Vancouver’s MNP Tower by R Four Contracting

Photographing Vancouver’s MNP Tower by R Four Contracting

R Four President, Rick Spence is a busy developer having to keeping pace with the unfathomable growth of Vancouver’s Real Estate market. As business is booming he took the opportunity to infuse R Four with custom designed photo and video promotions. A little back story on the company: R Four Contracting has been building in BC since 1986 with a focus towards concrete high-rise structures. The company has built a strong reputation based on a number of systems that set them apart from their competitors.

A view of 1021 W. Hasting St, in downtown Vancouver with Jaso Crane attached to the side of the building.

We figured out the type and style of visual content R Four needed and wanted and how to have it fall inline with their brand. For video media they wanted two main elements to be integrate: 1. Market the company locally & 2. Promote their specialized operational strategies. We designed a series of videos combining those specific elements into corporate video promos (mini-docs captured in cinematic style). We decided it would be best if the video production took advantage of the R Four construction phase of The MNP Tower located at 1021 West Hastings Street. We created the introduction video feel like a story promo.

A photo of the ‘Table Flying’ or ‘Flying Tables’ process which entails the utmost detail to safety and security.

R4 Crew takes extreme caution and double checks every safe-measure necessary to ensure all goes smoothly.

The MNP Tower is the newest highrise to enter Vancouver’s skyline and one of city’s most significant commercial towers built on the last available site in the harbour’s business district. This location played a significant supporting role to create the chemistry needed to have the technical jargon and construction dialogue intriguing. You know the saying, ‘if you love what you do it never feels like work’, well this assignment easily fell into that category; construction site = man’s playground. Logistically though, theses videos and photographs were a very large undertaking certainly educational in spite of its challenges, plenty of adrenalin but overall a pleasure to film.

Before we could begin any onsite filming we had to attend safety seminars conducted by Ledcor the general contractor of this development. As much as I’d like to say this was a fun project we never took our safety lightly. We feel it’s important to acknowledge these proud Canadian trades’ men & women and onsite inspectors who together with Ledcor make safety their number one priority every single day.

Corporate Videos

TABLE FLYING – PROMO VIDEO Double Vision produced for R4 Contracting

TABLE FLYING – PROMO VIDEO 2

As mentioned this was a very big assignment, let’s take a look at some of the numbers:

Time Lapse photos Over 4,300 DNG images amounting to – 83 GB.
Promotional photos Over 650 DNG images amounting to – 14 GB
Total days of filming 8 days over 2.5 months.
Video footage – 620 GB of ProRes 422 1080p HQ, H.264 1080p, 720p Codecs – amounting to approximately 13 Hours.
Filmed from 4 Different roof top location.
Climbed 400 ft tower to get one of the tallest boom shots recorded of downtown Vancouver

The data captures for video were huge. To have the advantage with capacity and battery duration the best strategy we employed was our Atomos Ninja2 external field recorder. Once we were up in the skeleton of the building power outlets were in short supply. This was the forming phase of the building and we were not going to be privileged to have a power supply over a contractor. The Ninja2 was paired with the Canon 5D III onto a Jag35 full shoulder rig configuration. We meticulously configured the rig to be the right size and weight for tight spots and long shooting days.

Double Vision interviewing President of R4 Contracting Rick Spence on location at their main office in Burnaby, BC.

Without the Ninja2 we’d have been handicapped by limitations of capture cards that are in our experience more susceptible to dropped frames especially when the 5D is operating for long periods of time. We also didn’t need to worry about battery power because with Atomos’ continuous power dual battery system it allows swap-out of low bricks when needed. Combine that power supply with 1 TB HDD capacity recording high quality ProRes codec in 10 bit color space; it gave us the means to clearly focus on the important part of our job – to capture great scenes without interruption.

On a scheduling note, we could only shoot one day a week – Tuesdays (‘Table Flying Day’), the main subject of operations for what needed to be captured. Initial delays were the typically poor weather conditions Vancouver is known for but rain days couldn’t take all the blame. At the time of this project in the middle of production Johnny was in a severe MVA causing a shutdown to all our projects.

Hover over the image above and click the arrows to view the gallery

Configuring rigs is very time intensive particularly when specific scenes required safety clearance, usually completed the day before or days prior depending on the shotlist. For the Crane boom shot of Vancouver’s coal harbour we worked with the R Four crane ops ground crew to build a clamp board for the purpose of securing a GoPro. We came up with the design and where we wanted to mount it, one the RFour guys fabricated the board then we took it home for further modifications. On the day of installation we only had a short period of time (10 mins) permitted for crane access. Working together with Tyler the Jaso crane operator, CJ and Conor of the ground crew we fixed the board with a Justin clamp to the under belly handles and left side lip of the hoist. The pressure was on to get this right in a single execution because the crane rarely stops working. We were very fortunate to have this opportunity which produced a brief magical sunsetting light; cutting through the city and open floors of the MNP Tower.

To circumvent the lack of battery life in the GoPro’s Hero 3 Blacks we housed them into the TEHKRON CagePro. If you need longer shoot runs with your GoPro the TEHKRON cages are your best option. We used a number of different frame rates and aspect ratios, it has the ability to record up to 4 Hours of HD video on a single 64GB microSD card. These settings along with the cold and rain depleted battery life sooner but we still got over half than the expected amount.

Click To View The Full-Resolution Images

We have to thank the R Four crew who went to great lengths to accommodate all our camera angle requests. They understood what we were trying to accomplish in these setups, it sort of motivated them and they started to offer their own suggestions. Just like when Conor volunteered to grab some nail biting footage out on the edge, we all jumped, well jumped is not the word rather excitedly accepted. A GoPro was mounted onto Conor’s hard hat and the view shows us his incredible POV as tables are flying over the city and into place. A rare glimpse into his world and the extreme heightened sense of awareness required for this job.

Other notable scenes were GoPro setups; mounted and configured to the tables that were actually flying, secured with Justin clamps onto underside of the scaffolding. We captured a variety of scenes by repositioning the clamps and angle of elbow accessory mounts. We achieved this by coordinating table lifts with the sub-floor crew, positioned our moves in advance of the next lift and allowing the time needed for setup without interfering or delay.

All the visual content and media DV created for RFour met all marketing requirements. These videos promote their hometown superiority. The video content is also being utilized in presentations for project bids.

Corporate Videos

With the assistance of RFour’s most experienced crew, they consulted on the technical aspects on the following videos:

Doka Hydraulic Self Climbing Core
Jaso Crane J180 Luffing Crane
Ischebech Table Flying Forming System
Interview with Rick Spence touring yard and in office of R Four Burnaby location