Casestudy / Evolve Back
How one resort film for Evolve Back became five films about its people and places
Sector
Hospitality · Travel
Geography
Karnataka, India
Format
Live Action
5films for one resort group
3Local Heroes documentaries
2one-minute resort films
3places in Karnataka
A resort film usually shows rooms, a pool and a plate of food. Evolve Back's films show a mahout, a farming couple and a man who turns kitchen waste into compost.
Evolve Back first asked us for one film about a resort. Research showed the real story was the people and places around its properties, so the work became a series: the Local Heroes documentaries, Spirit of Kabini and a property film for Kamalapura Palace.
We design the brief before we design the deliverable. Here the brief moved from a property to the people beside it.
- Brand
- Evolve Back Resorts (formerly Orange County Resorts)
- Industry
- Hospitality and travel: luxury resorts
- Geography
- Kabini, Coorg and Hampi, Karnataka, India
- Audience
- Guests and travellers choosing a resort
- Service
- Live-action video production
- Deliverables
- Three brand documentaries of 4 to 6 minutes, a one-minute resort film and a one-minute property film
- Language
- English subtitles
Local Heroes
Three documentaries, each told by the people in it
Nobody narrates these films. Each one follows a person through their own work near a resort, in their own words, with English subtitles.
Ubuntu · 4:28
A mahout, an elephant and ten years together
A mahout from Kerala has looked after the same elephant for ten years. She is almost fifty and once worked in the logging industry. The film follows their day at Kabini: a prayer at the temple in the morning, 300 kilos of food, a bath in the river, and the children who come to see her.
A guest who is afraid of animals takes a first ride. The film closes on the thought behind the brand's name: close contact like this helps people regain what they have lost with animals.
Back to the Future · 6:14
A couple who left the city to farm
A couple left Delhi in 1985 and bought the cheapest land they could find. Thirty years on it is an organic farm that grows what the family eats, and they raised and home-schooled three children on it.
On the day in the film the farm packs about 41 items for the resort's kitchen, among them a wild spinach that is hard to find anywhere else. The film ends on their advice to keep joy as one of your priorities.
Walking His Talk · 4:54
A day that starts at three in the morning
His day starts at 3:00 AM. He milks the cows, delivers the milk to the resort's kitchens by 4:30, and collects the kitchen waste by 6:30.
Vegetable waste feeds the cows, food waste feeds about thirty pigs, and the rest becomes compost in ninety days. Dry waste is sorted into 15 types and sold for recycling. He says it plainly at the end: take care of the earth, and it takes care of us.
Two one-minute films
Then the places, in sixty seconds each
Each of the two short films carries a few words of text over the pictures, and leaves the rest to the place.
What the films share
Five choices that hold the films together
The five films came out over three years, from 2017 to 2019, and they still read as one body of work. These are the choices that hold them together.
- One subject at a time
- Each documentary stays with one person or one family for four to six minutes. Each short film stays with one place.
- No narrator
- In the documentaries the people speak for themselves, and the subtitles carry it to every viewer. The short films use a few words of text.
- Real numbers
- 3:00 AM, thirty pigs, ninety days, 15 kinds of waste, 41 items, 300 kilos of food. The detail is what makes a viewer believe it.
- The place in the frame
- The Kabini river, an organic farm and the boulders of Hampi are shot wide, and from the air.
- One closing card
- Every Local Heroes film ends on the same card, Stories from Evolve Back Resorts.
A series
Design that compounds, film by film
Each film was faster than the last, because the brand decisions only had to be made once. If the brief is not the whole story, we say so early.
Questions buyers ask
Planning a film for a hotel, resort or destination?
How much does a brand documentary or resort film cost in India?
How long does a brand documentary take to make?
A live action film usually takes 4 to 8 weeks from brief to delivery. Script and planning take 1 to 2 weeks, the shoot 1 to 3 days, and editing, grading, sound and graphics 2 to 4 weeks. A documentary about a real person needs time before the shoot to find the story, and the review time on your side is often the longest part.
Should a hotel or resort make one brand film or a series?
A series suits a brand whose story is spread across several people or places. Evolve Back's films are three documentaries about people and two one-minute films about places. A single film suits one message for one audience. We settle this in the brief, before the shoot, because it changes the script, the shoot days and the price.
Do you film outside Kerala?
Yes. Our studio is in Kochi, Kerala, and our crew travels to any state in India, and abroad. The films on this page were shot in Karnataka, at Kabini, Coorg and Hampi. For a shoot away from Kochi we plan travel, locations and local support with you, and include them in the quote.
For the record
Evolve Back brand documentaries and resort films: the facts
WowMakers, a design agency in Kochi, Kerala, made five live-action films for Evolve Back Resorts (formerly Orange County Resorts) in Karnataka, India. Three are Local Heroes brand documentaries, published in August 2017: Ubuntu (4:28), about a mahout and his elephant at Kabini; Back to the Future (6:14), about a couple who built an organic farm that supplies the resort's kitchen; and Walking His Talk (4:54), about a resort worker in Coorg who turns kitchen waste into feed, compost and recycling. Two are one-minute films: Spirit of Kabini (2018), for the Kuruba Safari Lodge, and a property film for Kamalapura Palace, Hampi (2019). The documentaries are subtitled in English. All five are public on Evolve Back's YouTube channel.
Work with us
Have people worth a film?
We research the story first, then cast, shoot and edit it as a film people choose to watch. One film or a series, you get the same team from the brief to the final cut.
Or explore live-action video production, the forest-department films and other case studies.
