The power of storytelling in film isn’t exclusive to live footage – and at Top Banana we have a skilled motion graphics team at the ready to bring messages to life, including for our own internal services! In this blog we share the process of creating a film that shared how and why our Incentive Travel offering is different to others, in an unforgettable animation from our in house team…
Top Banana’s Incentive Travel service offers unforgettable experiences for clients around the world, from the UK and abroad, at home and away – there is no limit to where and what we can do for clients. To show the experience in the best way, we decided to challenge our in house motion graphics team to com up with a concept the innovatively displayed the breadth of experiences Incentives can offer, in a way totally unique to us.
The result? A 3D animation to stand out from the crowd. As our Senior Motion Designer Ed explains “3D is an exciting advancement for animation projects because of the intricate movements and illustrated finish it gives to films. For this project, we used a specific type of 3D animation called cel shading and took a non-traditional route in designing the entire film”
“Traditionally for a 2D animation, we would develop a script first, then create illustrations with a designer and finally those assets would go to a motion designer to animate. This project however was far more collaborative and off-piste, in that we designed the look and feel first and developed the script after based on the conceptual storyboard”.
Moving away from our normal process, our Art Director Dave began developing static images for the backgrounds of our scenes while our Senior Motion Designer, Ed, would be developing the foreground 3D elements, designing them as he went. Working together in this way meant that the animation was more in-depth visually and had layered elements that traditional 2D animation simply couldn’t allow for.
The decision to bring a script writer in last stemmed from the idea of having a contrast between the voice over and visuals, as the team wanted the animation to stand alone as something engaging and the content to simply be educational. It was a cross over of informative and innovative, as opposed to being too literal as some animations can traditionally be. This also influenced the choice to not include any background music. Sound effects like car horns, rushing water and gongs felt more real and authentic, whereas a soundtrack would have muddled the design by not being consistent for each countries look and feel.
With this animation, the team wanted to create something beautiful that inspired viewers to get out and explore the world – and what we’ve learnt is that there’s no right or wrong way to approach 3D animation. Whether you’ve found inspiration from something online or you have a script that you want to bring to life – you can get a beautiful result as long as have a vision and brief to back you.
Take a look at the final edit below and check out another of our animations for Sainsburys here!
