Illumina Dragen

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Illumina Dragen

Product explainer commissioned by Illumina America

Challenge

DRAGEN analysis offers accurate, comprehensive, and efficient secondary analysis of next-generation sequencing data. It reduces the need for additional computing infrastructure and enables bioinformaticians to focus more on analysis that matters. Our task was to explain how DRAGEN works within the environment of a typical lab, making the content informative and engaging. 

Solution

We created a realistic character animation style to increase human connection and combined this with soft gradients in keeping with the brand guides and providing a futuristic feel. 

When featuring the Next Seq machine we created a 3D model to ensure that the depiction and motion felt natural to the way the machine operates. 

The final animation was translated into Spanish, Portuguese and French Canadian.

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Fauna & Flora International: What are nurdles?

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Fauna & Flora International

What are Nurdles?

Challenge

Fauna & Flora International (FFI), a wildlife conservation charity, came to us looking to create an explainer animation outlining the catastrophic impacts of nurdle pollution on the environment. Nurdles are small pieces of plastic that are melted down to create items such as food wrappers, disposable plastic bottles and clothing. 

Nurdles are increasingly being found in environments like oceans, rivers, streams and beaches. The oceans are especially vulnerable, with an estimated 11.5 trillion nurdles finding their way into the ocean yearly. 

FFI focuses on preventing nurdles from entering the ocean in the first place, as once they reach the ocean, they are nearly impossible to remove. 

Solution

We used mix media to create this animation and incorporated physical nurdles, using stop-motion techniques to show their scale and form. We animated the nurdles using the Dragon Frame software. The team enjoyed being physically hands-on while creating the stop-motion frames in the studio. 

We used a mixture of 2d and 3d animation. As well as incorporating filmed footage provided by FFI, showing the devastating impacts of nurdles on marine wildlife and environments.

We hope this video is successful in helping FFI bring awareness to nurdle pollution; it has so far had over 4 million views (November 2022).

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Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study

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Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study

Explainer Animation

Challenge

Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) is a longitudinal study that accounts for around 50% of Northern Ireland households and covers 1/3 of Northern Ireland’s population. They chart people’s major life events including births, deaths, property information and migration. The data is used in a number of ways; by the government to influence policy and decision making and by councils to gain important insights.

Solution

We created a 2d explainer animation, packed with diverse characters and scenes. We carefully chose what information would be illustrated to make sure the animation is interesting and conveys the message that NILS wants to share with viewers.

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Barnardo’s: Baby and Me Service

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Barnardo's

Baby and Me Service

Challenge

Baby and Me is a service provided by a collaboration between Barnardo’s Cymru and Newport City Council. They offer vital support and guidance during and after pregnancy when safeguarding concerns are related to the baby. This work is a crucial lifeline for families, providing support when a baby is likely to be removed from care at birth and outlining positive steps that can be taken to ensure a baby remains with its family. Barnardo’s came to us to create an animation outlining the resources available within this service and examples of how they have previously helped families in these situations.   

Solution

We developed an illustration style using a light colour pallet, brush strokes and simple backgrounds to keep the audiences’ focused on the narration and main characters highlighted in this animation.  

We hope this project successfully highlights the important work this collaboration is doing for families and parents affected by this issue. 

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Bike Club

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Bike Club

Kids Bike Subscription Service

Challenge

Bike Club is a montly kids bike subscription service, that ensures children are always on the right size bike, without parents having to buy a number of bikes througout their childhood. As part of the subscription, members can exchange bikes as their child grows. Most of the bikes are pre-loved and refurbished, meaning each Bike Club bike saves 336Kg of CO2 compared to an owned bike.

Solution

Bike Club came to us to produce a character explainer animation to let people know how the subscription works and the benefits of being a member. 

We wanted to make this animation engaging and easy to follow, so the script is light and fun with quirky bike character names and phrases. In addition, the backgrounds are minimal to highlight the characters and the message that Bike Club wanted to share. 

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Tropical Biology Association: Online Conservation Training

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Tropical Biology Association

No Borders, No Limits - Online Conservation Training Courses

Challenge

Tropical Biology Association (TBA) train young conservationists by providing in-person field courses and training. However, these courses are often in high demand, with many applications submitted per place available on the courses. TBA is now offering online conservation training courses to reach a wider audience and allow more aspiring conservationists to develop core skills and make a difference in their country. 

Solution

We wanted this work for TBA to be unique and inspiring, as online training for practical conservation skills is a relatively new and undeveloped concept. 

The illustrations for this animation were composed using watercolour. The rich colours and paint strokes bring the animals and environmental scenes to life.

Conservation
Jungle

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Middle Child & 11 London: Sabika’s Story

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Sabika's Story

Middle Child & 11 London

Challenge

Middle Child and 11 London came to us to produce an animation for their client Christian Aid. They wanted to share the story of Sabika, representing all children in the Rohingya crisis. It has been five years since 720,000 Rohingya refugees fled violence, torture and death in Myanmar, and this animation was created to remind the public that this crisis is ongoing. 

Women and children are especially vulnerable in refugee camps, where violence, trafficking, flooding and fires are rampant. Christian Aid supports its partners, who have set up safe places for women and children within the refugee camp.

Solution

We decided to tell Sabika’s story using frame-by-frame and 2D animation. We designed the characters in detail, down to their clothing colours, to ensure the characters were easy to identify and the viewer could follow the story. 

We used paper dolls to represent the horrific act of family separation experienced by most refugee children. We felt this was the best way to represent this loss through the eyes of a child.

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Centric Software: Fashion Explainer

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Centric Software

PLM SaaS explainer

Challenge

Centric Software approached us with the task of creating an explainer animation for their software Centric PLM. Centric needed a video to explain to already interested potential customers the scope and range of the proposition.

Solution

As the animation audience is already marketplace informed and aware of Centric the animation could afford to have greater length and in-depth examination of the software. The style of the animation takes its lead from the existing brand guidelines and has a modern and innovative tone. The core animation has also been localised into 11 languages to best support local markets. 

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Translation

We also provided voiceover and on-screen text translations in 11 different languages for the animation. 

Some of which included Korean, Japanese, Thai, Russian and French. 

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‘Feels Like Home’ Christmas Advert

Alpha Family Christmas Dinner Scene
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'Feels Like Home' Christmas Campaign

TV and web advert for Alpha Boilers in collaboration with CIB

Challenge

In partnership with brand communication experts CIB, we were tasked with crafting a heart-warming and emotive Christmas Advert for renowned boiler and heating specialists, Alpha Heating Innovation.

It was imperative to provide a human, relatable story that focused on brand awareness over product explanation. The goal was to promote Alpha as the premiere boiler brand in viewers minds.

We created a 30 and 60 second cut for TV and a 90 second cut for web. 

Solution

Collaborating with CIB, we crafted a narrative that pulls on the heartstrings and that many families can relate to.

Rich, layered scenes with detailed frame-by-frame and 2D motion ensure the advert is incredibly sharable and appealing to a wide ranging audience.

Colour was used as a key driver of emotion throughout. Muted, cold tones are filled with warm vibrant colour to signify key beats of the story.

CIB wrote and commissioned a bespoke audio track that poignantly underscores the narrative, adding weight and emotion to the film.

 

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Click the image above to watch the 90 second extended cut

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Click the image above to watch the 30 second refined cut

Character sheet of Dad from Alpha Christmas Advert
Character sheet of Daughter from Alpha Christmas Advert
Character sheet of family faces from Alpha Advert

Planning and Concept

We started with concept work to detail character poses, expressions and the various outfits the cast would wear to clearly denote the change in time from Christmas Eve to Christmas day.

To create a believable environment we designed a floor plan of the house. This allowed us to carefully consider camera positions to make sure the framing was perfect. Keeping key details such as the boiler in focus while allowing the daughter to be seen running up the stairs were only achievable with careful planning.

Next we turned the floor plan into a 3D model of the house to further crystallise these perspectives and were used as illustration guides.

 

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Floor Plan for the Alpha Christmas Advert House
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Concept shot from Alpha Christmas Advert
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family eating dinner

Testimonial

We are thrilled with the result! Your team have put a tremendous amount of effort turning our script into a masterpiece. From the moment we sat down I could tell that The Like Minded fully understood the vision and it shows in the final production. It was wonderful working with you.
CIB LTD

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IEEFA

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IEEFA

Stranded Assets

Challenge

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) examines issues related to energy markets, trends, and policies. 

Since 2015, many companies have aligned their actions with the Paris Agreement, which has resulted in a decline in gas demand. As a direct consequence, the possibility of companies and governments ending up with stranded assets has increased. 

The IEFFA’s missions is to accelerate the transition to a diverse, sustainable, and profitable energy economy, which is why they asked us to create an animation to communicate their findings and warn investors to get their money out of gas.

Solution

We felt that a concept combing film and animation would help to best connect the audience to the subject matter. The first person footage would provide authenticity and humanise the messages, whilst animation could be used to demonstrate research and to explain concepts. 

We filmed the speaker on location in Sydney, Australia with a teleprompter in an outdoor setting. This enabled the presenter to look directly down the lense to the audience and minimised the need for jump cuts or a second camera perspective. 

 

 

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