Two weeks. 33 custom animations. To run on some of the world’s most famous screens.

That was the challenge our friends at Adaptive Biotechnologies presented when they asked us to help them pull off a total Times Square “domination” experience. We’re talking animated videos (33 in total) running across four massive placements simultaneously — the Nasdaq tower and Marquee, the Reuters Tower, and the Walgreens Tower. Oh, and they only had 2 weeks until launch. No pressure, right?

A tight timeline meant we had to rely more than ever on our careful storyboarding process, especially because these screens were far from conventional, with crazy dimensions, curved screens and windows right in the middle of the unit. You can preview just some of these storyboards below, and if you want a deeper dive, you can view the complete boards for the Walgreens Tower here.

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With the storyboards client-approved, we could move on to a complex set of After Effects templates provided by the panel vendors. We used the templates to set up and create all the animations.

These templates were our lifeline. Since there could be no previewing of animations before they were live (for tens of thousands of people to see – again, no pressure), the templates were a way visualize what the final product would be when viewed from the street.

These templates also allowed us to view multiple units at the same time. Because on top of everything else, we gave ourselves the challenge of synchronizing the animation between the Nasdaq and Reuters Towers, so that when one set of cells leaves the Nasdaq Tower it “jumps” across the street to the Reuters Tower, making for a more arresting viewer experience. You can see a preview of that below.

The previews for the actual production? Well those were much less exciting (below is what the Walgreens Tower looked like just before we shipped it). But the real exciting part was traveling down to NYC for the unveiling.

Fun fact: Before the campaign went live, the Planet Nutshell team got to ride the elevator to the top of the Walgreens tower where the New Years Eve ball resides.

Another fun fact: The floors above the first floor, which contains a Walgreens Drugstore, are completely empty. The building owner earns more money from the displays on the outside than from having tenants inside.

After a lot of hard work and diligent planning, it all went off without a hitch. And we thought the final result was better than any After Effects template. Here’s what the Nasdaq Tower looked like from my perspective, just an average guy on the street:

A huge thanks goes out to all the folks who worked on this:

Creative Director: Joshua Gunn
Art Director: Jennifer Sanchez
Storyboards: Jennifer Sanchez, Mollie Davis
Production Coordinator: Kharma Jones
Animation: Jennifer Sanchez, Mollie Davis, Brien Hopkins, Mac Wójcik, Ethan Barnowsky
Design & Illustration: Ana Hill, Natalia Brondani

We’ve finally wrapped up a huge project for for Adaptive Biotechnologies, which included the production of two animated videos, as well as animation of dozens of panels in Times Square. What follows is a deep dive into production of episode one of the long form videos entitled “The Adaptive Immune System.”

Upon project kickoff, we created a detailed schedule that helped us stay on track and monitor our progress on the project.

Our work began, as most of our projects do, with a script and storyboard. You can see the final storyboard here via Boords, the collaborative storyboarding app we love to use with clients. The storyboard served as a blueprint for everything that followed.

Next, it was time to develop some style frames, proposed artwork that would appear in the video. There are two starring roles in this production, people and T cells. Below are some early design concepts that developed into final artwork.

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And the last part of the process was animation and sound design. The process for Episode One took about ten weeks from start to finish.

We owe a huge thanks to the folks at Adaptive Biotechnologies, who worked tirelessly to help us tell their story by providing guidance and feedback. We’re also indebted to the team who worked on this video:

A Planet Nutshell Production

Creative Director: Joshua Gunn
Scriptwriter: Joshua Gunn
Art Director: Jennifer Sanchez
Storyboard: Jennifer Sanchez
Production Coordinator: Kharma Jones
Illustration: Ana Hill, Natalia Brondani
Animation: Maciek Wójcik
Character Animation: Ethan Barnowsky
Additional Animation: Jennifer Sanchez, Mollie Davis
Logo Animation: Brien Hopkins
Sound Design: Moonwatch Media

Our founder recently hosted a panel on nonprofit video production at the Classy Collaborative. What follows is a summary of that discussion. Want to learn how to create a great fundraising video? Read on!

The Big Picture

1. Plan

Define your audience, your goals, and your measures of success. Choose a producer, or an internal team, that is capable of putting themselves in the shoes of your donors. How can you speak their language and simplify your message to meet them where they are, not where you are. Also, define where you want to deploy the video before you start making it.

2. Create

Design your video around the principles of storytelling, engagement and impact. What does that mean? Check out this blog post for more. If it’s in your budget, choose a creator whose work demonstrates that they’ve mastered these elements.

Use a clear and well-defined creation process. At Planet Nutshell, our process is:

• Discovery/Research
• Scriptwriting (FYI, one minute of video = 150-ish words)
• Storyboard (We use Boords)
• Design
• Animation & Sound Design  

3. Deploy and Measure

Be very intentional about where in your donor pipeline you want to deploy the video. For example, is your video best placed on your homepage, on social media, at an event with a captive audience? Each of these placements will change the content and length of the video.

Use a video host that gives you solid analytics about the performance of the video. Consider Wistia (paid) or Vimeo (free).

Get Inspired

Classy made a list of great nonprofit videos a couple of years ago. Here are a few of our favorites from that list:

And here are a few more animated videos from Planet Nutshell to get your juices flowing:

Tools and Resources for Animation

Animatron makes it easy for anyone to create their own animation, offering tons of free video, audio, and photo files to drag and drop into an animated template.

Vyond is another application with templates that make it easy to develop your own animated video.

The “12 Principles of Animation” is a great video for students and art directors who are new to animation.

Do you have any favorite tools or tips for creating great fundraising videos? Let us know in the comments below…

The team at Planet Nutshell is very excited to announce our 2019 summer intern. Amelie Wang was selected out of about 50 applicants from the Savannah School of Art and Design (SCAD) Career Fair. Amelie’s portfolio shows a strong focus on story. During her time at Planet Nutshell, we hope she will continue to develop her illustration, mo-graph, and character animation skills, while gaining professional experience in the animation industry.

Amelie will graduate from SCAD with an M.F.A. in Illustration in June of 2020. We can’t wait to see what her future holds!

My panel on video production for nonprofits, titled “How to Create On-screen Magic in Your Fundraising Videos,” at the 2019 Classy Collaborative turned out great. I moderated as my panel-mates, Martin Quessenberry, Daniel Lovering, and Susan Hughes shared insights about video production — when to use it, when not to use it, how to hire creatives, how to tell a compelling story, and more — from their perspectives.

Marty, who is director of digital projects and innovation at Shriners Hospitals, had much to say about how to deploy video across multiple platforms (web, fundraising, social media, and more). Meanwhile, Susan, who is senior director of communications at Thread, discussed using video at a smaller organization with fewer resources. And Dan, who is a documentary filmmaker, and I discussed the production process, storytelling basics, and other nuts and bolts of working with creatives.

Want to learn more? I created a handy Google Doc that walks through many of the details of our discussion.