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Mori Building’s “Designing Tokyo” Brand Movie Wins Multiple Awards including Two Grand Prix at ADFEST 2020

Mori Building announced today that its "Designing Tokyo" brand movie won two GRANDE (grand prix)
Mori Building’s “Designing Tokyo” Brand Movie Wins Multiple Awards including Two Grand Prix at ADFEST 2020

Tokyo, March 5, 2021 — Mori Building announced today that its “Designing Tokyo” brand movie won two GRANDE (grand prix), one GOLD and four SILVER awards during the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (ADFEST) 2020 awards ceremony

“DESIGNING TOKYO” expresses Mori Building’s vision of urban development and its aspirations for the future of Tokyo. The movie features various projects that Mori Building has carried out over the years, vividly recreating urban scenery and culture, including symbolic persons from each era, that were realized through cutting-edge technologies deployed during these projects.

The unique video, which stands apart from conventional advertising expressions, has attracted extensive global acclaim, 35 international awards including the New York ADC Award and The One Show, and 11 prizes in Japan including the ACC Tokyo Creativity Awards and the Galaxy Awards.

Scene from Mori Building’s brand movie

Mori Building, since its establishment in 1959, has been actively involved in both the conceptualization and realization of urban evolution. Going forward, the company is committed to its “Create Cities, Nurture Cities” philosophy aimed at contributing to Tokyo’s magnetic power as one of the world’s greatest cities.

The Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (ADFEST) was founded in 1998 as one of the Asia-Pacific region’s leading advertising award programs. ADFEST 2020 attracted more than 2,300 entries in 20 categories from some 260 companies in 28 cities. The awards ceremony, originally scheduled to be held in Pattaya, Thailand in March 2020, was postponed because of COVID-19 to February 15, 2021, when the awards were announced via live streaming during a virtual awards ceremony.

ADFEST 2020 awards earned by “Designing Tokyo”

GRANDE (2)
Design Lotus: Motion Design
Film Craft Lotus: Directing

GOLD (1)
Film Craft Lotus: Special Effects—Digital Visual Effects

SILVER (4)
Digital Craft Lotus Video: Moving Image
Film Craft Lotus: Costume Design
Film Craft Lotus: Production Design
Film Craft Lotus: Editing

Mori Building Brand Movie “DESIGNING TOKYO”

For over 60 years, Mori Building has been promoting urban development under a philosophy of “Create Cities, Nature Cities,” and envisioning the future of cities and the future of people’s lifestyles. Focusing steadily on futuristic cities and Tokyo’s evolution, the company’s numerous urban redevelopment projects in central Tokyo—including ARK Hills, Omotesando Hills, Roppongi Hills and Toranomon Hills—have consistently offered the most advanced proposals for a better city in each era.

Urban development is the process of creating a better future by imagining new ways for people to live, work, and interact in cities that can continuously evolve and mature to keep up with ever-changing society, even after its completion. Mori Building Brand Movie “DESIGNING TOKYO” vividly recreates urban scenery and culture (including symbolic persons from each era) realized by the company’s various projects through cutting-edge technologies, ultimately to consider the future that lays ahead for Tokyo.

Adverting Agency and Production Companies

Advertising agency: DENTSU INC.
Production company: Dentsu Craft Tokyo
CG production company: jitto/MARK/ OMNIBUS JAPAN

“DESIGNING TOKYO”

Creating cities is work that takes decades.
It could be said that, the minute we start, we are creating the future.

Creating cities is work that never ends.
The lives of city dwellers constantly evolve with the times.

We focus on the future, putting the whole of Tokyo in perspective.
We raise the appeal of Tokyo, and raise the potential of this country.

Step by step, project by project, we are creating a Tokyo that is yet to exist.

Commitment to Creativity

This video was created through meticulous research of Tokyo’s evolution as a city in order to enable people to reflect on Mori Building’s 60-year history with a sense of empathy. The biggest challenge was not only expressing Mori Building’s various projects down through the years, but also reproducing the culture generated around these projects. Under the supervision of experts, each era was investigated to reproduce historically accurate scenes, including clothes, accessories and other items. Careful attention was paid down to the smallest detail, including things too small to notice at first glance. We hope people will enjoy appreciating these scenes over and over.

The special feature of this video is its seamless transitions, which create the feeling of a one-cut video achieved with a floating style of camera work. Also, the video is an advanced production incorporating extensive use of glitch effects to create a work unlike almost all videos in the advertising genre.

Nishi-Shimbashi 2 Mori Building (est. in 1956)
Laforet Harajuku (est. in 1978) with Sayoko Yamaguchi
ARK Hills (est. in 1986) with Ryuichi Sakamoto (at age 34)
Roppongi Hills (est. in 2003) with Takashi Murukami (at age 41)
Omotesando Hills (est. in 2006)
Toranomon Hills (est. in 2014)
Shooting / Production Episode

Videography required 10 days of shooting and computer-graphic (CG) production took about 5 months. The entire cast totaled 318 people. Overall, the video required about one year from planning to public release. In addition to the video’s use of extensive CG processing integrated into studio sets, it is believed to be a rare example in advertising history to combine use of motion-control cameras, location shoots with casts of some 100 people and aerial videography.

Buildings appearing in the video were reproduced from photographs and drawings of each era. To accurately portray what the people were like back then, we gathered videos and photos, worked with personnel familiar with makeup of specific periods and scanned mannequins in 3D. In the scene of Omotesando Hills, we used an actual photo of the Dojunkai Aoyama Apartments that originally occupied the site. Near the beginning of the video, the 1956 Tokyo cityscape as seen from the rooftop of Nishi-Shimbashi 2 Mori Building is particularly impressive.

Filming a scene of Nishi-Shimbashi 2 Mori Building
Filming a scene of Café in Harajuku (only appeared in full version)
Making 3D capture of human figures
Filming at Karajan Place in ARK Hills
Staff Credit

Executive Creative Director: Yuya Furukawa
Creative Director: Kaoru Sugano
Copy Writer: Muneyuki Fujimoto
Art Director: Ryosuke Miyashita
Communication Planner: Kazuyoshi Ochi
Planner: Ryosuke Sone
Creative Producer: Mayumi Yamaguchi
Producer: Masafumi Fujioka, Kazuhiro Hasumi
Production Manager: Ryotaro Omori, Michio Furukawa, Mitsuo Tokunaga
Director: Sojiro Kamatani | Assistant Director:Jeffrey Stockwell, Naoki Kaneko
Cinematographer: Senzo Ueno, Yuta Echigo | DIT: Ryogo Tachiwada, Taito Oyama | Gaffer: Keisuke Ikeda, Masachio Nishida
Chroma Key: Jun Maeda | Key Grip:Toshiyuki Ichihara, Junya Yamamoto | Motion Control: Shigeru Hagiwara, Takashi Yabuki, Naoki Ito
Drone Operator: Michito Tanaka, Takeharu Fujiwara | Helicopter Shot: Takayuki Karasawa
Set Designer: Yuichi Ishida | Cooking Stylist: Naomi Kawasaki | Stylist: Yasuhiro Takehisa
Hair: Tomoko Sato | Make: Nao Yoshida | Special Effects Makeup: Fumihiro Kanda
Casting: Hiroyuki Nakamura, Shunpei Nishijima | Location Coordinator: Fumiyoshi Shimada | Location Service: Kimio Tomizawa
CG Producer: Yoshifumi Sadahara, Shinji Tsuchiya, Tokihiko Tsukamoto, Hiyoshi Mamada | CG Director: Munetsune Inudo, Naoki Takano, Aritsune Kawamura | CG Technical Director: Satoru Tokoi
Motion Design: Hiroshi Kondo | Technical Advisor: Fumihiko Kamemura | 3D Scan: Yasuhiko Kani | Retoucher: Ryosuke Harashima
Offline Editor: Takayuki Tochizawa | Online Editor: Akio Sakamaki, Yoshifumi Hashimoto, Kentaro Kawamoto, Daisuke Miyako
Colorist: Benjamin Conkey | Music Producer: Katsuya Yamada | Sound Effects: Akihito Narita
Mixing Engineer: Masayuki Sato

Account Executive: Kumiko Midorikawa, Kenichi Sato, Reona Obinata

Cast: Sayoko Yamaguchi / Ryuichi Sakamoto / Takashi Murakami / SUMIRE
Music: mabanua
Narration: Kengo Kakudate (Yogee New Waves)

Advertising agency: DENTSU INC.
Production company: Dentsu Craft Tokyo
CG production company: jitto/MARK/ OMNIBUS JAPAN

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