Tell Brand Anthem
As often as we urge our clients to have brand anthems, we decided it was time to refresh our own. So we set off to create a fun, colorful, 3D character-driven storyline.
Step 1: Concept creation and script development
First step was outlining the overall reason for this video in the first place. Here was our brief to ourselves:
Brief:
Audience: Primary audience is direct-to-client that could use video to market to their clients but don’t have much vision/language around video and what it’s capable of doing. Secondary audience are agencies/video partners that want to know more about us.
Goal: To educate the pros of video, and specifically why work with Tell for video marketing.
Emote: We want our audience to be wowed by the impact of video, then form trust with Tell, and lastly for it to be fun and visually driving. The voiceover should be conversational and light, but come across as confident to match our confidence at Tell.
With these things in mind, our story begins with our protagonist, who already has the good makings of a successful brand, but is ready to take it to the next level. With the help of our Tell team characters, they’re able to punch up their marketing with video content in several different ways. Here’s our final script:
Script:
So, you’ve invested time and thought into your brand. You’ve got a cool logo, a stunning website, a perfect color palette…
And that’s great. People are visual. We spend hours a day taking in content like never before.
You think you’re getting noticed... but are you? Maybe you’re getting lost in a crowd of competitors.
So how do you stand out? Well, you could start moving.
We see it all around us. Boosting social media reach with video content.
Companies going from print to pre-roll ads.
Presenters and performers in front of captivating visuals.
3D part renderings and breakdowns that help people learn faster.
Hyping product releases with a sizzle reel.
It’s time to set your brand in motion.
Our team builds a customized video content strategy unique to your goals and values.
Win the deal. Educate your audience. Get people excited. Sell the product. Elevate your brand.
Tell your story.
Step 2: Character Design
With our brief and script in hand, we dove head first into the fun part of designing our set of characters. Each of our Tell team members did a brainstorm/sketch session of different character ideas. Everything starts as a brainstormy sketch.
Once we picked out 8 of our favorites, we refined them as 2D characters, then brought them into 3D, with 2D draw-overs for facial features and extra pizzazz. Finally, we refined each character’s texturing, color, and lighting.
Once a character was modeled, we rigged them to call out the joints and “skin” so they can be animated. This gives them structure and allows us to pose and control our characters’ moves, bringing them to life!
Step 3: Color Design
We wanted to keep a vibrant and colorful palette in mind when designing our set and character colors. Here are some of the variations we went through before landing on the final palette.
Step 4: Storyboards + Animatic
Before we got to animating everything in 3D, we wanted to make sure the action and flow of the video made sense. So, we sketched everything in 2D first to establish our character and camera moves for the 3D environment.
Step 5: Animation!
Here’s where everything comes to life with animation.
Not only did we have most of our primary animation happening in 3D, but we wanted to add an extra way to emote and add energy by overlaying 2D animated drawovers into each scene. Here is a breakdown of that process:
When we got a little stuck on our car peeling out with smoke coming from the tires, we decided to do a full on 3D smoke simulation to see how real smoke would look coming out from under spinning tires. Then, we matched the volume, flow, and shadows of these clouds in the way that we drew our 2D smoke.
Step 6: Shout for joy and clink our glasses as we share the final video!
So, ready to set your brand in motion? Email us today at hello@tellstrategicdesign.com and we’ll happily get rolling with your own custom animation that brings your brand to the next level!
Credits:
Krystal Anderson - Copywriter, Producer, Creative Director
Stewart Rosburg - Creative Director, Animator
Stephen Moore - Illustrator, Modeler, Animator
Laura Garcia - Illustrator, Modeler, Animator
Stephen Cruz - Animator
Brianna Fernandez - Voiceover Actress