Marshall Plan – Citibank – Commercial / Brand Film – BBC World News

1 minute history documentary for Citibank’s 200th anniversary; this is one in a series of four broadcast brand films / long form documentary commercials, screened on BBC World News,

The series features great moments in recent history, in which Citibank was in some way involved. This episode looks at funding for The Marshall Plan in the 1940s and 1950s, and New York City Housing in the 21st century. The goal of the series was to create something visually striking that told strong, concise stories with both a historical and contemporary resonance. We wanted to maintain a BBC World tone.

For this episode I made innovative use of archive, achieving an augmented reality style animation, alongside interview. The New York City story was particularly challenging – I had spent several weeks setting up and 2 days shooting a story on the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre, featuring an unsung hero of 9/11. On the Saturday morning I was leaving NYC for Singapore, the client informed me that due to political reasons we could no longer feature that story. So I pulled together the New York City Housing story and filmed it all, on that same Saturday, before rushing to the airport to shoot the Singapore leg of the project. 

This film won a  runner up award in the 2014 Focal Awards for best use of archive footage. I have written a detailed post on the technique to create the rebuilding visual effect, here.

Client: Citi

Agencies: MEC & Publicis

Channels: BBC World News & others

Locations: Berlin, New York