Making of a short film
Recently we created a video for A. Lange & Söhne, a German watchmaker founded in 1845, for the 2017 launch of the Lange 1 in white gold and Lange 1 Moon Phase in white and rose gold. I thought I would explain to you the creative concept behind the final video so you can see the thought behind just beautiful moving visuals of their stunning timepieces. When we work on brand projects such as this, we spend weeks in a creative think tank before ever picking up a camera. Every detail is pre-planned and every aspect of the video serves a purpose with meaning, even if it’s not meant to be obvious.
Creating the concept
We wanted to draw a comparison between the craftsmanship and artistry of both photography and watchmaking by creating something both very technical and sentimental in our story telling. By studying the dial design and movement of the timepieces, we were inspired to explore the themes around human connection and our ability to traverse time and space, reach around the world in a split second, be as simple as the air we share, or as complex as a physical touch. The written words of one man from a century ago can reach another today and affect the choices he makes. We wanted to explore these connections as invisible threads of cause and effect, known as the butterfly effect, in a series of four themes of human connection: Air, energy & light, communication, and touch. As visual storytellers, we decided to not tell the story of human connection through a linear fashion but rather as ticking moments in the cinematic frames of our lives, beating in time and weaving together the fabric of life.
Split second moments
By using a special cinema camera called the Phantom we were able to stretch mere flashes of moments of time to many seconds, giving the feel of a photograph that has opened up.
Air
We capture a man who is driving out of the city, the speed of the car creating wind that whips around a woman stepping out of a vehicle on her way to a meeting that ultimately blows through an office window whipping the papers out of a man’s hands. The air that touches us all, moving in masses of pressure dancing through the millennia.
Energy & Light
Energy & Light captured through three times of day starting with a man who looks up in the sky and blocks the midday sun from his eyes while the same afternoon light falls through horizontal blinds across a woman in her office while another man creates light in the early evening by turning on a lamp. While we each experience these phases of light in a day, this also represents man’s progress through time from first only experiencing the natural light to then shaping it to ultimately, creating light from energy.
Communication
Communication also captures how we can be connected through time in past and present. The written word of man read today through modern means shown as a businessman on his iPad. The forms of communication we use now that extend beyond words as we become an image based society shown through the moment a female photographer raises her camera to capture a photograph which will be shared through another means of communication.
Touch
And finally, touch. Touch is one of the strongest way we shape our experiences with the short time we have in life. A shot setting the time on the watch is a representation of this theme. A woman, strapping on her watch is saying she is a conscience participant in the time she has to touch people’s lives. And perhaps, the most human of all touches, between two people, as a man reaches to guide a woman’s back through a doorway and be perhaps the touch that changes the course of their lives.
Connecting the Themes
Time is of course a visual thing you can see through the movements on a timepiece such as these by A. Lange & Söhne, but, it can also transcend mere mathematical moments of our day. I think in this video we try to show how connected we all are, not just in our modern world through technology but through the history of time together.
About A. Lange & Söhne Timepieces
With uncompromising quality, each and every timepiece separates A. Lange & Söhne from other watchmakers around the globe. They do not distinguish between a sophisticated complication and a classic three-hand watch in terms of precision and dedication to detail and every Lange timepiece is endowed with an in-house designed manufactory caliber and equipped with a precious case made of gold or platinum. The three watches you see in the video above include the Lange 1 Moon Phase in white gold which prominently features the astronomical “moon phase” complication. The Lange 1 in white gold which has world-renowned recognition to the asymmetric dial design and prominent outsize date. The outsize date was actually inspired by the five-minute clock in the Dresden Semper Opera House. Lastly, the Lange 1 Moon Phase in rose gold features an elegantly guilloched, argenté colored dial with two golden moons.
You can find out more on A. Lange & Söhne’s website here.