We were approached by our friends at Polar Media with an exciting challenge: create a spectacular animated film to be screened as part of the launch of Panorama, ADNOC’s new digital headquarters in Abu Dhabi.

Only one catch – the film will be displayed on the huge 50m long screen at a resolution of 38K! And, as an additional challenge, the screen will not be complete until a day before the event, which will rule out on-site testing.

As a response to this brief, and to aid the design process, we built a mockup of the headquarters in VR. This enabled both our designers and clients to get a clear sense of how the final film would look. Seeing the screen in VR highlighted the immersive nature of Panorama’s format, and informed our creative process. We considered the film as a VR-like experience for the audience, and we could quickly prototype concepts and make creative choices about framing and lens selection that made a huge difference to the end result.

Ultimately this process was so smooth that we were able to deliver the project ahead of schedule, which allowed for testing on site and final tweaks. Watch the making-of film below to see more of our process.