenting. But at some point we'll sit back and review the footage and we'll actually start to think about what the narrative is and we'll actually write a script and we'll then actually pull the thing together and then work out what additional things we need to film. And we'll do little interviews with Tom, the architect, who's my mate along the way, and and also his partner, and I guess at some point their their child when he's when he's grown up, maybe and he's speak at speaking age, I don't know. Maybe I hope I hope the project doesn't take that long. But it's it's it's it's an amazing project. I mean, Tom, Tom is a great friend of mine and a very talented and humble person. And so much of this project, it's it's got himself and his family in it, and like his whole background and and upbringing and his ethos and approach to life. But we've spoken about it, we've we've been having these little discussions along the way, and like we see it as being something much more than just an architecture documentary or like a house documentary. Yeah it's almost like the architecture of the house is is maybe a character, or it's maybe a subplot or something, or it's it's just it's a vehicle for driving a much broader story, which is more about life or environment or like cities or how how people, you know, interpersonal relationships or something, because it's something that's taken many years for them to get onto site, and now it there's been all sorts of holdups and delays and dramas on site. They were living across like five different locations between the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. Tom had jobs in different locations as well. Um, his partner Alex was living in Harvey Bay at one point. They then had a child. Like there's all this, it's like it has all the makings for a dramatic documentary. But it also has like all of the DNA to tell a much bigger story there, not just like here's a story about a house and you know, following it sequentially.
SPEAKER_02:Do you feel the trap of falling into not necessarily maybe like a grand designs type narrative? Is that something that you're conscious of?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is. I mean, I used to be pretty scathing of grand designs until Until you found yourself watching all episodes. Well, I've just I've just had a brain blank. What's what's the guy's name, the English guy? Kevin McLeod. Devin McLeod. Until I actually learnt about him and what he actually does. Absolutely I was I was then actually kind of blown away. And I I think that the first couple of seasons of the UK Grand Designs was I didn't feel like he was pushing pushing back enough. And then I think he did in subsequent episodes. I've never watched the Australian, I think there's a New Zealand version as well. I've I've never watched it and kind of got over it. I I don't think I don't know. I think I've probably softened. I think I've probably dropped my like removed my ego from it a little bit. I don't think that Grand Designs is inherently bad. Like, yes, it's dramatic. It's prime time television. That's what that's for. You know, it's not it's not meant to be like uh a chronicle of, you know, architectural projects. Like that's not what it is.
SPEAKER_02:But that's what I kind of like about what you were saying about it being the architecture being the it's an architectural documentary, but the architecture's the backdrop, you know? And I almost feel that film Morris and I, I don't know if either of you guys have seen it, but incredibly beautiful film. Although it's about them and their practice and architecture, ultimately it's a love film. It's a film about it's a film about love, and it's incredibly poignant and incredibly emotional. And I think Yeah, one of the good architecture films with like an emotional Like from an arc as an architect, like the grief you feel at the end is like palpable. And I even I feel like as a as a lay person watching that, you'd be able to sense the love and devotion that they had for each other and their work it and their work being architecture. And I feel like that's the type of long format architectural film that isn't about a building, even though it is. It's about something far greater, and that's that's successful, really successful.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it had like the clo a really good three-quarter slump or you know, classic movie where something happens and it's like, oh no, buildings, buildings, buildings, earthquake. And then it's like fight for buildings post-earthquake. Some get demolished, some save, and then yay, town hall fixed.
SPEAKER_00:I haven't seen it, so I'm gonna have to definitely follow up because it sounds amazing. Um absolutely, like this is this is kind of what I'm getting at with the idea of this documentary. Um and it's not necessarily something you could do in like a a 90-second or even a three or four-minute film, but I guess that is kind of where my head is moving, is it's like what what else is there just beyond documenting the building? Like, what other things can we actually be thinking about when we're making these films? And I think that that's what a lot of viril's work is starting to to draw out as well. It's like going beyond just showing spaces or nice bits of furniture, but like what else is there? What other layers can we either overlay or or pull out?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, like to add to that, like I've been following another YouTube channel out of the US called Open Space, and they specifically focus on mid-century homes. And it is a joy to watch because it's all about the homeowner's passion for mid-century. It's not pretentious, it's not topical material palette, all these things that you get to see on local project and S-Living stuff. It's like it's just the true emotion of a person chasing that mid-century dream. And there was one particular episode where one guy was after this Richard Neutra home for 20 years. Taking 20 years to buy this one home and six-minute episode, and it was just brilliant.
SPEAKER_02:And that's that's beyond architecture at that point, isn't it? That's yeah, it's it's passion, it's love, it's it's human, it's human emotion, you know. And I think that's ultimately what great architecture brings out of people is emotion. Be whatever that is.
SPEAKER_01:And I sort of feel that if you can bring that sort of emotion out in new architecture with some of your clients, it would be phenomenal, right? Like not to talk about marble and all things like this, superficial things, but why they're white house.
SPEAKER_00:Those productions are they're bespoke. They're not they're not the same set of cookie-cutter questions and format that they follow on on everything. It's like they go to this house, they talk to the person that owns it, and it's develops out of that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Which, you know, I think that's a much more interesting way of making architectural film than, you know, applying the same kind of format to each thing as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I even think beyond the interview format, even potentially more powerful is just seeing the visual proof of the change emotional, the change in lifestyle that architecture has brought upon people, you know, and I think about um if Gerard, I don't know if you were there, but like the St. Hilda's church project here in Wellington. And even though the the vicar of this church spoke at the awards a couple of years ago about the how much the project had changes parish, you know, it got quite emotional. But you could see obviously he was speaking about it, but you could see through him and the people around him the actual change. And e even if he'd not said a word, you you could have still experienced that. And I feel like that's almost the most powerful thing, is the unspoken influence of architecture.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So far, my takeaway from this chat is emotion. Yeah. Instilling emotion.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, like it that's what it comes back to is that architecture is about people, ultimately. I mean, I think there that there's been there have been movements throughout history where architecture's you know about the object, and it still can be to some extent. But I mean ultimately I think it it comes back to people. And I think that that's I mean, I think that's where the the the interesting stories are for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Cool. Well, I think that might be a pretty good uh point to wrap up, guys. And if you've got you know anything obviously I'll chop unscrew this a little bit. My editing skills won't be anywhere near as good as yours. But um have you guys got anything else you want to end on? I think Nick, you ended on a pretty, a pretty, pretty key statement there. I think that was that that wrapped things up pretty nicely. But Varral, anything anything from you?
SPEAKER_01:We could do a part three.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we should.
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