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Sarasota Film Society
Explainer Video
3 Week deadline
Fun and Informative
The Challenge
The Sarasota Film Society needs something that speaks to 17-35-year-olds, encouraging moviegoers to silence their phones, avoid texting or calling, and avoid bringing outside food before the start of a movie.​​​
The Approach
A fun explainer video featuring a fun little character, that can speak through its action to the audience.
The tone should be light, fun, and engaging while ensuring the message is clear.
Research...
The Sarasota Film Society focuses on independent films and lesser-known movies, often showcasing films you might find at the Sundance Film Festival. The general audience I observed at the theater consisted mostly of senior citizens, drawn in by the unique selections and cozy atmosphere.
The theater itself is charming, with a quaint, cozy feeling that adds to the overall experience. The prices are also very reasonable, making it an inviting and accessible spot for movie lovers.
It’s truly a lovely and welcoming place, where they make you feel right at home. When I visited to catch a movie, the whole experience was incredibly enjoyable, with good prices and even better films.
Ideation...
How to deliver the message?
While the target audience is 17-35, I want to ensure that the message is enjoyable for everyone. While I was at the theater I had noticed the main attendees of the Sarasota Film Society are often elderly individuals.
In developing my ideas, I want to make sure the message resonates not only with young people but also with older attendees, allowing both groups to appreciate and enjoy it.
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Concept 1 - Movie 101
Concept 2 - HUSH!
Concept 3 - Sadness And Cellphones...
Incorporating cute characters with modern graphic design creates a vibe that is both mature and friendly.
Using this character, I can guide the audience on what they need to do so everyone can enjoy the movie experience. The script will include a few guidelines for movie etiquette, ending with the character watching a film.
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Chosen Conceptually.
This concept uses flashy, fun animation to capture the audience's attention, featuring icons and arrows.
The script will include a few light reminders about theater etiquette, along with some simple, light-hearted jokes. The icons and arrows will demonstrate these guidelines in a friendly and engaging way, making them easy to remember.
Using a cute character can capture the audience's attention and evoke sympathy.
I want to create a story about how phones are distracting, causing someone to completely miss their movie, leaving the moviegoer sad and disappointed. The story will end with a reminder not to ruin someone else’s experience at the theater.
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Chosen Stylistically.
The Guide To Movie Etiquette - Style frames
The combination of the story and style allowed for a fun and poppy character to come to life for this project. The cute and contrasting style allows for more variation on screens that might not have 4K quality projectors, while the story allows for a fun and communicative animation.
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The background was the largest change thought the process from the first-pass to the final, as you'll soon see below.
Motion Testing...
The character posed the most challenges, because Motion Designers don't often do character animation in our education. So when we do, we have to make it look good.
First Pass
This was a rough pass of all the elements in motion, and there were no sound effects just yet.
Some of the notes I received to make sure the character is the communicator rather then just the text.
Second Pass
I decided to stay with the same music and with the help of Kelly Warner started adding in SFX. This pass still had the bubble background, I later removed it because I felt that it didn't contribute to the animation and was fairly distracting.
My main notes were push the animation further and really dig into the character communication.
Final Motion Tests
Here are some of my favorite motion test scenes, it was a very difficult but fun journey to get this character to come to life on the screen.
Technical Stuff
Since the animation was created in After Effects, utilizing different skills such as path animation and some simple rigging the character came to life. I was able to use coding as well to add a cute, subtle line boil to the character to give a bit of life to each scene.
I wanted to focus on conveying the message through the character without text or dialogue carrying all the weight, so that the ideas are still easily understood while making sure the subtle details of the character were not overlooked.
Textures n' The Final Touch
The background was created with four different adjustment layers, one for the gradient, one to give the animation a slight blur and hue shift, texture, and finally the glow.
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The background is created by combining all those elements together in a blue backdrop. This animation shows how each layer reacts to and interacts with each other creating the textured background!
Final Render
Results...
This project pushed me to convey ideas through the character's movement, by focusing on body language and gestures. I made the character the primary storyteller, resulting in an animation that’s fun and easy to understand.