In this current climate of enforced isolation, it provides some time to reflect and gain perspective on the ongoing situation. Remote-working is, and has been, a topical subject of discussion within many businesses for years. But with events taking this out of many organisations’ control, it has become a real necessity. But just because you are no longer in the office, work doesn’t need to grind to a halt.

 

Continuing on from our previous post on how to run a remote video project, remote-working is not a new concept for Holler. In some cases, whole projects can pass without any “real” face-to-face interaction. That doesn’t mean that we don’t communicate with our clients. We build meaningful, lasting relationships across a variety of different forums. We utilise the technologies at our disposal to great effect, such as video and conference calling. This also grants us a great deal of flexibility and clients can contact us at the click of a button wherever they are in the world.

 

Moving from the production office, or edit suite, to a home office really doesn’t affect our client interactions. Here is just one example of one of these projects, that, from contact to completion, were fully remote: Canvas by Neota Logic.

 

THE CLIENT & BRIEF

Neota Logic are an award-winning no-code AI automation platform that provide a range of tools to help professionals build and automate applications. With the release of their new tool, Canvas, they needed a launch video to explain how user-friendly and intuitive the interface is. We created an explainer animation that integrated visuals from the solution with familiar iconography (over complex technical jargon), to explain how Canvas works. Here’s how we did it.

 

Unlike a “traditional video shoot”, there is no “shooting” involved in animation, which is why it makes a great solution for remote-working. Our client contact was largely email-based with supplementary phone calls. This meant that the Neota team could fully brief us and prepare for their new product launch simultaneously. From these conversations, the over-arching theme was clear, user experience was a priority we had to focus on how this makes the solution easy to use. In doing this, we also needed to introduce the solution, distinguish it from Neota’s main platform, but also emphasise how Canvas fits into the Neota family of tools.

 

 

BRINGING CANVAS TO LIFE

Once briefed, our animators got to work developing assets whilst the production team were sourcing the voice-over artists, sound effects and music. Following the script approval, the voice-over was recorded. We like to provide the client with an invitation to dial-in to the session to take part and provide additional direction. Meanwhile, the storyboard was drafted, completed and approved in only a few days – all was coming together nicely.

 

All additional assets were given to the animators, who were primed and ready to work their magic. The build stage of the project, and vector animations particularly, is fairly straight-forward. Storyboarded shots are designed 100% prior to the build stage, so it is a case of literally bringing it to life within the software! In contrast with video shoots, shot lists, schedules and locations all need to be drafted and organised prior to the shoot day itself. If you’re not organised, you can get sidetracked. This is where animation shines over its real-world counterparts.

 

Sound is often overlooked in animation. An animation without sound can feel very odd as your brain is anticipating certain sounds to naturally occur. This is where our final stages of sound mixing take place. Balancing the levels of the voice-over, sound effects and music to a degree where everything is audible, but no one sound is overpowering another is absolutely essential for a video production.  Once all these post-production processes are completed , we quality-control the final video to ensure all aspects are the best that they can be before being sent for approval.

 

 

COMMUNICATION IS KEY

Throughout the process there was a constant dialogue between Holler and Neota Logic. We built up a rapport that resulted in a great animation that met all of the objectives.

This is a great example of how you can work remotely and still produce great content that achieves its goals! Holler were able to the animation, so the client could focus on product launch preparations.

 

Check out the final video below and if you think animation is a solution for you, please get in touch with us for more information.

 

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