Princess Yachts has released a short film about life on board the Princess 35M. Unlike traditional yachting commercials, there are no tucked-up swimsuit models that showcase the full benefits of a yacht step by step.
The fact that the shipyard managed to find owners who were ready to open the veil of secrecy of their private life on board makes her an honor. As the head of another UK shipyard, Phil Pothem of Sunseeker, admitted in an interview, finding an owner of a luxury yacht ready for publicity is extremely difficult: the company needed such a person to shoot in a BBC film about Sunseeker.
The characters in the short film Princess have lunch, socialize, swim, play with the children and read them a bedtime story. The film has several storylines at once, which develop in parallel. One of them unobtrusively shows the work of the crew on board: the girl carries drinks, the captain and assistant lay the route, the machinist checks the equipment in the engine room.
Bypassing boring technical details, the film conveys the main point: the essence of what yacht salesmen call «the experience of possession», the mood of adventure, the atmosphere of warmth, family and isolation from the rest of the world of vanity, which shines lights somewhere far away while your yacht is anchored in a quiet harbor.
The roller hits clearly in the target audience of the Princess M-Class - couples with children. Bought kids fall asleep instantly to a fairy tale that flows smoothly into a dream of happy days on the water. The characters in the book (of course, about the sea) come to life and soon a silhouette of the Princess 35M - the real second home in the minds of little family members - is drawn in the animated video. The children sleep, giving the evening to their parents, who can relax with a glass in pleasant company. As a parent, I can state confidently: children fall asleep quickly and leave you time to yourself = a few hours of lazy happiness (even if your children are perfect).
«When we first saw this project, the word 'ambitious' seemed like an understatement," said Nick Brown, lead cameraman for Craft Films, who shot and edited Princess. - We wanted to track the interaction between family and crew members moving around the yacht. This could only be achieved by using equipment that would allow for seamless camera movement from one deck to the next».
For this, director Robert Davis used lightweight cameras and lenses with hand gyrostabilizers, as well as a sophisticated system of cables and roller blocks. In addition, a high-end video drone was used for the shooting.
«From a technical point of view, the most difficult task was to ensure the smooth running of the cameras from room to room to create a feeling of constant motion, and to implement an additional layer of narrative that would give the feeling of traveling through time, so that you could lay the whole day on the yacht in just a few minutes».
Princess Yachts Marketing Director Kieran Haslam said he was proud of the result «of one of the yard's most ambitious projects» and hinted that the company would not rest on its laurels and was already preparing another «epic cinematic experience». We are looking forward to it.
