TIME FLIES
Hawthorne proposed that we ought to perceive time as flying over us, but that it “leaves its shadow behind.” While I doubt the American literary founding father was anyone’s idea of a jovial drinking buddy, he wasn’t a nihilist either. Offhand quips like the one above continue to prove their power through their ability to jump to mind, even after all this time. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for words.
The point is: HSBC picks up that same philosophical thread by stepping into its own long shadow of innovation, reminding us it was both forward-thinking and global long before the internet existed. This isn’t just a line to open the film; it sets the tone for what follows, which is a structured, sharply crafted tour through 150 years of technological change.
Produced by creative heavyweight Plastic Pictures, The History of Technology traces HSBC’s evolution from telegrams in 1867 to biometrics and blockchain in 2024. It’s a film built on detail. Visual references are drawn from each era, supported by hand-built sets, real engineers, and screen-accurate interfaces. Good time has been taken to authentically capture the invisible temporal partitions the narrative relies on. There’s humour and style here too, but it’s all in service of the message that innovation, for HSBC, has always been about staying connected to customers.
With that in mind and a viewing under your belt, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that the film won Best Corporate Film at the Brand Film Awards 2025, with further commendations for Sound Design, Direction, and Purpose. It arrives at a strong moment for Plastic Pictures, who not only completed a significant rebrand in the last 12 months but climbed to 4th in this year’s UK Top 50. A clear marker of consistent, values-led storytelling across projects.
As for the film itself, you’d have to be a visual hermit not to notice how THoT borrows from the aesthetic toolkit of one Wes Anderson (see: ‘symmetrical framing’, ‘curated colour’, ‘stylised transitions’, ‘less 4th“wall” more 4th “window”’), yet grounds itself in a financial services context. Chapters give the story rhythm while props give it texture. Nothing lingers too long, but everything earns its place. It's this tension between charm and transparency that defines the whole film, trusting the viewer to pick up context through design and movement. The result is something rare in corporate comms - a heavily constructed piece that never feels contrived.
Sound carries far more of the storytelling weight than some of you Visualvores would care to admit. From the tap of mechanical keys (see: Atonement’s satisfying typewriter motif) to the softness of modern touchscreens, each era is defined sonically as well as visually. It’s this attention to audio that earned the Plastic team a Highly Commended nod for Post-Production: Sound Design. Direction is equally precise. Helmer Ben Kent, also Highly Commended, handles the shifts in tone and timeframe with confidence, allowing small beats to land between edits. The structure is obvious, but never rigid, and that’s what gives it agility.
For all the historical markers and production flourishes, this is ultimately a story about connection. Through the mind’s eye of Plastic Pictures, HSBC maps a whirlwind journey and assuridly convinces us it had more of a hand in making those connections possible than we might have first considered. The History of Technology coo's us into that place where only the best brand films reside: where historical complexity is turned to clarity - reminding us there can be warmth in even Hawthorne's shadows.
