In October 1, 2024, PACIFIC CONSULTANTS' website was completely renewed. When you open the page, you will be struck by a scene of a woman standing gazing at the sea. In order to convey PACIFIC CONSULTANTS' thoughts on this complete renewal, we decided to create a branding movie. It shows a woman performing contemporary dance in front of the vast sea and on the rooftop of a high-rise building at night in a big city. It conveys our thoughts on what we are trying to deliver to the future after more than 70 years of history. We has asked the Corporate Strategy & Planning Dept., Corporate Communications Sec., and the production team about how this unique branding movie was created.
A new challenge that goes beyond the framework
- How did the planning for the branding movie start in the first place?
The trigger was the renewal of our website, the first since 2015.
Through our 70-plus years of business activities, PACIFIC CONSULTANTS is well known among those involved in social infrastructure development. However, once you step outside of that world, very few people know about us.
Now, as the world is threatened by war, poverty, and inequality, and we are burdened with serious issues such as the sustainability of the global environment being in jeopardy, we are going beyond the framework of individual infrastructure development as a traditional construction consultant, and as a social infrastructure service company, we are aiming to solve social issues and create a hopeful future. To achieve this, we need to get more people to know us as a presence that will join us in solving problems.
That's why we wanted more people to see our website and gain a deeper understanding of our company, which was our goal when we decided to renew it.
- Does this mean that content such as INSIGHT and STYLE also originated from there?
That's right. We proactively share our knowledge and efforts on topics of great social interest, such as disaster prevention and resilience and green transformation, and we communicate our corporate stance on what we are aiming to achieve through our business.
This time, we wanted to communicate to people who are unfamiliar with PACIFIC CONSULTANTS what our company has done and what kind of future we are trying to create, so we planned a branding movie and placed it at the top of our homepage.
- Even so, it's hard to associate PACIFIC CONSULTANTS with contemporary dance.
That's right. When it comes to branding movies, I think it's common to create a documentary-style video showing employees working enthusiastically, or for a company involved in social infrastructure, to show the bridges and tunnels it has built, or to show the future city it envisions using illustrations and computer graphics.
Contemporary dance was suggested by photographer Makoto YOSHIDA, who has been photographing our company's various achievements and projects for many years. In fact, even the members of Corporate Communications Sec. were taken by surprise, as it was something they had never expected, and at first they were like, "Contemporary dance? What's that? How does it connect?"
The main concept is "Listening to society's voices and creating an unseen future," and the piece expresses through contemporary dance how PACIFIC CONSULTANTS, a company involved in social infrastructure that has made a major contribution to the revitalization of postwar society, continues to ask, 'What is needed next?' with its 70 years of wisdom. "A woman stands gazing out at the sea, and the sounds of the waves, the wind, the bullet trains, the airplanes, and the hustle and bustle of the city overlap. These sounds truly symbolize what PACIFIC CONSULTANTS has created. The woman closes her eyes and listens to the sounds, then opens them wide and begins to dance. In other words, she accepts and absorbs history, and begins to express the future with her body," is the story.
The message that can only be conveyed through a branding movie
- Does this mean that there are things that can only be expressed through contemporary dance?
We realized after receiving the proposal that in these chaotic times, our vision of "Producing the Future" cannot be expressed by listing past infrastructure structures as our track record or imagining a future city with cars flying in the sky. What we have been working on is not just building social infrastructure. Indeed, what we have ultimately created are bridges, railways, buildings, dams, and embankments, but our goal is not to build them, but to realize a rich society and peaceful lives through them.
If we were to talk about our journey in terms of "Things" and paint a picture of the future that can be created as an extension of that, I don't think it would be an exciting one. We have continued to take on challenges and evolve over the past 70-plus years. To solve social issues that change with the times, we ourselves are required to think in new and free ways that are not bound by precedent. It is precisely by moving away from concrete things that people's imaginations are freed and able to soar into a larger world. We felt that this was necessary now, as we set out on our journey with a new statement.
Even if PACIFIC CONSULTANTS can gain sympathy at the level of "Things" that the company has accumulated and will continue to accumulate, we can only say that we will work together to achieve this. It does not lead to "Listening to the voice of society and creating a future that has yet to be seen". How can we reach the hearts of the viewers? Contemporary dance is an expression of emotion. I thought it would be appropriate to express our company's vision of the future.
- What were the difficulties you faced in producing this?
All of them (laughs).
The first half of the scenario is a tranquil world set by the sea, while the second half is a dynamic world set on the rooftop of a high-rise building in the big city of Shibuya. We narrowed down the specific locations from many candidates. Since it's PACIFIC, we thought the sea should be the Pacific Ocean, so we looked for a candidate location on Chiba's Kujukuri Beach.
On the day of the shoot, a typhoon was approaching, creating a dramatic sky and high waves, making for a great setting. The sound that tells the story of 70 years of history was collected from Haneda Airport, the Sky Garden in the city center, the Shinkansen platform, and even from Shibuya, where the action took place, using sounds unique to each location, such as the deck of Shibuya Hikarie, the bus terminal, the scramble crossing, and the Tokyu Toyoko Line platform.
- How did you choose the dancer and songs?
We held auditions for the dancer. We explained to the final candidates the background of the founding of PACIFIC CONSULTANTS, the kind of work they have done up until now, and what role they think they should play in the future, and in the end we asked Yu SUZUKI to take the role.
SUZUKI-san accepted our work in her own way, and with this dance, she sent us the message, "I want to express the joy of living." The song was written by a composer. Just like the dancer, we took the time to communicate our company's history and our thoughts about the future before having him/her compose the song.
I hope that this will inspire each and every person who sees it to think about the future.
- What do you hope for people who watch this branding video?
I think that different people will see it and have different opinions about it. That's fine, and I think that's necessary.
Those who already know our company well will be able to sense our changes and challenges, and those who don't know anything about us will be interested in what kind of company we are. Students looking for jobs will think that our company is doing something interesting and that they might be able to do something with it.
Yu SUZUKI expressed PACIFIC CONSULTANTS' 70 years and the future it aims for in her own way, and did her best to express it through physical expression. I would be happy if she could give people at least a little sense of what our company is trying to do for the future. Furthermore, if he can give each person an opportunity to think about how they will be involved in that future, I think he will have conveyed his aspirations as a social infrastructure service company.
This branding movie does not contain a single word of text. We hope that each person will take in the message they feel from the video in their own way.
Introduction of the dancer
Yu SUZUKI
Born in Chiba Prefecture. Dancer.
She studied ballet from a young age. After studying abroad at Arts Umbrella in Canada, she was a member of the Canadian ballet company Noism2 in Niigata City until 2019. She is currently based in Tokyo and works as a freelance dancer. She has appeared as a main dancer in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and in works by various choreographers both in Japan and abroad.
MESSAGE
"Listen to Society's Voices and Create the Future"
When I thought about how I could express this vision through dance, I realized that creating the city of the future overlaps with creating our own future.
Nature and towns are something that surround us in our daily lives. I believe they are filled with the imagination and passion of the people involved in the development of these towns. The concept of the choreography was to rediscover the background embedded in things that at first glance seem to exist naturally, and to express the hopes for the future town that will be created and the joy of being there.
