Keyfactor Accelerate DevOps Security

Overview

Keyfactor had a project that was particularly challenging. The VP who started the soft Phase One of the design system and brought me onboard, left the company halfway through. The new VP of Product Marketing had a new vision, and without a clear style guide or existing systems to fall back on, there was a lot of heavy lifting involved. This is an interesting case study in how to turn challenges into opportunities. 

Solutions

• Tried to reconcile the new vision with existing assets used in five previous videos, to lose the least amount possible
• Enlisted the help of two different animation teams to meet deadlines considering new duration.

Process

In 2017 I designed and curently continue to refine a workflow that has worked wonders with both my stakeholders and my contractors to streamline the production of any animated explainer. Here’s a peek into my workflow:

Scripting: narrative, duration, concepting

I always push for B2B SaaS animated explainers to be under two minutes, ideally around 90 seconds. It’s essential to try to distill the messaging at this stage to make sure the narration fits the timing. So I give my clients a script/storyboard template with a suggested range of words to make sure we don’t go over time. They always craft the first draft because sadly, I’m still not an expert in everything. Once they send over what they want to achieve with the piece, I go in and do some script-doctoring for clarity, flow, and efficiency. 

Voiceover and music

Once the script has been approved by all stakeholders, we begin casting for VO talent and searching for a music track for the piece. Most clients’ budget restraints call for the use of stock music over original, so we discuss a theme that fits the piece and send over options for the client to decide on. Some clients don’t want to be involved in the process and leave the decision to me, which is quite alright. As for casting VO talent, we decide on gender, age range and delivery style, and I usually propose 3-5  actors that I’ve prescreen from dozens of auditions. Some clients are so happy with their first choice that they keep using the actor for years! 

Storyboarding

This is where the real fun begins. Armed with an approved VO and a music track, I work with my jr. designers and illustrators to take the third column of the script template and create fully rendered storyboards for the client. I made the decision early on to cut out the preliminary sketched storyboard phase because I found that there would still be a wide range of reactions whenever the rendered piece had any differences—subtle as they may be—from the first round. We use Adobe Illustrator to create vector storyboards for each beat because of the ease of importing the files as compositions into After Effects, and the potential to group beasts into scene files and also cut down on production time. It is at this point that any changes to script, VO or visuals must be requested, because the time and cost of making changes to an animation is significantly higher. For this project I had to work with two different animating teams to be able to meet the deadline after script changes and an almost doubled duration. The document we send to the client for next approval looks like this:

Animating

 Once the storyboard is approved, it’s time to put it all together in After Effects. The same document we send the client is the basis for the kick-off meeting I have with my animators, where we over the visuals and beats and I verbally describe any animations or transitions that aren’t clearly specified. The teams I’ve put together are great at taking direction and running with it, and more often than not their first draft basically nails my initial vision. Regardless, I always take back the project file and make any adjustments—big or small—before sending the client a first preview. Once again, 90% of the time any comments the client may have on the first draft are minor, as we would have ironed out any issues during the storyboarding phase. It never takes more than 3 rounds of feedback to get to a final version.   

Result