Four Seasons Hotel Madrid
Four days in Spain. Three shoot days. A launch film for one of the world's most recognized hotel brands.
The brief was simple. Capture the flavor and the feeling of being there.
The invitation
A hotel nobody had seen yet.
A new Four Seasons was about to open in the heart of Madrid. Muse Storytelling had the job of introducing it to the world, and they called us to shoot it.
But a hotel is only a building until you feel the city around it. So the film couldn't just show rooms. It had to show Madrid: the stone, the light, the food, the hands that make things.
"Madrid did most of the work. Our job was to be in the right place when the light was right, and to make you feel like you were standing there."
David Grinnell, Director of Photography
The story
Three days to find the feeling of being there.
Thirty thousand steps.
No cameras yet. Just shoes and a notebook. David walked central Madrid end to end and wrote down where the light would land and when. By nightfall the crew had a map, and the client had a plan.
The city, as it is.
Plazas at first light. Cathedral stone at golden hour. Interviews with the people who would make the hotel feel like home. Light kept minimal, so Madrid could do the talking.
North, to the coast.
A small shop on the sea that would supply the hotel kitchen. Then a workshop where a local maker builds guitars by hand. The flavor of Spain, at its source.
Behind the lens
Madrid, not a set.
RED cameras. ARRI Signature Primes. A drone above the rooftops, a Steadicam through the halls, a slider for the quiet moments. And as little artificial light as we could get away with, so the footage would feel like the city itself.
Off script
Every good story has a few obstacles.
"You can't drive yourself, you're seven hours off your body clock, and the language isn't yours. That's the job. You adapt, and the team did."
David Grinnell, Director of Photography
A hotel not yet finished.
Every room we shot was dressed to look like opening day.
Seven hours from home.
Body clocks reset on the fly. The schedule did not move.
A language not our own.
No driving ourselves. Local partners got us where the light was.
A country in a week.
City streets, a coastal kitchen, and a luthier’s bench in the same short window.
Behind the scenes
Notes from the road.
Credits
- Client
- Four Seasons Hotel Madrid
- Production company
- Muse Storytelling
- Director
- Patrick Moreau
- Producers
- Cari Spinnler and Caitlin Miranda
- Director of photography
- David Grinnell, Tanner+West
Where is your story set?
Across town or across an ocean, we'll be there when the light is right.
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