Infrastructure
Documentary
Presidential Palace – Construction Documentary
Client
Ministry of Presidential Affairs
Sector
Infrastructure
Service
Project communications and visualization
Format
Documentary
Filmed
On site, 2013–2016
Completed
Delivered 2018
Also produced
Teaser for Emirates in-flight entertainment
The brief.
Some buildings are built once and never again.
As the Presidential Palace rose in Abu Dhabi, the artistry, scale and ambition going into it existed only in the moment; once finished, the making would be invisible forever. The brief was to be there: to document the construction as it happened, for the record and for the story.
The opportunity.
Film the disappearing part.
A finished palace can be filmed any day; the thousands of artisans and engineers at work inside it cannot. We filmed on site across three years of construction, 2013 to 2016, capturing the stages, the skills and the scale that the finished building would conceal.
The work.
The filming technology changed as much as the building did.
When we started, commercial drones didn’t meaningfully exist, so the early aerials were shot from helicopters. By 2016 we were among the first drone operators flying in Abu Dhabi, capturing shots no helicopter could: flying through the building itself, through halls and spaces as they took their final form. Three years of construction filming became a completed documentary in 2018, with a teaser edition produced for Emirates in-flight entertainment. As the palace opened to the public, discussions continue on updating the film to include what visitors now see.
The impact.
A record that exists nowhere else.
The documentary preserves the making of one of the region’s landmark buildings, footage that cannot be repeated, for a story that will be told as long as the palace stands.
More like this.
See all work
