1916. The Romanovs build a 20ft high snow tower in their residence in Tsarskoye Selo. Every winter Nicholas II, with the help of the Imperial Naval Guards, built a snow tower on a frozen pond – a tradition brought to the royal estate from his childhood. Micro-film becomes a detailed reconstruction of a real photograph from the family archive, seen at the end.

Our team meticulously chose the exact props for each shoot, making sure we were spot on with clothes, headwear and other details. Each scene features an original tune composed and recorded with orchestra by renowned Russian musician Peter Nalitch.

The Romanov archive is perhaps the first private photo chronicle in history to boast such detail and scope. #Romanovs100 video reconstruction pays a lively tribute to Russia's last ruling family, giving these photographs a second, digital life in social networks.

The Romanovs were photography pioneers — in the early 20th century they owned the world's first portable cameras capturing almost every meaningful event in their lives.

On July 17, 1918, Nicholas Romanov, last Tsar of the Russian Empire, his wife and five children were executed by the Bolsheviks. To pay tribute to the family, we merged a large set of visual data with transmedia storytelling to piece out the big picture of a "lost Russia". Thousands of the Romanov’s images were converted into platform-specific social media narratives on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram with accounts on each network showcasing unique format and content.

We chose three original photos to reconstruct the lives of the Romanov family using a century-old technique. The “silent” online video reconstruction features original music and portrays the Emperor as a family man, focusing on his feelings for his wife and his children.

#Romanovs100 team aimed to reconstruct the atmosphere of 100 years ago: analogue cameras and exact copies of century-old artefacts facilitated a time-travel experience, bringing the original photos to life.

Based on historic references and our own research, we made sure that everything, starting with locations and ending in snow shovels, was 100% authentic. For the winter scene we built an exact copy of gigantic snow tower the Romanovs built 100 years previously.

We used retro 8mm & 16mm cameras and Kodak black-and-white film. We tested several cameras found in museums, online auctions and even personal collections. Our crew ran a number of tests to master the technique. After filming, the challenge was to develop the footage as not many studios work with 8mm & 16mm film. So we partnered with Russia’s legendary Mosfilm studio: each frame was scanned as RAW; DaVinci and AVID were used in the final editing process.