Introducing Property Visualisation
When we sit down to watch a big budget movie nowadays, it’s a given that we could be watching actors in practically any environment, from a post apocalyptic Los Angeles to the surface of Mars. It is the evolution of green screen technology and CGI that has allowed directors and screenwriters to envisage and create such photorealistic vistas and environments upon which actors can practice their craft.But the advent of the green screen age isn’t constricted to the silver screen. Far from it.
In brand film it is used to create the same sense of wonder and awe (although for somewhat more commercial purposes). But green screen also has a far more practical application beyond the imaginary and conceptual and that’s its ability to represent real world structures that have yet to be built. Of course, CGI has long been used to represent architectural concepts and design but putting real people within these virtual spaces in order to tell more human stories in much the way Hollywood does; now that’s surely an interesting prospect.
This thought hadn’t entered my mind randomly of course. I began to consider the idea of human oriented property visualisation back in late 2017, when a couple of our clients in the property sector asked how we could make CG promotional content more interesting and less dry.So we began looking into it, by researching into the Architectural & Interior CGI sector as a whole. The result is our Virtual Studio – a division of Aspect that is entirely dedicated to the production of Architectural Animation and CGI with the inclusion of real life actors within these environments.
I want to take the time here to tell the story of how this came about and why I think it can breathe new life into property visualisation.
The Status Quo
Property visualisation is big business for developers, whether it’s photorealistic rendered images of new homes or an animated tour of a new school or business district. The ability to represent structures and environments that haven’t yet been built is pivotal in creating tangibility and form, as well as giving would-be end users a virtual tour of what they’re about to buy or experience.
But, coming at this from a brand marketing perspective, something is undoubtedly missing. Despite all those very nice visuals these virtual spaces still feel sterile and lifeless. What’s missing is people. The problem perhaps lies in an ‘if it’s not broken don’t fix it’ attitude. Property visualisation is a very established industry and pretty much every architect’s office will regularly spit out property visualisations (albeit often in a crude format), whether rendered animation or image. The challenge then is in convincing the client to build lifestyle and aspirational storytelling into an established marketing strategy.
The Opportunity
The only way to bring the cold textures and symmetry of a property visualisation to life is to make it the backdrop to a real human story. Without having real human beings living and breathing within a CG environment, its very hard to tell interesting stories. It’s very hard to tell any story at all in fact. This is arguably the most significant marketing challenge for the property industry, but it also represents one of its most significant opportunities as well.
As I have mentioned, we are already living in the golden age of green screen and the technology is no longer the exclusive domain of the multimillion dollar Hollywood blockbuster. Businesses of all sizes now have the opportunity to layer human stories onto virtual environments and the doors this opens could well be transformative. By creating the type of content that appeals to the emotional side of the consumer, developers are leveraging something far more powerful than the rational appeal of an empty, albeit appealing, space. By placing a human being into the space, the viewer can envisage themselves there far easier, planting the seed of desire that will eventually blossom into a sale.Below is a breakdown of just some of the benefits...
- Ability to tell more aspirational human stories
- Allow the viewer to vicariously place themselves in the actor’s shoes (empathy)
- Simultaneously appeal to both emotional and rational decision making
- Enhanced sales assets that can be deployed at various stages of the sales funnel
- Multi-assets deliverables (stills and video)
- Ability to segment audiences by archetype
- Transferrable to VR for an even more immersive and powerful experience
The ability to begin telling human stories that evoke genuine emotions takes property visualisation beyond mere product features to create a wholly new asset, one that can better support and influence multiple stages of the buying cycle from investment financing audiences to off-plan end customers.
I want to explore how architectural visualisation featuring real human stories can form part of a multi asset marketing strategy, but first, let’s dive into the studio.
Into the Studio
Of course, the proof was always going to be in the pudding and so we decided to set about putting together a sort of proof-of-concept video to test whether we could convincingly integrate an actor into a 100% CGI environment. Keeping it simple, we opted for a basic ‘day in the life’ style narrative, set in a luxury London apartment, with a simple soundtrack and no script or voiceover.
By using our own in-house green screen studio we began shooting the film with a modestly sized crew made up of staff from both the filmmaking and animation parts of the company. One of the most obvious challenges we faced doing this was marrying up various disciplines to create a smooth unified shoot (ie creative, director of photography along with CGI and animation). There were also some envisaged technical challenges to the shoot such as getting the lighting perfect, something that is always important in green screen filming but especially so when there is a real life actor in the frame. Neither of these turned out to be significant challenges, however, and we were very pleased with the result.
This initial film certainly proved that with the right degree of planning and creative direction, developers can be a lot bolder in their storytelling as we have here. The sky is literally the limit to the kind of stories you can tell. With that in mind, let’s look at some practical applications then.
Real World Applications
The benefits of storytelling in video marketing is something we’ve discussed a lot, but what are the practical real world uses of this technology? Simply put, if you’re trying to sell a place you cannot visit then there is potential application. Let’s break down some of the industries and areas that property visualisation featuring human stories can potentially benefit.
- Real estate: House building and construction are some of the most obvious applications and what I’ve focused on in this piece. The ability to turn a house or flat into a home by placing a human being at the centre of the visualisation is key to tapping into the aspirational and emotional part of the decision making process.
- Hotel: A hotel may be a building but it’s also a holiday destination and one that should be infused with excitement for any would-be guest. Showing off the luxurious features will only go so far, but placing people enjoying and using them, takes it to another level.
- Restaurant: Dining out is about far more than the food; it’s about the experience. Presenting rendered visualisations of empty restaurants is never going to conjure up that distinctive sense of culinary anticipation that comes with that first visit to what could well become your new favourite eating out venue (I mean, would an empty restaurant be your first choice?)
- Retail: Bringing soon-to-be frenetic commercial spaces and buildings alive with the inclusion of people plays perfectly into the retail sector. Whether it’s for a new shop or a whole new shopping mall, placing real people into a CGI visualisation, creates a sense of dynamism and activity that will speak directly to both would be shoppers and investors alike.
From a marketing/comms point of view, the central idea here is that by creating more lifestyle-orientated CGI you can appeal to the emotional decision making processes in would be consumers or investors, without ignoring the rational and tangible appeal of accurate lifelike CG modelling. In that sense, human oriented property visualisation fuses these two facets to create a more vicarious but equally informative experience.
Part of a Multi Asset Video Strategy
One last thing I’d like to cover is how story driven property visualisation can support a multi asset video strategy that can be deployed across multiple platforms. Across the help, hub, hero spectrum of content marketing, it’s not hard to envisage how this kind of content can play a part.
By a carefully considered creative process, it is entirely possible to cover many bases in a single shoot, creating assets that can perfectly be deployed on social media (video shorts or teasers) right through the rational side (product videos and explainers) all the way up the pyramid to powerful hero content (brand film) that builds huge buzz around the new property. I’m optimistic about the potential that human story driven content can transform the lifeless virtual tours that many businesses and developers seem to fall back on. Yet I am also realistic that is only the start of a journey that may present many challenges; not least in selling the idea to an industry that may be resistant to change. The next step for us here at Aspect is to work with a real brief and put something together in a genuine commercial environment, to see how much traction we can get. I’m confident it could well be the first of many.
