Everything ever shot, written, attempted, rejected or half-built for this film — in one place. Nothing here is finished. We are rebuilding it from concept, and the concept is yours.
TechTown Damascus is an innovation building in Kafr Souseh — eight levels of workspaces, meeting rooms, an event hall, labs and studios. NHJ makes their content. They need a film that shows what the building holds and why a technology company would want to be in it.
TechTown Damascus, via NHJ. Feedback comes from Sinan Hatahet. Also in the thread: Maysarah Mishaal, Bashar Mishaal, Karam.
Business and government delegations — including a Syrian–Saudi council event held inside the building. They can see the rooms; the film has to be worth more than a tour.
Arabic and English, equal weight. Arabic leads. Fonts are locked: Expo Arabic, GE Flow, Titillium Web.
One version was shot and rejected. Several directions were tried after it. None approved. That is what this page is for.
This is the whole reason the first version was sent back. Read it before anything else — every direction since has been an attempt to answer it.
Four of the five notes ask for more concrete detail — name things, show contents, list the kit. The fifth asks for a narrative. His paragraph is the narrative he wants: a place whose tenants are chosen to complement each other. He is not asking to remove the building — he is asking for the building plus a reason.
These are confirmed. Anything not on this list, ask before putting it in a frame.
| Item | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Labs | 3D printing lab · CNC machine · Cybersecurity labs | not open yet |
| Studios | Game development studio · MediaVerse — audio, music, video & podcast | not open yet |
| Event space AV | 2× JBL speakers · Epson ultra-short-throw projector · motorised screen · mixer + 2 wireless mics | confirmed |
| Floors | 8 levels. Floor 3 is open. | confirmed |
| Floor names | Do not use. The website names (MediaVerse, InnoLab…) do not match the building — InnoLab and MediaVerse are both sections inside Basement 3. | dropped |
| Square metres | Never requested by the client. Was our addition. | dropped |
| Palette | #68559F violet · #4B62A7 blue · #74CCD6 teal · #EBB2C3 pink. Teal and pink are accents only, never fills. | locked |
The labs, the game studio and MediaVerse do not physically exist yet. They cannot be filmed and must not be faked — the audience will be standing in the building and can walk down and check. They get graphics with an opening soon marker. This is not a limitation to hide; handled well it reads as confidence.
Assume no new shoot. Everything below already exists.
The strongest reference we have, and easy to forget: the client already has motion work they approved. Anything new should feel related to these.
Including the failures. The point of this section is that you do not repeat any of it.
The original. A continuous walk through the building, floor by floor, with Arabic caption cards.
Why it failed: not enough information — no lab content, no lab names, no AV list, the wrong name for the game studio — and no narrative. All five of Sinan’s notes are about this cut.
Also: organised by geography, so eight near-identical beats. The viewer learns the pattern by the third floor and stops watching.
Abandon live footage entirely. Eight abstract glass modules representing capabilities, connecting to each other with light. Fully AI-generated video built from locked keyframes.
Why it failed: the objects look futuristic but nothing like the brand — the TechTown diamond is flat and hard-edged, not glossy 3D glass. It was also disconnected from reality: no café, no labs, no rooms. It contained less information about the building than the cut the client had already rejected.
Worth keeping: the mechanic — light only travels when two complementary things connect — is a genuinely good visual for tenants chosen to complement each other.
Put the real footage inside floating glass panels so vertical footage fills a 16:9 frame.
Why it was dropped: it solved the aspect-ratio problem elegantly, but the film was still a tour, and the glass was still off-brand.
Each space gets a panel: the render, its name in both languages, its contents.
Why superseded: the renders are not photographs of the real building. For an audience standing inside it, that gap matters.
Same panels, Fateh’s actual frames instead of renders. Nobody travels; each space arrives.
Why it still fails: Frankensteined. Real footage and 3D objects in one frame never resolved into a single world.
Drop 3D entirely. Build in TechTown’s own flat language — hard-edged diamonds, the diagonal wedge, the 128px grid, kinetic Arabic type. Footage is duotoned and clipped into a diamond, so it becomes a graphic fill rather than a photograph sitting in a scene.
Why it works: there is only one world, so there is no seam. And it uses the brand’s actual motif rather than invented sci-fi.
Open question: light or dark. Light is closer to their own opening animation and survives a projector in a lit room; dark matches the Grand Opening film.
Use the TechTown t itself as the container. Footage plays inside the letterform, so the vessel is the brand mark rather than a generic object.
Why it is interesting: it keeps a premium glass quality while fixing the off-brand problem — the shape is the logo. Not yet tested in motion.
Assume nothing further can be filmed or photographed. Work with what is on this page.
Labs, game studio and MediaVerse are unbuilt. Graphics only, marked opening soon. Never fake a room.
464×832. Heavy stylisation is an advantage here — it hides compression a clean grade would expose.
They can see reception and the café themselves. Show them what the room cannot.
An earlier cut framed it as millions have a problem, we are the answer. Too cocky, and it dismisses everyone already building in Syria.
Equal weight. A bilingual card needs roughly 1.7× the dwell of a single-language one.
We are not asking you to fix the last version. We are asking how this film should work — what it opens on, what carries it, how the real footage and the graphics live in one frame instead of fighting, and what a viewer remembers thirty seconds after it ends.
The hardest problem, stated plainly: we have real interior footage we must use, and we want passages that are pure motion graphics. Every attempt so far has felt like two films stapled together. Unifying those two worlds is the design problem.
Bring it rough. A strong idea in five ugly frames beats a polished version of something that does not hold.
Everything on this page, plus the written documents.