This Month
Our process reimagined
The brief
Our three step process; Formation (Brand insights), Exploration (Brand strategy) and Creation (Brand experience) is a key driver in how we run each project, and by rigidly sticking to this process, we guarantee business transformation on many different levels. We pride ourselves on understanding a business before formulating a plan, exploring many creative ideas and design options before creating unique experiences that change lives.
We wanted to visualise our thinking process, and how we work as a team in a short animation, only using our three core shapes. The animation could not be longer than 60 seconds, and in this time we wanted to bring to life our traditional values, and contemporary style, but ultimately showcasing the fact that we are creatively brave, delivering high quality creative assets that break patterns.
The commission
After outsourcing the brief to our digital design collective, we took our time, but we finally chose Sparkle FX in Liverpool, to help bring this brief to life, and help WeThree continue to push ourselves creatively, and to break new boundaries.
Interview with
Glenn Maguire (Art Director)
Sparkle FX
Firstly, congratulations on a stunning piece of video. We could not be happier with the results. It has the X, Y and Z Factor! It has been a great experience collaborating with you, as you’ve taken our ideas and moodboards and taken them on a phenomenal journey. So, huge thanks for all the hard work. And to help our followers and clients understand how you completed the task, we wanted to ask you a few questions about the project;
Q. What process do you use for each project yourself, to be able to guarantee quality and a successful outcome to each individual brief? And what kind of timelines should clients expect for a 60 sec animation?
A. We tend to have a backwards approach, first doing style frames to make sure we can capture the overall look of a campaign in a single image before proceeding; from this point, we’ll see the script and storyboard. For the rest of the project, once we know the required look and feel, we can figure out how technically we achieve this in a moving image.
The length of the animation doesn’t generally dictate the overall size of how long a project can take; it’s more determined by the technical demand of the energy required. i.e. 60 seconds of a ball rolling around could take two weeks, whereas 30 seconds of a fluid simulation could take eight weeks. Our average project turnaround is 4 – 8 weeks, a large part of this time is spent in R&D, determining the optimum way of producing it, as the overall process of CG animation is quite broad. The general project will go through key stages, such as; style frame, project assets build, energy, wireframe edit, review, render assessment, render optimise. render compile, colour grade, other post processes, compositing, and fine cut edit, and finally, output.
Q. Once you received the brief, how did you find your inspiration to bring this to life? And what determined the look and feel and the soundtrack?
A. We asked WeThree to supply thoughts and design moodboards on things they like, whether that’s animation, film or natural life objects. We use this information to start to produce style frames. In this project, the client wanted to put across the feeling of working through a process, with a very high level of quality, which is reflected in the textures. The soundtrack is subjective; it takes hours and days to find the right piece; experience provides a small insight into a genre of where you’d like to take it, then it’s a case of finding that track or speaking with a musician to design some audio.
Q. What key stages throughout the animation did you feel you had significant breakthroughs, and then knew it was going in the right direction? What hurdles did you have to get over and how pleased are you with the final results?
A. Breakthroughs come in varying guises, not just the visual feedback of something that looks tremendous, but technical breakthroughs, and realising we have found a great way to replicate a certain kind of animation. R&D is the essential part of any project; it’s not attached to a rigid storyboard; it allows you to try things out, which leads to the moment when you know it is going in the right direction. I’d be as bold to say that I believe it’s wrong to storyboard a project straight away; you don’t see what you are storyboarding, and you don’t yet know what the project is capable of. Once you’ve had a little creative playtime, you can then take that R&D to a storyboard, knowing precisely what’s in your tool kit.
And I’m really pleased with the final project. It has a great sense of dancing to a final resolution.
