Film and Far Between: 6 Architectural Videographers You Should Know

The Main Entry Deadline for Architizer's 13th A+Awards is Friday December 6th! This season we're spotlighting the talent of architects who expertly balance global challenges with local needs. Start your entry.

Architecture is meant to be experienced. While much of architectural history has been shaped by images, a recent turn towards videography and film has changed how we understand the built environment. While images became ubiquitous, we now see the influence of video on culture and society that’s increasingly felt throughout the world. Architectural videographers embrace sounds, movements, and the haptic nature of architecture to showcase everyday life.

Architectural videographers focus on narrative. In a short span of time, they work to portray what it’s like to live within a building or structure. Their films and documentaries tell a story, whether it’s a completed building and its design, the project’s construction, or how it is used by clients and visitors. Showcasing the individuals and firms shaping architectural videography, the following experts rethink film and videography today. Together, they allow us to understand architecture and its impact — even if we can’t ourselves visit the buildings firsthand.

Spirit of Space

Spirit of Space was founded by Adam Goss and RedMike in 2006, and the duo set out to disqualify the assumption that a single image can represent a project. Now, they have a filmography of over 300 films for architects and designers such as Jeanne Gang, Amanda Williams, Steven Holl, Wolf Prix, and Daniel Libeskind. As they explain, their films are made through an “obsessive process” to help designers connect, communicate, and empathize with people outside the profession and add value.

Spirit of Space documents the contemporary experience of visiting landscapes, buildings, and structures. They believe their films should show how design can accessible to everyone, with their work found online and distributed through educational lectures and public events. Their films are impactful not only for their ability to make design more accessible, but also for their depth in storytelling. As such, they have long working relationships with architects over time that underlines the value of working with videographers and filmmakers.

MASS Design Group

Thatcher Bean was the first videographer to work at MASS Design Group. Hired in 2013 to help co-founding principal Alan Ricks with a TED Talk, Bean was a filmmaker who captured the Butaro Hospital in Rwanda. Now, MASS has become a leader in how architecture firm’s communicate the built environment. They now have an entire team of filmmakers that capture architecture and design as changing, living things that are lived in and used over time.

As the firm notes, MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society) believes that architecture has a critical role to play in supporting communities to confront history, shape new narratives, collectively heal and project new possibilities for the future. The team includes over 200 architects, landscape architects, engineers, builders and filmmakers, representing 20 countries across the globe. For them, film is a way to show how design and architecture can be purposeful, healing and hopeful.

Jeff Durkin, Breadtruck Films

For Filmmaker and Director Jeff Durkin of Breadtruck Films, videography is grounded in narrative and storytelling. As Jeff outlines, Breadtruck Films is a production company dedicated to making videos on all things design. His approach combines a background in architecture with years of experience working in the Hollywood Film Industry, where Jeff drove around in an old Wonder Bread truck that was converted into a mobile production studio.

Durkin has made films about every project type, from the “Jewel box” custom homes to the future of education. With over 500 films produced in the last 15 years, he has learned how to connect people to design through storytelling. Today, he is one of the most well-known architectural videographers and an award winning Film Director. He makes commercial documentaries, brand films, and design videos with a focus on documentary storytelling. Durkin has worked in a wide range of industries, and in turn, that diverse experience has shown him an array of ways to produce great films and videos.

MILLER + MILLER

As a Chicago based company serving clients nationwide, MILLER + MILLER has a range of videography with cinematic film projects and productions. As the team explains, they specialize in producing cinematography DSLR video, aerial drone shots and films across architecture. Their library of videos includes project types like custom homes, apartment complexes, large office buildings, small businesses, interiors, exteriors, skyscrapers, commercial real estate projects, construction and more.

The videography company is owned and operated by Ryan Miller and Sarah Miller. The couple has over 30 years of collective experience in photography, videography and graphic design. They met in art school and have since travelled to capture architecture across the United States through photography and video.

Milena Villalba

A Spanish photographer and videographer from Valencia, Villalba’s work uses simple frames. She created a professional career as an architectural photographer, with much of her work in Spain, and then countries across Europe and Africa. Working with Alba Cariñena and Beatriz León, Villalba’s portfolio includes films and videos that showcase architecture as it is used, rather than more promotional work. Here, she captures the Bangre Veenem School Complex by Albert Faus Architecture.

Villalba is an architect that graduated from the Polytechnic University of València, but also has a photography degree from the València School of Art and Superior Design. When you view her videos, not only can you understand and see how a space is used, but also what it sounds like. She uses a range of techniques to accomplish this, including a hot-shoe mounted external microphone to record the audio. Villalba’s main aim is to show how architecture and everyday life is experienced from unique points of view.

Nikolas Strugar, Ravens at Odds

Brisbane-based filmmaker Nikolas Strugar has built up a portfolio of videos covering architecture for firms and events like Open House Gold Coast. The above video is one of these features, showcasing the Kurrawa Surf Life Saving Club by Arkhefield. Strugar shoots in a variety of ways, including handheld. He believes it represents the purity of cinematography. Working exclusively with architecture and creative industries, his company Ravens At Odds tells stories through film, photography, graphic design, web development and brand strategy.

Strugar’s work builds off of many years of experience working in architecture and design firms and as a freelance designer and artist. He also studied audio production and engineering with a background in music production and recording. He has worked on projects of various scales in Australia and abroad including housing, urban planning, photography, music, sound design, film and audio-art installations. As a designer and a musician, his films showcase an interdisciplinary approach combining spatial, graphic and audio-visual concepts to highlight design and people.

The Main Entry Deadline for Architizer's 13th A+Awards is Friday December 6th! This season we're spotlighting the talent of architects who expertly balance global challenges with local needs. Start your entry.