Today’s entry in our Luck in Advertising series comes from our Motion Graphic Designer, Justin Gagen.
I like to tell other people (and myself) that my job is 100% skill and talent, but the truth is luck plays a more significant role in my job than I like to admit.
It used to be that to get high quality 3D effects into my videos, I had to coordinate efforts between several programs in a long, technical and complicated workflow pipeline. Then, a new plug-in for After Effects called Element 3D was released, allowing me to import 3D models directly into After Effects, saving me a ton of time by cutting out several steps in the 3D workflow and making it easier to combine effects and make changes.
Only a few weeks after the plug-in was released, I was assigned a new commercial project for Phoenix Children’s Urgent Care, which involved combining the 2D capability of After Effects with a 3D-city effect. This would have been a long and difficult process to create before Element 3D was released, but it was pure luck that I would get this new powerful plug-in just before being assigned a project that almost seemed made for it.
Any other animators gotten lucky before by happening on a tool that made their job easier?
Raise your hand if you’ve heard that video is absolutely killer when it comes to SEO.
*raises hand*
First off, that’s totally correct. When it comes to getting traffic and engagement videos reigns supreme!
Lights, camera, ACTION!
Ready to get started filming the next big viral video? Well slow down. We’ve gathered some helpful tips and tricks to help you capture moments around your business to make adding video into your marketing communications easy and stress free.
If you’re under the impression that in order to add video to your website or social media channels you need to have a huge budget and hours of extra time, think again! If you have access to a cell phone or a camera, you can quickly and easily take some fun, and simple videos that will help promote your business.
For videos that will live on social media, the key to creating successful videos is to make them A) Educational B) Entertaining or C) Both
If you create a product, film a segment of your production process.
If your business is service oriented, film an event or client project.
Here are some tips on creating a successful video:
Eliminate all the background noise you can, you’ll thank yourself later when you go back to listen and edit to your video.
This means turning off music, asking people to quiet down (when possible), and making sure you choose the most quiet time and place possible to film.
If you’re going for a documentary/insider’s look with your videos you’ll most likely be dealing with A-roll and B-roll.
A-roll is all interviews: Pulling somebody aside and asking them “What are you doing?” “Can you explain to me what’s happening?” “How do you feel about that?” etc. When interviewing somebody, they need to repeat the question in their answer. For example, if I asked you “What is your favorite cookie?” you need to answer “My favorite cookie is oatmeal chocolate chip,” because just saying “oatmeal chocolate chip” doesn’t make much sense without context.
B-roll is footage of what the A-roll is talking about: For example, if we’re interviewing someone baking cookies, we would show a video of them baking the cookies while playing the audio of them talking about baking the cookies, because nobody likes watching talking heads.
For a good example of the A-roll B-roll relationship, watch any episode of Mythbusters, which is technically a documentary. Reality shows also follow the documentary formula, as do most news stories. Narration can also help, if you feel the need to tie it all together beyond interviews.
At the end of the day, editing is the easiest way to really crank the production value of any videos. Luckily, almost all computers have some basic video editing software installed and with a little playing, you can make some pretty snazzy videos.
So no more excuses for not making video a part of your digital communications!
One thing that I tend to always consider when brainstorming, working, animating, or designing, is the concept of character, and its emotional investment from the viewer. While this concept of character is important on a technical and practical level for animation/design to be effective, I am much more interested in the actual creation of a character or characters for use in advertising. Creating effective characters results in more memorable campaigns and higher retention among viewers.
Creating effective characters, especially through comedy, allows viewers to empathize and relate to situations and products that could otherwise go unnoticed. Thanks to the internet and web advertising, videos can now be much longer, and much more involved. This allows for short stories and webisode-like content that can help sell products much more effectively. The use of social media, and the concept of user discovery, (allowing a user to find content on the internet via social media and word of mouth) has become a very crucial paradigm for advertising in the new age.
Case in Point: There are several already effective campaigns out there, that people will seek out and watch, simply because the content is funny, viral, or otherwise interesting. Many of these campaigns involve specific characters to deliver the selling points.
Allstate Mayhem guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFVpaQGltrI
Over 1,000,000 views!
Old Spice – The Man Your Man Should Smell Like
Almost 40,000,000 views!
Kenny Powers – K Swiss
Almost 3,000,000 views.
Characters can really make a campaign shine! It can also help unify a look or branding that sell the product. Using characters in advertising over the internet is also great because censorship becomes much less of an issue.
So obviously, I am a big fan. And after leaving my thoughts with you, I figured I would leave you with one more wonderful video link. You may have seen this, but if not, you are in for a fun treat.
Yikes. That reference is dated isn’t it? Well even though we still enjoy a little Rebecca Black in the office, that doesn’t mean we aren’t on top of our game when it comes to our work!
We’ve had a busy week in the office and thought we’d give you a little glimpse into one of our creative team’s meetings and one of the projects we’re working on right now!
The crew is currently working on a couple different video concepts for Desert Schools Federal Credit Union. Not only do we work on Desert Schools’ commercial spots but we also produce marketing and promotional materials for them to use in-house.
What we have here is a storyboard that came out of a brainstorm we held earlier this week. This is a very early concept and between the story board, script, animation, and final editing, it will go through quite a few revisions.
So here is phase one of the project, can’t wait to share the final product! But that will have to wait for another Feature Friday!
Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, and Sammy Davis, Jr? Yep! That’s right the gang is all here! The Rat Pack is Back has taken over the stage of Mesa Arts Center and Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre this week. The show hit the stage in on Main Street in Mesa and this weekend can be seen in Phoenix through Sunday.
For this week’s Feature Friday we wanted to share videos from some of the men’s appearances from this week!
The Rat Pack stopped by the Fox 10 Morning Show on Tuesday and had quite a fun time messing around with the hosts Rick D’Amico and Andrea Robinson, check out the guys below!
The men also had a visit over to Sonoran Living and spent some time trying to woo the lovely Ms. Andi Barness…
Yes, as a matter of fact, Dean Martin did try to ask Andi out after the segment was over, these guys don’t break character at all!
In “The Rat Pack is Back”, Frank, Sammy, Joey and Dean are back and doing it “just one more time.” What ensues is an uncanny recreation of one of the Rat Pack’s raucous, antic-filled performances, featuring Bishop’s hilarious comedy and performances of timeless standards including Sinatra’s “You Make Me Feel So Young” and “A Foggy Day,” Martin’s “That’s Amoré” and Davis’ “Mr. Bojangles” – all with the backing of a swinging 12-piece live orchestra performing period perfect orchestrations.
If you are looking for something fun to do this weekend, head into Downtown Phoenix and catch one of their shows!
There are matinees and evening shows throughout the weekend, for tickets you can go straight to the box office or check out www.theaterleague.com
Hey ANDERSON fans — did you happen to notice the adorably furry black dog that cameoed in our agency Holiday card this year?
My very own little munchkin, Lucie, was selected to appear as the Live Nativity Lamb in A Very ANDERSON Holiday, and we were all very proud of her. Being that she’s one of the most loving dogs on the face of the planet (claims bragging rights..), she decided to come into the office today to visit her new friends here at 5725 N. Scottsdale Road and help the PR team out a little.
With any luck, you’ve started winding down your work week to begin enjoying the holidays with your loved ones. But before you start digging in to all those Christmas cookies or Hannukah latkas, we wanted to pass along a holiday greeting from the team here at ANDERSON.
We have some pretty big fans of “The Office” on our team, so when we started kicking around ideas for this year’s holiday card, the idea of making a video instead came up. We thought about taking a group photo in matching ANDERSON-green jump suits, but that (regrettably) was instantly shot down. So, we decided to go for the video!
Our PR team members, Laurie SantaLucia and Lauren Streiff have always dreamed of a life writing for and being on “Saturday Night Live”, so they threw themselves into writing a funny script for the agency’s holiday video, chalking it all up to practice (can’t knock a gal for dreaming!).
The two took their love for ANDERSON, “The Office”, and “SNL” and turned it into a script that featured all the members of our own office — well, more like versions of everyone in the office. They teamed up with ANDERSON’s incredible Motion Graphics Editor, JJ Chalupnik to direct and film the video and were on their way!
Several drafts, three shopping carts of decorations, hours of setting up and striking down sets, two days of filming, and one dog-lamb costume later, we had our holiday card.
We hope you enjoy it and that this holiday season is particularly wonderful for you and your loved ones!
Cheers to spending time with all those near and dear – Happy Holidays!
