December 13, 2021

2021 Year in Review

We’ve taken yet another trip around our bright star, and we have lots of work to show for it. While the total number of projects we completed was certainly fewer than in 2019, which was the busiest year in our history, the work we did this year was distinctive in terms of production values and complexity. In 2021, despite the headwinds of the pandemic, we managed to push ourselves and step out of our collective comfort zone, delivering some of our best work yet.

Here are some highlights from a super strong 2021.

WholeSchool Mindfulness

We could all use a little more mindfulness in our lives, especially after this past year, which is why we’re proud to have been able to partner with Whole School Mindfulness. If you are a teacher or administrator, check out the great work they’re doing at wholeschoolmindfulness.org.

MA Dept. of Public Health/MORE Advertising

We worked with the folks at MORE Advertising on behalf of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to create a series of spots about PrEP. For a deeper dive into the production process, and to see all the spots, be sure to check out our project breakdown. And to get more info about the PrEP campaign, visit carethatfitsyou.org.

Kentucky Educational Television: Artsville

Our long-running series for KET, a PBS affiliate station, continued in 2021. My personal favorite from this year is the episode above, which teaches the basics of musical notes using a video game called “Cello Champ.” If you want to catch up on all the Artsville fun, the full series is available in the PBS LearningMedia Library.

Kentucky Educational Television: Let’s Learn Kentucky

We worked with KET again this year to help spread the word about early childhood education and the importance of turning everyday life into learning opportunities to read, talk, count, play, move and connect. This video was part of a package that included digital still assets for a major launch of the Let’s Learn Kentucky initiative. For more info, visit letslearnky.org.

Azúcar


2021 was the year that we finished, yes FINISHED, our narrative short film, Azúcar. As we close out the year, we’re patiently awaiting word from film festivals about where it will premiere. In the meantime, if you’ve read this far, you’re in for a treat. The trailer above features final shots from the film that we’ve never shown before. Stay tuned for more news about Azúcar in 2022 and be sure to bookmark azucarfilm.com for the latest updates. And check out our detailed project breakdown if you want to go behind the scenes.

Utah Education Network Holiday Spot

No Year in Review is complete without a holiday spot for our dear friends at Utah Education Network. This year’s theme was “emergence,” coming out of our warrens, our separated lives, and simply enjoying something together. Here’s hoping we can all do more of that in 2022.

As we close out the year, I want to give a huge thanks to the internal team who worked on these projects: Jen Sanchez, Songyi Park, Mollie Davis, and Sam Berliner. Also, thanks to Jody Snider for helping us to take our work in interesting new directions this year.

And none of these projects would have come together without the contributions of our freelance team. My appreciation goes out to Liz Breen, Natalia De Souza Brondani, Taiko Sound, Hannah O’Neil, Rosi Amador, Brian Amador, Kim Hui, Kyle Arrington, Robb Moreira, Joy Arcolano, Taryn Johnson, Holly Hillman, Alisa Amador, Anoosha Syed, Ethan Barnowsky, Christoph Gelfand, Camille Vincent, Rachel Howell, Jessica Mao, and Andrew Lander.

Our 2021 Clients:

  • George Bard
  • Brigham & Women’s Hospital
  • Kentucky Educational Television
  • Utah Education & Telehealth Network
  • MORE Advertising/MA Dept. of Public Health
  • Pierre Valette/Covetrus
  • Cult Health/Servier Pharmaceuticals
  • WholeSchool Mindfulness
  • Banner Health
  • Brookline Community Foundation
November 8, 2021

Project Breakdown: Let’s Learn Kentucky

Did you know that children’s early experiences, from birth to age 5, are critical to their brain development and lifelong learning? This means that there are a ton of opportunities for parents and caregivers to engage with young children to help them be successful in school and down the road.

We worked with our friends at Kentucky Educational Television, a PBS affiliate, to create a short animation, as well as illustrations for a major new web site. The goal of the initiative is to help spread the word about early childhood literacy and help caregivers discover easy ways to engage with kids, turning everyday life into learning opportunities to read, talk, count, play, move and connect.

To learn more about the program, visit letslearnky.org.

Storyboard

Style Frames

Animation

November 2, 2021

Project Breakdown: “Care That Fits” You Campaign Videos

We’re thrilled to announce the release of a series of four spots for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Care that Fits You campaign. Produced in collaboration with the wonderful folks at MORE Advertising, these spots use a storytelling approach to promote overall wellness in the gay community, as well as the use of the PrEP, an HIV prophylactic medication. The key goal of the campaign was to normalize the experience of talking about sexual health and encourage viewers to seek out care that fits their individual needs.

Here’s a closer look at the production process for Episode One:

Research

The campaign is meant to reach audiences across Massachusetts, but the key target audience is in Greater Boston, so we did a bunch of research of our hometown to get the right kind of scenery and backgrounds.

Storyboard

Here are some storyboard frames from the project, emphasizing lots of movement in a bustling city on a busy day and the normalcy of video chatting with a friend in the middle of it all.

Animatic

With more complex projects like these, it is helpful to create an animatic with scratch audio to show the overall timing of the video and to make sure that the storyboard images work when put into a time framework.

Character & Background Designs

Next it was time to design the two main characters. Jen put together this lineup for the client to choose from:

Meanwhile, Songyi worked on the backgrounds, which she produced as flat artwork, meaning they did not have textures or lighting applied:

Animation & Sound Design

Once all the backgrounds and characters were created, Jen and Mollie tackled the animation and final compositing of lighting and texture. Here’s the final product, complete with sound design by Taiko Sound.

Episode 1: Talk To Your Doctor About PrEP

Episode 2: Get The Facts About PrEP

Episode 3: Find The Care That Fits You

Episode 4: Care That Fits You – Telehealth

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