Formula One on a dirt track!

The evolution of an idea and the progress a video goes through from its initial inception through to completion is like an adventure. The initial idea of the video most often includes a story but also a metaphor. We have found that if we can build a story around a known symbol we can tell the story of the new product or difficult to understand idea feel easier for the viewer to say, "Oh, I get it now!"

One of the first concepts that we need to develop is a mental hook that grabs the viewer at the beginning and helps the individual watching the video feel some sympathy for the main character. We all have problems and challenges in life and if the viewer can feel somehow connected to the main character then we are more likely to share the cool solution we are trying to share.

This video we made at Wienot Films includes the an homage to the awesome world of Formula One racing. Each video story has its own set of challenges to overcome and one that is almost universal is maintaining all the required bits of information in the story to appropriately describe the product. There are times when these extra bits of information can easily fit within the story and times when the extra bits don't naturally fit and make what could have been a smooth quick story into more of a longer instructional video. We always try to keep videos short and a story that is as fun to watch as it is educational, inspirational and achieves the goal of the client.

This exciting video was for SimCorp had a really cool formula one race car and a few other cars that were really fun to design and draw. We are looking forward to some more really cool videos in the future!

The Whiteboard Animation Journey

The early sketches before the storyboard can be very different than the final video drawings. This is just another fun part about the creation process. I find this an interesting part of my daily work and I have to admit that my favorite part is the moment I see the video footage I have sent to the editor edited together moving on the screen. My second favorite part but a lot more challenging is to begin drawing the rough ideas and concepts from the script.

At Wienot Films we take great care to talk to each client and ensure that we have as good an idea as humanly possible of what they are trying to express through the medium of whiteboard explanatory video. The building of an amazing script is very much not my style of fun and games but the amazing staff of individuals that work wonderful word magic take just enough time to turn out an amazing script do their job. Now I don’t want to tell you this but the script will continue to get massaged even while I work on the visuals, this isn’t because the script builders can’t ever finish rather they may be some last minute improvements the visuals will inspire so we’re always open to making it the best we can at any time. 

It is always a bit of a race to run through the various steps of storyboarding. Starting with roughs and character designs though a couple phases of storytelling with stick figures to end with a polished and approved storyboard. The final storyboard is an exciting step for me and I feel a bit of relief as a fair amount of work has been put into the storyboarding process. 

If the video is to have a look that I don’t do it will be sent to the illustrator of a more computer drawn look expertise. On the other hand, if the look we are going for is the hand drawn whiteboard awesomeness that I can do, I get to begin the laborious process of drawing on an actual whiteboard. 

After the footage has been packaged and sent to the editor, I get to relax and wait for pickups and edits and then the excitement of seeing a draft of moving whiteboard animation! A really exciting one to see come together was this SimCorp video that has some construction concepts to teach and having some actual home building construction experience, it was fun to use some of that knowledge.