BlackRock Model Portfolios Investment Philosophy Explained

This animated video that Wienot Films produced for BlackRock started its visual conception on my desk as I had the honor of working through the storyboard and how we might visually see the narration come to life. It is always exciting for me to work work on an explainer video like this, in which I will not follow it all the way to a whiteboard video but will see another artist, illustrator or animator take my storyboard and create an awesome product video or explanatory video like this one. I really enjoy seeing the visual seeds I get to plant and watching them bloom into an incredible garden of activity in animation.
This was particularly fun for me as at first I wasn't clear on it not being a sketch or hand drawn video in the whiteboard style. I only have myself to blame for the unclarity but I believe this one was part of a few others that were in production at the same time and I do tend to get confused on which is which when there are multiples in the pipeline at the same time.
When the realization finally occurred to me that I would not be drawing on the whiteboard for this video I was almost a little sad as I had imagined a lot of the fun drawings to try and portray the difficulty the climbers were going to have reaching the summit.
I think the animator did an amazing job in their style to create a really cool video and you too can now watch our guest couple reaching their financial goals as they metaphorically reach the top of the mountain!

Chinese New Year

Why would I want to talk about Chinese new Year in May? First of all I just recently had the pleasure of accompanying a friend to the Maker Faire in the Bay Area. 14 years ago I had the opportunity to learn Mandarin Chinese over in Monterey, CA and on a few occasions I ran over to the Bay Area to visit China Town San Francisco. It was quite fun for me as at that time in my life I had not been outside the country and this was the highlight of seeing other cultures for me. I had so much fun attempting to speak Chinese with all the good folks in China Town and enjoy the fun food offered in the Chinese Food restaurants in the area. I was not in the area for China Town New Year now was my visit to the Bay Area in May over Chinese New Year but the trip this time was filled with lots of hearing, listening to, and speaking just a enough of Chinese to again get me excited to try and better my proficiency in the intricate and amazing language. 

As I looked back on the fun videos I have worked on at Wienot Films and this one was a favorite. I got to do a large portion of the actual directing and worked directly with the illustrator and animator to get to the final product. I believe it is a great example of the sort of animated video that would work well on someones landing page or the style that could be a amazing explanatory video. It was a fun change from the normal whiteboard animations we produce and one that we look forward to making more of in the future. 

No matter what time of year it is, I wish you a happy time to celebrate, what ever time it is!

CX: Epic video in the Mud

I get to work with a guy that is awesome with the editing and fantastic with some sweet action shots. I just get to claim the association with the guy that makes these awesome action videos. Wienot films has done some really awesome action videos. I can’t say I know a whole lot about cyclo-cross bicycle racing but if this landing page video were on the website it would totally get me excited to be part of the action. This is what it looked like at the USA Cycling National Championships in Austin, Texas. I can image a cool product video having this level of excitement in the way of a cool bicycle or maybe even an energy drink. It would be tough to do this level of action in a whiteboard animation or an animated video using the style we do for other explanatory videos but we could definitely do some other great explainer videos that could be more educational on the subject! 

For now you’ll have to check out this cool cycle-cross video!

Super Sleeper A Music Video!

I didn’t know I’d ever get to work on a music video. I never really know what each different project is going to bring at Wienot Films and this project was a ton of fun to storyboard. Super Sleeper wanted a landing page video for this cool pillow they have. We got to work with a unique song that told their fun story of a young lady and her adventure in sleep or dream land. It was a great animated video. We only had to do a few revisions on the storyboard and then the adventure through the production of the hand drawn video was a true adventure as it did have the opening and closing had live action. 

Check out our friend in her dreamy adventure!