2014 Beijing Shangri La, World Summit Wing Hotel Vertical Run - 2014 北京国贸大酒垂直马拉松

For this project the Limelight team were sent to Beijing to film the Shangri-La World Summit Wing Vertical Run. Where 1000+ runners took up the challenge to run the 2041 steps, 330 metres of the 82-floor World Summit Wing building.

On the day we arrived we were blessed with a perfect blue sky a rarity in Beijing and sadly it was not too last as the clouds moved in on the 2nd day of shooting. 

We had the challenge of capturing all the runners from start to finish. As we had learnt from the previous years results we would only have a 10-minute window to cover the elites starting the race and when they finish on the helipad. We did a recce of the building to discover the best locations and how long it would take us to get there in time to catch the runners. For this we made use of the hotels service elevator to get to floors we otherwise would not have access to and we timed how long it would take to get from each position so we could estimate how long we could cover one area without missing anything further along the race. 

We decided that to cover the race and not miss anything important we would split into 3 teams; the 1st team would be in the lobby covering the race starts and also were responsible for capturing the opening ceremony and the warm ups. The 2nd team was positioned in the staircase to capture the actually race as the runners proceeded up the building. The 2nd team was aided by Go Pros positioned throughout the route to get a wider range of the run. The 3rd team set up on the roof covering the finish line, post race interviews and the various events/awards that happened as the race continued in the background Throughout the event batteries and camera cards where shuttled up and down between the 3 teams from our charging and wrangling station.

10 minutes 1 second after the race had begun Piotr Lobodzinski of Poland crossed the finish line and our window to cover the leaders of the race had closed. At this point we had covered what we needed and by the mid afternoon the race coverage had gone well and with a plethora of footage we left back for Shanghai.

北京国贸大酒店又再次迎来一年一度的垂直马拉松比赛。此大楼总高330米，82楼，2041个台阶，今次的比赛参加选手总共是1000名以上。这次Limelight Studio团队面对不一样的挑战。

当我们抵达北京的当天，老天十分眷顾我们。当天北京的天空是罕见的清澈，我们也十分的幸运可以上到酒店的大楼拍摄北京美丽的夕阳。我们本以为天气会一直都这么好，但是从第二天开始，天空又恢复正常。

本次最大的挑战是要如何拍摄到所有的选手，以及精采的比赛过程。我们得知到2013的比赛结果，菁英组从起跑点到82楼的终点，只花了10分钟的时间！所以我们需要一份很详细的拍摄计划，以及精确拍摄地点。比赛之前，我们在酒店不断的踩点，计算时间，找寻最好的地点拍摄。我们最后得到酒店方面的同意，可以使用酒店员工的电梯，节省拍摄当天等待的时间。

最后我们决定分成小组，以便我们不会漏掉任何一个镜头。第一组，负责酒店大堂，主要是拍摄鸣枪的那一刻，选手们冲向楼梯间，开幕仪式，以及选手们的热身活动。第二组，负责搂梯间的拍摄，拍摄选手比赛过程，和放置GoPro，可以让我们有更广阔的素材。第三组，负责选手们冲线的那一刻，赛后采访，和一些赛后的小活动。

当天九点钟，比赛的第一声枪声响起。过了10分钟又1秒，2014年北京国贸大酒店垂直马拉松的冠军诞生了，他是来至波兰的Piotr Lobodzinski。我们拍摄到所有活动的过程，之后马上搭火车回我们的工作室，以下是我们这次的作品，希望你会喜欢！