Animation Production

After analyzing the situation, we proposed to use a combination of corporate and animation video to deliver the committee’s key messages in a much more succinct and dynamic way. The footage would come from UEFA’s archives and we would handle the animated elements. This was corporate video of a different ilk than we were used to producing, but the challenge was stimulating, and our creative team was up to it.

Given the stakes, the quality of the production had to be top-of-the-line, so 3D animation was a no-brainer. Together, we decided to create an introduction with children getting together on a football field. There, they pull out a magazine, which we did up in a panini sticker book style. This became the pretext to introduce each committee chairman, as if they were players.

We then animated in text to deliver certain key points, and then segued to video footage that illustrated the achievements being enumerated by the voice over. To keep things fresh and varied, we opted to toggle between a man and a woman’s voice.

The final corporate video was shown on a large screen at the congress and posted on the UEFA website. It was a big success, especially with the top brass, who immediately gave their green light to make this an annual production. We have since been at it each year, and we are now working with UEFA to provide other, complementary, services to improve the event’s digital coverage and experience for participants. This includes augmented and virtual reality elements, as well as other creative communications solutions.

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This project is an excellent example of how animation can be used to make an explainer video that needs to be accessiblye to people of many different cultures and languages. For one thing, animated characters are generic, so we avoid having to cast people from multiple ethnicities to make sure no bias is suggested. For another, animation means we don’t need to source video footage from far and wide, which can quickly get very cost and complicated, not to mention time-consuming.

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WHO, the World Health Organization, has become a regular client at Fullframe Creative, especially when it comes to animation production. They contact us often to help them communicate on various campaigns. We have worked specifically with the department dealing with Tuberculosis.

We have done pure animated videos, video and animation combined, and social media versions of these animations for the UN agency. WHO, like many of our clients, particularly appreciate the tool we use for feedback on video drafts. Once the graphics have been animated, we send what we call VRPs – Video Review Pages, which allow the viewer to click anytime, anywhere on the video to insert a comment. This comment gets automatically time-coded and appears both as a dot on the video, but also in full form in the margin on the right.

Take a look at how this works. It makes providing feedback on animation and video so much easier than using email, pdf’s or other text-based documents that are not kept current in real time. Once all is ship-shape and as you want it, we deliver the final animation via Dropbox or any file transfer protocol of your choice. Busy as they are, the WHO task forces typically send us their key messages in bullet points, which we then work into a draft script. The script is always the backbone of any animation project, unless, of course, there is no voice over.

During this part of the pre-production, we submit shortlists to WHO of both voice over artists we feel will fit the bill, as well a music tracks. Once these are selected, and once the script is finalized, we create an online storyboard. We use Google Docs for this, as most of our clients are familiar with how these work and as they provide for easy, in-real-time collaboration.

These are particularly important for animation production, not only because graphics are, for obvious reasons, harder to envisage in exact form than real actors and sets for video shoots, but also because graphics take time to create and animate, so we really want to make sure that everyone is on the same page before we start to make all that happen. Depending on the complexity of the project, we may start off with hand sketches. Once these are vetted and approved by the customer, we then turn them into CGs (computer graphics). Again, these get a round of review and modifications before we move on to actual animation.

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That’s why we decided to put this project among our highlighted case studies. We were able to do it the way we wanted to, which is not always a given. Our advice to Syndermix was to use the show, rather than tell, approach to storytelling with animated video production. What that means, concretely, is that, instead of telling viewers what rhinosinusitis is and throwing a bunch of facts and figures at them, we opted to tell the story of a cartoon character who suffers from the condition.

This allowed us to make viewers feel what it’s like, by creating a bond between them and the protagonist and by making them relate. Facts and figures speak to the mind. Stories and emotions speak to the heart, and people, when push comes to shove, follow their hearts, not their minds. That’s why conveying information via storytelling is so much more powerful than via factual exposés or informative marathons. 

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In addition, Syndermix supported our creative team in its choice of a quite stylized genre of animated video. As you can see, no attempt is made to make the character realistic in his traits. On the contrary, soft, ample curves exaggerate his features and make him larger than life. This helps create a sense of empathy and attachment to the character. The color palette is also deliberately soothing in its pastel hues.

Add to this a well-crafted sound design, and you get an animation that really hit the nail on the head: the message is clear, but it’s also compelling and makes people want to learn more and engage. That’s the power of creative communication, when done well.

The aim was to explain and promote the International Model Forest Network (IMFN), which is the world’s largest network dedicated to the sustainable governance of landscapes. The deadline was tight, so we had to work quickly but well. We doubled the number of animators assigned to the project and we pulled it off.

Another challenge was that once we’d established the script, we realised that it would make the animation considerably longer than the brief had suggested. This raised budget concerns, of course, but also the amount of time available. Thanks to the good working relationship between the agency and IUCN, we were able to find solutions and make the right compromises to ensure that the quality was maintained, by notably reducing the amount of animation, per se, while emphasising the quality of the graphics and compensating for less movement with a well-crafted sound design.

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This video is a good example of the solutions offered by animated video, compared with capturing and editing actuall footage, when it comes to producing video on international themes, which logically require footage from all four corners of the world, which can quickly become very expensive, not to mention time-consuming. It’s also very easy with animation to avoid the problem of ethnic or gender choices that can arise when it comes to featuring characters.

We are also producing a complementary animated film on Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR), the ongoing process of restoring ecological functionality and improving human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes. This animated video is still in production, but you will find it here once it has been completed.