the challenge
In 2016, British construction company Galliford Try finalised their plan for a groundbreaking East Midlands Airport runway refurbishing operation. From the 5th of November until the 19th of December, Galliford Try would undertake a resurfacing of East Midlands Airport’s runway- the operation would take place over 7 consecutive weekends (for the purposes of minimal disruption). With 360 workers laying 50,000 tonnes of specifically formulated tarmac each weekend, the project would be visually quite a spectacle, and thus Galliford Try decided to commission us to document the project in a variety of exciting ways over its full course.
our approach
Understanding the huge scale of the project, we set up numerous initial consultations with Galliford Try to gather more details about the East Midlands Airport runway refurbishing project and discuss the kind of coverage they required for it. We also carried out a thorough site survey to assess different key site features, hazards, and potential key places to situate our time lapse systems for the duration of the project.
Following various discussions and our site survey, we put forward detailed recommendations for how the project should be documented. We recommended that we install 4 different time lapse systems in dynamic locations such as the air traffic control tower, which we’d already assessed the stringent security and safety restrictions of during out survey. We also put forward a spread of film crew shifts for key dates during the project- we planned the film crew shifts carefully so that we could cost effectively show all the important aspects of the project’s 7 weekend duration with just 4 shifts.
Our working relationship with Galliford Try and also East Midlands Airport was maximised when we were given permission to fly a drone over the works. To our knowledge this is one of the few times permission like this had been granted over a runway and they praised our effectiveness in ensuring all the flight permissions, plans and risk assessments were in place. Our drone footage uniquely showed the scope and scale of the East Midlands Airport runway refurbishing from the air and is a truly a flagship angle in the video.
the results
We provided Galliford Try with a unique client login, which allowed them to view time lapse footage from any of our systems during the project. They were able to use this service to download monthly time lapse films which showed the projects progress, and had functional purposes such as site management. At the projects completion we provided Galliford Try with an in depth and cutting edge film which showcased the project in its entirety, and we worked closely with them through various drafts of the film until they had a exquisite production which surpassed their expectations. The film has since been used for promotional purposes by Galliford Try, to demonstrate to partners and consumers how efficiently and smoothly a runway resurfacing project can be.
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