The client wanted us to create an informative corporate video to promote their then new innovative tool/service that allowed local independents to advertise on TagCity. TagCity and Pixili have a long history together and TagCity is one of the biggest web projects designed and developed by Pixili.
In a video, the idea is often the key to success. But even though in text we had a clear idea of what we needed to tell. Since this was to be a video, we felt that a visual insert was needed to make the video understandable and interesting.
We also found this visual insert by chance while shopping at a local merchant where we found a kind of fruit salad among the scoop candy.
Very colourful and recognisable elements, each with a different eye-catching colour and shape. Which makes everything easy to follow. Plus the fact that fruit. is one of the main products sold by the local merchant in the video, a local grocer. Was a very nice conceptual bonus for us.
The main example would start with the orange sweets; TagCity’s signature colour.
We had only one day of shooting, as the company manager had a full schedule. However, as a narrator, the video counted on him immensely.
Now that was no problem. Despite the fact that we only had 1 shoot day. We have a lot of ways to ensure that the end result does not suffer.
Use of animation
Sometimes it is difficult to clarify something visually with real video footage.
For example showing a 30-kilometre radius with camera footage is not impossible. Now you immediately need an expensive drone.
And drones shouldn’t be controlled by just anyone either. So besides the drone, you also need a qualified drone pilot with enough experience to fly that type of drone. And even if you have found a suitable drone pilot, you almost always need a licence to fly a drone over certain areas and at certain altitudes. Of course, the weather also has to be right, drones cannot fly in rain and if there is a lot of fog or mist, for example, you can’t see anything on the images.
It turned out to be both a lot of work and expensive and for some video production, drone shots are definitely worth it, but not here.
So we opted for animation here and also in a lot of other places and even though making an animation also costs time and money.
It is nothing compared to the logistical and budgetary burden involved in drone shooting, for example.
So even though we cannot fly a drone, we can solve this and much more with animation
Where, by the way, we had an additional advantage here. In the past, Pixili also designed TagCity’s mascots. During that design process, we gave both characters a skeleton to make Tagy and Tago easy to pose. That in turn made animating them a lot easier.
We used these animations not only to better visualise concepts, but also to keep the video interesting so that the potential customer wouldn’t click away.
Subtle visual effects
It’s no secret that we at Pixili are fans of motion tracking. Our videos were even shown alongside ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ in the showreel of Mocha, the software we use for motion tracking.
Motion tracking therefore came in very handy here. The client was concerned that the user would not be able to follow an example. That was solved by adding a motiongraphic label that showed exactly what the candy in the video was currently a metaphor for.
Following the script, but also daring to let go
Together with the business manager, we wrote a good script. We first wanted to use a teleprompter, but that turned out to be too wooden. So we made the decision to let the business manager tell the story spontaneously. This was easy because we fully storyboarded the script and even though we let go of the exact writing. The storyboard gave us guidelines. For example, we knew perfectly when an animation or transition was planned in the video and we could put invisible start and stop points and so the business manager could present the script in smaller parts.
Pixili makes videos but also offers a complete package of web, branding, image creation and 3D services. Plus we have our own product line Pixipop.
