Back in January we had software startup HistoryLines contact us to make a commercial grade video for their new website and the launch of their new product. With a tight turnaround time and a lot of creative idea we hit the ground running and put together this video. 

With a complete team effort we took this project from start to finish from concept creation to prop sourcing, talent sourcing, motion graphics and more. We started with the basic concept of HistoryLines product: take the basic information you have about an ancestor (birth year, death year, location) and you will have access to a full story of the world they lived in. 

We transformed the flat wall in our studio to look like a giant sheet of antique paper and attached hundreds of photos, documents, maps, letters and more to represent "the whole story." We sourced these materials from local antique stores, our team member's family items and local historians. 

In order to accomplish the effects we wanted for this video we had to shoot the video in reverse. After hours of hanging these materials from the wall we were able to shoot the first scene, which was actually one of the last scenes in the final video. We then began working backwards by removing selected elements. 

The final shots in the studio called for a series of close-ups with our main actor pinning artifacts that he had of his ancestor to the wall. You will see in the final video that as he is placing these artifacts the rest of the story begins to grow and evolve.