Version 1 and Version 2

 

There's a lot that goes into making a video and then there's a huge mystery to me around what will make a good video, an interesting video, and the illusive viral video. Too often the search for a viral video gets in the way of creating a good video while the interesting part seems to be very subjective.

I have seen too much of the artist ventures or avenues artist take that appear to be nothing more than shock and awe. The art world and the world's perspective of it has had a decline in talent, and skill, and the idea of objective good. 

I'm not expert and there are lots of more popular opinions that seem to be the common idea but I wonder if we are selling our culture short when we celebrate paint splatter and a huge rock as the peak of art and what showcases talent. I hope we can witness a resurgence of art in lots of different areas that requires effort to gain the skills and time to perfect the craftsmanship and art that communicates what is the best in our society. 

That being said the above video was the 'redo' from the below video and for some reason the first version has the fraction the attention the above video has. It makes me wonder...

It's gonna be different after the first kid!

 

Before I started working at Wienot Films and during the time I was investigating the explanatory world of videos on Youtube I watched this cute video. I already had a handful of children at that point and I don't know if even then I remembered that brief moment when it was just my wife and I living the wonderful married life!

Since that time we have added a couple more children to our happy family and now we are even having the opportunity to seeing them leave on adult adventures like church missions and college. We have enjoyed our journey as a family from the early times with just my wife and I and then the addition of our first children. Each child has brought new challenges and a wonderful joy into our lives that has given additional meaning and depth to all the other things I do. 

There are changes and difficulties that come with having children but they are outweighed by far with the happiness and advantages that children naturally bring. 

A touching cancer patient story...

There are some stories that really pull at the heart strings and have a powerful call to action that isn't always overtly expressed. We all have challenges in life and when we hear of the poverty stricken plight of our fellow man in other parts of the world we feel that desire to do a little more. 

Roche Latin America wanted an explanatory video that would help show the unique challenge too many of our brother and sisters face in the poor, rural parts of Latin America during moments of extreme fear when they get diagnosed with cancer. I can only imagine the scary feeling that would be to receive that diagnosis and know that there is little assistance available. It definitely makes me have more gratitude for the blessings I currently have and makes me more open to finding a cause or project to which I can offer some support.

This video was produced by us here at Wienot films with the awesome cooperation with Edelman. They did an incredible job with the animation and I particularly love the characters. There's a wonderful warms to the color palette that helps pull in the viewer to feel for the woman who receives the diagnosis. 

It is an honor to be working with such talent and in a great work environment, I am truly blessed!

 

Who doesn't like fútbol?

 

Not every video I get to work on ends up being a Whiteboard style but I feel amazing when I get to contribute to a video that has this sort of action and activity in the characters as the traditional whiteboard style doesn't usually have this sort of animation! 

Wienot Films is capable of a wide variety of styles with a host of options that can help make any client excited to see their dream come to life in an explanatory video.

This video was the brain child of BlackRock to help inform about the Clara index that is offered. It was fun to see an older couple and their predicament of trying to make a positive financial future for themselves. The video also uses the analogy of the various players on a soccer team and each one has their own strengths and weaknesses. We can see that each player on a team will be used at different times to help the team win just like the couple can use the advertised services to better improve their position and in the end their desired 'goals' will help determine the better questions to ask to their financial advisor to come up with just the right plan!

You'll have to give this video a watch and let me know what you think of the players running and kicking the ball, I was really impressed with what the animator did!

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!

My spirit animal, the American Buffalo.

I have to admit that I am more of a fan of the term Buffalo but it is because of the symbol of the creature and not so much the actual factual about the creature. I love that historically they had their own territory as they roamed the vast North American continent. These amazing creatures roamed from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico. Although these most powerful creatures once numbered in the excess of 10’s of millions they were once hunted to near extinction and only with massive intervention have they recovered to roughly 31,000, even if these numbers are restricted to only a select number of national parks and a few reserves. 

The sacred white buffalo “Big Medicine” represented all the sacred power of the mystic and real world around us. The buffalo symbol represents the sacredness of live and the abundance of resources around us. The buffalo is a symbol of self sacrifice and it will continue to give until nothing is left to offer. 

I love the idea of living up to the symbol of this great creature and one small way for me was to create this fun little drawing. 

Drawing a doodle from a word!

This most epic creature has been talked about and written legends since antiquity as a strange and unusual beast with a singular, magical, spiraling horn that protrudes from the exact middle of the head. The Indus Valley Civilization has described in the ancient seals white even the ancient Greeks included the unicorn in various texts. 

The more modern folklore has the unicorn described as a white horse or large goat sorta animal with the aforementioned long spiraling horn. During the Middle Ages and the renaissance the wild animal that lived in the woods, it was seen as a symbol of the grace and purity. This strange creature could only be captured by a virgin. There are some that believe the legend is based on the Narwal and its tusk has been sold as an actual unicorn horn.

Today, the unicorn has an important place in pop culture. We see it as a special symbol of the magical and fantastical world in which we want to believe.

I can’t say all that was the inspiration for this Unicorn but I hope you can have as much fun drawing along with me as I had sketching it out!

Who doesn’t love a cat… drawing?

I really like my cartoon cat, I can’t say that I like cats but the cartoon is cool. I know that the Felis Catus is one of the less cool carnivorous mammals although it is quite the domesticated specimen of the Felidae family. I don’t know that this small animal that has cousin are all wild I don’t know if I agree that just calling this sort ‘domestic’ makes it any better or more distinguishable from the relatives out in nature and not in your home. I don’t believe it for a minute that this house pet is any much different from the ‘feral’ variety free ranging and fooling the rest of us that it’s not coming into contact with me or bothering my daughters who are currently scared to death of cats. 

I recently of the term “catio”? What an interesting idea to provide for your cat an outdoor recreation area that will be enjoyed without the risk of harm coming to the cat or worrying your own pet is going to getting into trouble roaming the neighborhood. There a many ways that we can take the temperature on any given society and wonder if Mahatma Gandhi had some insight into one possibility with his quote, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” I am a huge fan of being a good steward over the things we have in hour care, and yes this does include the animals with whom we adopt into our lives. I can’t say I agree with the humanization of pets or the idea that they are our “children”. I think we need to think responsibly on all commitments we take and all living things needs our full attention and the way we treat all living things is a very accurate estimate of a moral barometer. Now that I’ve been way to philosophical I would like to remind that I am encouraging you enjoy a fun little cartoon drawing of a cat and I encourage you to draw along!

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!

Binoculars Explained

We have a good looking ‘animated’ couple out on many adventures as they help us create an awesome explanatory video. This whiteboard animation was really fun to see the motorcycle scenes as they each progressed a little in different ways throughout the explainer video. Although it is a product video, and it very much as that feel, we really wanted to bring some life to the video by including this couple on their different adventures to the ballgame, the national park birdwatching, and even a romantic scene as they are stargazing. It is always exciting to work for the big time clients and being able to have Canon on the brag list is a bonus!

Follow along our pair of friends on their journey together!

Word art video

We, at Wienot films, are always trying to new ways to share our art with you. These videos and the idea of taking words and drawing images that reflect the word has come from the inspiration of our children and their desire to draw and love of learning from others drawings. 

I thought at first that drawing an image from a word would be super easy until I started on trying to work up my own image to draw on the whiteboard. I could not believe how challenging it was to not simply copy all the other fun ideas that you can see out there. 

I’ve had a ton of challenges and successes working on and finding some nifty ideas to draw and I look forward to getting more suggestions on future projects. Although this is not a replacement for our regular client work that includes explanatory videos and corporate videos, we are trying to challenge and push our creativity and expand the ways we can share with more friends. 

We're adding new "how to draw" videos weekly, so check out the playlist and subscribe.

The tale of two Networks

What a great video to work on with some great people. I have always enjoyed being able to throw a little homage  to other creatures and this was the perfect chance to say thanks for the work of previous animators and game makers. I think we did a pretty good job of creating a corporate video in this hand drawn style. 

Boat Ride

I don’t get to draw on the white board for every corporate video we produce here at Wienot Films, but there aren’t many that I don’t have the honor of working on initial storyboards. This video for IHS Markit was a fun quick storyboard to work on before I got to hand it off to the computer animator. I really like the look of the hand drawn video but this one is a great style. It is an amazing product for some effective marketing. 

Who’s afraid of the dentist?

We’ve had a really fun project at Wienot Films to take a previously produced whiteboard video and update and bring it up to current needs for an awesome client working his wizardry to produce beautiful smiles and reducing the pain of his patients.

I really don’t know much about what had gone into the development of this awesome technique of the good doctor but when we look at producing an explainer video or a corporate video for each and every client we have we put everything we have into its production. That’s a real mouthful to say we really put our all into each marketing video and we work hard to make it awesome and amazing.

I personally really liked working on the characters in this video to find just the right look for the girl to give her a little visual appeal while maintaining the presence of her pain at the beginning of the video!

A break in production to explain a break

Every once in a while we take a moment away from the corporate video making to do a little marketing of our own or maybe just to have a little fun. It so happened at this time we were looking at the beginning of the school year and wanted to thank those people that are traditionally working so hard to keep the kids busy and active all summer.

At Wienot Films we take a few minutes here and there to try and improve our job at producing some of the most amazing hand drawn whiteboard videos on the planet.

This little explainer video is simple a fun little view at the crazy home life of the parent at home with the kids and then the break that is required when the kids start school again! Feel free to have a watch and maybe suggest something fun for our next fun promotional video!

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. 

Roundee.io

Roundee.io was a great client to work with, they introduced us to a new software while we were communicating with them and we got to try it out during our conference calls. The video itself was quite fun as we here at Wienot we're 

encouraged to use humor to ensure the audience was as much entertained as being informed of the conference software. I had a lot of fun with the main character

and felt like he was modeled just a little after myself, especially some of those early mistakes he makes at the beginning of the video. Although I would never zone out or multitask during a conference call, *wink*!

Iconography /īkəˈnäɡrəfē/

One of the more challenging activities as a visual development artist for an explanatory video production company, like Wienot Films, is to invent and use as much iconography or imagery as we can to tell stories or express ideas, especially with the abstract topics. 

We try to use as few words as possible on screen to keep the viewer from having to work harder in reading words in order to understand the story. 

There are a couple of main difficulties in this process, the first is to either use the same basic icons that everyone else is using. While being easily understood it can also lack in originality or that wow factor we strive to deliver to each client while maximizing the memorability of their video. 

The opposite approach is to create a new language of icons to tell the story or explain the idea. We feel this approach runs the risk of the audience not fully understanding the concept or simply getting lost in trying to understand what is being explained and concentrating on simply figuring out what each individual icon is suppose to mean. 

It is a constant struggle, one that we enjoy taking on as we help each of our clients fulfill their dreams and desires to explain their story one explainer at a time!

Canon Whiteboard Animation Video Quest for Color

The content for this explainer video could have easily felt a bit stale, but we were able to make it a fun journey with the theme of the medieval quest. We had the wonderful assignment at Wienot Films of creating an animation that showed color advances in digital video over time. It was a little difficult to work up the concept at the beginning but once we got rolling, it was a pleasure. It is always fun to try to include a few famous people as I draw these, even if they don’t look exactly like the person or are not well-enough known faces that everyone would readily recognize them. I wonder if any film buffs will recognize the people I used for inspiration for some of these whiteboard characters.

Back to School Whiteboard Animation

It is an exciting time of year as kids are preparing with new clothes and ‘educational’ electronics. The elementary kids get to fill their new book bags with lots of shiny school supplies and everyone waits with anticipation to see who the new teacher will be for home room and find out how much school work they might be able to get out of in chemistry class.

For parents, it is a bit of a break for school to start, don’t get me wrong. We parents will be busy bussing kids back and forth to school, the science project due at the end of the first semester has to start this week planting seeds, and sack lunches don’t make themselves. But after a summer of keeping the next generation of leaders entertained and busy during the past summer, the school year is a welcomed break. Even if the school year brings work and worry, there is a moment of reprieve to which parents look forward.

The team at Wienot Films wanted to make this fun whiteboard animation to honor you. We recognize the hard work parents do both during the school year getting their middle school band students to that odd timed performance and all the hours of entertaining, carpooling, and care-taking during the summer months with swimming lessons, play days at the water park or skate park. We hope that after the kids get into class you can take a moment to yourself or maybe enjoy a cool beverage with a friend. But don’t take too long, you have the early pick up duty in the carpool this week. Good Luck and enjoy the show!

DirectDep's Mascot

One of the recent whiteboard explainer videos we produced at Wienot Films provided me a unique challenge. In addition to the regular storyboarding and final drawing of the whiteboard footage, I also had the challenging assignment of creating a cartoon mascot of sorts to represent the company. The company, DirectDep, provides a services connecting court reports doing depositions with attorneys who need them. I was thus charged with creating a fun mascot in the look of a stenograph machine. We affectionately called her Deppy.

We went through a few different versions of Deppy, getting feedback from the client throughout the design process. After narrowing the design to a specific look, I had to create two main versions: one with wings and one without them. We always want clients to be happy, so I even ended up producing different wing options to make sure we got everything just right. 

Another unique challenge of this video was creating a very stylized, more realistic look for the characters instead of something more cartoony. Our whiteboard characters are usually a bit more loose and less realistic in their style, making this video a fun challenge. At Wienot Films, we like to produce all kinds of whiteboard videos--from cartoony people to animals to toys to robots--so when I got the challenge to make the characters more realistic, it was a fun challenge. Plus at the end of the day, we always want the client to be happy. 

So with that introduction, here’s the final video:

For your next hand drawn whiteboard animation from Wienot Films, contact Marc and tell him Jim sent you. He’ll get you started on your next explainer video in style!

Canon Whiteboard Animation

One of our recent whiteboard video projects with Canon was a wonderful adventure. I always enjoy listening in to the early conference calls as the various representatives from Canon talk about what the new explainer video will depict and show. 

Wienot Films is dedicated to creating great stories and really crafting the perfect script for each clients' explanatory video. I personally don't deal a lot with the wording of the script but I do all I can to ensure that I put as much effort and perfection as I can into the drawings on the storyboard. This amazing attention to each word compels me to hone my own craft as I begin to work on the character development for each whiteboard animation. After I complete the initial round of character work I will start to draw out he general layout for each scene and the work of the sketch video is well underway. 

Usually when I receive a script and begin the early work, I begin with the characters. There is typically one main character, but in this particular Canon video, we used a whole family and depicted them on a safari vacation. ti is always fun to design a whole family, especially when I can use my own children as models for all the hand drawn characters. This video reminded me of similar situations on vacations with my own family. 

My favorite scene in the Canon series of videos has to be the family photo in which I had the chance to show how much fun we can . have when we want silly faces to remember the fun we have on our adventures and wild vacations. I took a little extra effort to have the dad do something I personally like to do that may or may not embarrass my children in the family photo. 

Here's the whiteboard animation we created. It talks about interchangeable lenses and different considerations to keep in mind when using them. I hope you enjoy the show!

If you want a similar whiteboard animation, get in touch with Marc over at Wienot Films. Tell him Jim sent you and we'll be sure to take good care of you!