Landscape Decisions

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Landscape Decisions Programme

Evidence-based landscape decision making across the UK

Challenge

Landscapes are multi-functional, so it is vital to ensure that environmental policies benefit all functions, that unintended consequences are monitored, and that farmers make the right land use decisions. 

A team at The University of Leicester leads the Landscape Decisions programme. They work with government departments, charities, conservation organisations and researchers across the UK to run a network of 59 interrelated research projects influencing landscape decisions. The team uses mathematical methods, ecosystem modelling and insights into how people interact with landscapes so that land users and decision-makers can rely on this robust evidence to make informed landscape decisions. 

Solution

The Landscape Decisions team came to us to produce an animation explaining the role of the programme in influencing landscape decision making, environmental policies and land use across the UK. 

Each landscape was painted with expressive lines and textured brushes to create a vibrant setting in which to tell the narrative. The characters were designed with simplicity in mind to compliment the dynamic landscape backgrounds. 

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SGN: H100 Fife

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SGN

H100 Fife National Research Project

Challenge

SGN came to us to produce a film for their H100 Fife national research project. The project is developing the first hydrogen network on the east coast of Scotland in Fife, giving residents in up to 300 homes the opportunity to use zero-carbon fuel for heating and cooking in 2024. This project is the first of its kind, so we wanted to produce an engaging film 

Solution

The animation provides a variety of information about the project, so we have used a mixture of film, curated stock footage, animation and motion graphics to keep audiences engaged. 

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Start the new year with the best tools for giving effective creative feedback

Start the new year with the best tools for giving creative feedback

Dec 2022

7 min read

Effective feedback is essential to ensure that your creative projects achieve their goals. Read on to explore several things to think about when giving creative feedback and tips for each stage of production.

Ask questions 

The article ‘8 ways to give better feedback to creatives‘ explains that in a creative scenario, asking questions leads to enhanced collaboration and often a better end product. As they say, there is no such thing as a stupid question! 

 

Here are some example questions from our creative team: 

1. Can you explain why you think this style will work best for our video?

2. What are the time and budget implications of making this change? 

3. What are the implications of re-designing the assets for Instagram? 

 

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes

Take personal bias out of the equation and put yourself in your audience’s shoes to ensure the end product successfully hits its objectives every time! 

 

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

1. What will the audience feel during this scene? 

2. Will the audience understand this scene? 

3. Is my feedback based on my aesthetic preferences?

 

Think why?

Explaining why you would like a change to be made can help to understand the problem better so that the creative team can hit the nail on the head the first time!

 

Instead of ‘I don’t like the font’. Think about why you don’t like it, or even better, why it may not suit the audience; this can help the creative team to find a suitable solution. Instead, you could say, ‘The Serif Sans font is too formal for our audience; can we try another font?’ This provides crucial details for the creative team; they know A) you would like to change the font and B) you would like to avoid a formal style. 

 

Give examples 

It is challenging to articulate exactly what you would like to see; as creatives, we are always thinking of visual solutions to problems. Giving examples of other work, a visual style, narrative or even a soundtrack will help to demonstrate what you like and dislike. 

 

Creating a mood board is an excellent way to align your thoughts with your colleagues and gather inspiration and ideas. Take a look at this article by Vectornator to find out ‘What is a Mood Board & How Do You Create One?‘. The creative team can take these examples and make precise amends to shape the piece into something you are really happy with.

Pinterest mood board

Post pitch

Re-clarify your brief

Once you have chosen a creative team to collaborate with, it is a good idea to re-clarify your brief, adding extra details and filling in the gaps. You may have received interesting ideas throughout the pitch process that have altered your thinking, let the creative team know this. 

 

Check out our blog ‘How to: the brief‘ to find seven questions you should ask yourself before shaping the perfect brief.

 

Outline the objectives, goals and target audience

Ensure you have set out the three vital pillars before your campaign’s production begins: 

1. The objectives

2. The goals

3. Target audience

 

These will shape the campaign and are helpful to refer to when giving feedback later on.

Script

Feedback on your script can be made using the comment tool in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat PDF reader; this means that you, your team and the creative team can easily collaborate to ensure you are happy with the script before production begins.

 

Script sign-off

Agreeing on internal feedback and script sign-off early means the creative team can design a concept and storyboard. If significant script changes are made during production, this could impact the overall concept, and the creatives may have chosen a different approach if these changes were presented in the beginning. Of course, small text changes can be made at any point throughout production. 

 

For more tips on how to write a script, check out our blog post ‘How to: script writing

Storyboard

Similar to providing feedback on the script, you can use the comment tool in Adobe Acrobat PDF reader to collaborate with colleagues and make notes on a storyboard. You can find more insights on storyboarding in our ‘How to: storyboarding‘ blog.

Consolidate and align internal feedback

The storyboard often passes through a large team to make sure everyone is happy with the concept before illustration and animation begin. Colleagues can share their expertise from different areas within the business. However, this is sometimes presented to the creative team as a mixture of opinions and contradicting ideas from many people. 

 

The article ‘8 ways to give better feedback to creatives‘ outlines that consolidating feedback is a valuable tool. It is helpful if one person from the client team consolidates and aligns internal feedback, presenting this in one concise document. 

 

The individual responsible for collecting feedback from colleagues should give clear guidance on the type of feedback sought, e.g., ‘We are looking for feedback on the visual metaphors used and whether they are accurate to our approach’. This avoids confusion and means the creative team can execute the amends successfully.

Draft render

Reviewing a draft render is an exciting stage in production, as you can see your project come to life. This is an opportunity for your team to collaborate and give feedback on the draft render, which can be done by reviewing the video on Vimeo and adding time-stamped comments. As discussed in the storyboarding stage, it is essential to align internal feedback and present the creative team with consolidated notes, which can be actioned effectively.

Draft render feedback: ‘Sabika’s Story

Analysis not opinion 

Good feedback means giving analysis, not opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own tastes and in the article ‘How to give feedback‘ by Seth Godin, it explains why analysis is harder to give but is more effective as feedback.

 

Instead of commenting on aspects that you don’t like, focus on analysis, where you are thinking about the audience, objectives and aims of the project. For example, ‘Our audience is diverse and this scene doesn’t represent this, can we change this?’

Final supply

Understanding the type of feedback

In the final stages of production, it is essential to understand the type of feedback you are giving to ensure budgets and deadlines are met. Blocking feedback can be provided, including changes that must be made before the work is released. For example, if the work doesn’t meet the brand’s guidelines. On the other hand, advisory feedback can be given depending on budgets and deadlines. This feedback would be nice to implement but isn’t pivotal to the work’s overall success. 

 

Wash-up call

Once a project is wrapped up, it is helpful to have a wash-up call with the creative team to discuss what went well and how things could have gone better. This is valuable feedback that will enhance future collaborations. 

 

Here are some things to reflect upon: 

1. Has the campaign hit its initial aims and objectives? 

2. Does the work resonate with the target audience? 

3. What could your team or the creative team have done better?

Final thoughts 

Giving creative feedback can be tricky, but we hope this blog has given you the tools to give productive feedback so that a creative team ace your brief and produce exactly what you are looking for! 

 

Check out our other blogs for tips, advice, and how to guides.  

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ICCA

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The Inns of Court College of Advocacy

Film Content Partner

We work closely with The Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA), producing film content to promote the ICCA Bar Course, presenting information to prospective students, and sharing testimonies and advice from current and alumni students. We have undertaken various filming for ICCA, including on-site events, head-to-camera interview-style and remote web camera filming. Scroll down for some example films. 

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Character Design

Concept 1

Developing a character style

DLA Piper case study

We work closely with DLA Piper to produce animation content highlighting their innovative work, meeting legal needs across the globe. 

We recently proposed a re-design of DLA Piper’s original character illustrations, developing a new style so future work can more easily illustrate the impactful human-centric work that DLA Piper do. 

Concept 1 was chosen by DLA Piper to move forward with. The overall style is modern, giving the characters a relatable and realistic feel. We have used gradients for fill colours to give the characters a soft feel, while using skin tones to ensure diversity is prevalent across all animations. 

Concept 2

Concept 3

We also presented concepts 2 and 3 to DLA Piper, offering a varied approach to the character development. 

Concept 2, is an illustrative stylised approach using a mixture of broken lines and offset colour washes. This creates a bold aesthetic, bringing energy and dynamism to animations. 

Concept 3, is a bold graphic style that is a refinement of the original character style. The original character illustrations featured blue skin tones, which we have kept as they work well with the graphic style. Although this style is slightly more realistic than the original illustrations and would be paired with a characterful yet natural animation style.

Examples of the previous character style created using the original illustration guidelines.

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House of Lords: Paralympic & Olympic Graphics

House of Lords

Paralympic and Olympic Campaign

The House of Lords came to us to help them celebrate HOL past Paralympians and Olympians during the 2020 Olympics held in Tokyo. They wanted to highlight several Lords who have made a difference and challenged government on key sporting issues, including Paralympians, Baroness Grey-Thompson, Lord Holmes of Richmond, Baroness Masham of Ilton, and Olympians Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, Lord Coe, and Lord Moynihan. 

The House of Lords advocate for sport and recreational related issues including, gender inequalities in sport, elite sport funding, sport and recreational facilities and the impact of sport on mental and physical wellbeing.

 

Design

We created a set of poster graphics to support the campaign. The posters were created with a limited colour pallet, allowing us to create a vibrant display and play homage to vintage Olympic posters. We combined the bold colour pallet with unique character angles to create a juxtaposed composition – displaying the energy and movement of each sport. 

Each poster was designed to be re-worked for use on different social channels, for example to be posted on the House of Lords Twitter and Instagram feed, as well as Instagram stories. The graphics were also used on the HOL website and other areas to promote the campaign. 

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Illumina: RNA Sequencing Workflow

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Illumina

Workflow for RNA Sequencing

Challenge

Illumina is a leading life science developer, manufacturer, and marketer of tools and integrated systems for genetic variation and function analysis. Illumina came to us to produce an animation explaining the complex workflow behind RNA Sequencing. 

Solution

We produced an animation with a modern style to mirror Illumina’s innovative brand. The information outlined in this animation is scientific, so we created a visual language to display and explain this complex process clearly. The script is also detailed and clear to explain the workflow, avoiding jargon terms.

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SWGfL: Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service

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South West Grid for Learning

Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service

South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) is a charity campaigning for online safety for everyone. They are pushing online safety into the spotlight by providing training, influencing policies, and offering services and support. They are giving people the tools to ensure they are safe while using technology and the internet. 

SWGfL found that child-on-child sexual harassment in schools was becoming a common issue, and many teachers and parents were failing to report incidents as they were seen as normal. This shocking issue prompted SWGfL to launch a service called the Harmful Sexual Behaviours Support Service, which provides training for professionals and support for young people who have been affected by harmful sexual behaviour (HSB). 

SWGfL came to us to produce 2 videos explaining what HSB is and to promote their new service. The first video is a 2d animation that is featured on SWGfL’s landing page and YouTube Channel. The animation is clear and informative, using minimal backgrounds and several diverse characters to demonstrate what HSB is and how the service can help.

The second video is produced for use on social media. This 2d animation is more dynamic and brief, to ensure the information is easily digestible for quick scrolling social media users. Each scene is created so that it can be used separately across different social media channels. Please see the second animation below. 

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Music Composer and Sound Designer Alex Tarrant shares an insight into the world of sound

Music Composer & Sound Designer Alex Tarrant shares an insight into the world of sound

Nov 2022

5 min read

"Without music, life would be a mistake" Friedrich Nietzsche

At The Like Minded, we couldn’t agree more! Sound design is an essential element that can make or break creative content but is often overlooked. We take great pride in embracing sound design to produce animation and film that bring emotive stories to life and create a lasting connection with audiences.

 

In this month’s blog, we are handing over to Alex Tarrant, a talented Sound Designer and Music Composer who we regularly collaborate with. Alex shares the intricacies of composing music using virtual instruments, how to produce authentic custom sound designs for animation and his ability to think outside the box when it comes to recreating unique sounds. 

 

Take it away, Alex…

By Alex Tarrant

From Ancient Greek Theatre to contemporary film and media, music has served as an integral part of enhancing visual performance for Millennia. A modern-day professional composer is expected to possess several skills in addition to music composition, including technical proficiency in music production and a deep understanding of sound design. It is common for the responsibility of music score, sound design, foley (everyday sound effects) and voice-over enhancement to fall to a single audio professional.

 

It probably comes as no surprise that your emotions are frequently manipulated by the media. Music is an effective tool for leading your emotions in different directions; whether a particular sound is used to induce a feeling of sadness or an upbeat dance music track is used in an advert to get you hyped for the latest product, the fact remains that by hearing certain sounds we immediately know how we should feel.

 

In the modern technological age, Composers and Sound Designers can flex their skills and flourish more than ever thanks to advancements in digital technology. Access to powerful computer hardware and production software (known as Digital Audio Workstations, or DAWs) has never been so readily available. But perhaps the greatest perk we have now is the ease of collaboration. It has never been so simple for a filmmaker to commission an audio professional for custom music scores, sound design and foley work.

Virtual instruments 

A virtual instrument is any real instrument recorded and imported into a software sampler, such as Kontakt. This enables us to “play” the instrument simply using a MIDI keyboard. The abundance of virtual sampled instruments on the market has given composers unprecedented artistic freedom to create music that would otherwise have been immensely challenging, if not impossible. Composers now have almost any instrument at their fingertips, including full orchestral ensembles, and are an essential part of any modern composers’ toolkit.

 
 

Thinking outside the box: recreating the Inanga

Despite the large selection of virtual instruments available on the market, some occasions require improvisation. One such example of this, within a project at The Like Minded, occurred during an animated piece on climate change awareness for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), titled Untold stories of climate change loss and damage in the LDCs: Rwanda. 

 

During the early stages of the project, we conducted thorough research on the region, culture, language and music styles. In this case, we discovered that a popular traditional instrument within Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi is a six (or more) stringed plucked instrument called an “Inanga”. Unfortunately, it seemed impossible to get hold of an Inanga in the UK, and there were no virtual instruments available on the market. It was time to think outside the box and look at ways to re-create the sound an Inanga produces. 

Trying to achieve the warm tone of the Inanga with an acoustic guitar proved unsuccessful due to the thinner strings used on a guitar. Eventually, it was an old cello that saved the day. By plucking the two thickest nylon strings on the cello and tuning them to the notes traditionally used by an Inanga, I was able to create a close resemblance to the warm tone of the Inanga strings. I recorded these plucked notes, added some digital processing, and created my own virtual Inanga used in the final film. 

 

Although this virtual Inanga was only used within the first ten seconds of the soundtrack, going that extra mile proved worthwhile as it was effective at setting the initial soundscape and injecting a level of cultural authenticity into the piece.

Creating atmosphere: sound design for animation

Creating an immersive experience is a crucial consideration for any piece of film and no less important for a short-animated film or explainer video. In a world full of distraction and an overload of content thrown at us, most of us are guilty of short attention spans!

 

Holding the viewers’ interest has never been so challenging or important. The soundscape plays a critical role in bringing the animation to life and creating an immersive experience, drawing the viewer in and making them feel connected to the performance. Some examples of background soundscape elements are weather (wind, rain, thunder), crowd chatter, traffic noises and rainforest ambience.

 

It is capturing these sounds that often involves heading out with a microphone and a handheld recorder and manually recording the ambience or whatever sound you need. One project for Evans Cycles featured a scene that required a bike trip to the nearest dirt track to execute some skids! Even when travelling, I like to grab a few recordings of the ambience of the local environment, whether it be rainforest or bustling city. (This also is a great excuse to go on holiday!).

On other occasions, sounds can be designed within the DAW using a synthesizer. The video below features a scene from Sabika’s Story and shows the whistling wind sound being produced using a software synthesizer called Xfer Serum.

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Making it authentic 

Many projects I’ve had the pleasure of working on with The Like Minded have had the mission of raising awareness of issues faced by a specific nation or group of people. Therefore, one of the first tasks is to research the culture in question. The initial focus is on the traditional music associated with the culture, the key instruments, the percussion style used, common rhythm patterns and so on.

 

Untold stories of climate change loss and damage in the LDCs: Solomon Islands, another example from the IIED Climate Change Series, benefited from this initial research because we learned that the traditional music of The Solomon Islands consists of pan flutes and acoustic guitars. These were used in the music score for the animation along with a light piano score which evolves into an emotional crescendo as the film progresses. The client feedback was great; they commented on the music’s good cultural fit.

 
 
 

A team effort

Sound design and music composition can often be a solitary endeavour, so frequently communicating with clients and listening to their feedback can be a game changer. Listening to the ideas of others can spark new ideas of your own and lead you down an interesting path that you wouldn’t have otherwise considered.
 

Before reaching the audio stage, the animation was produced by a talented team of people, including illustrators, animators and VFX compositors, so I definitely feel a level of responsibility when implementing the soundscape. But ultimately, it’s incredibly fun and rewarding to add those finishing touches to the project, bring the film to life, and play a small part in helping the client to deliver their message.

Final thoughts 

We want to give a big thank you to Alex for welcoming us into his world of music composing and sound designing. We hope that next time you embark on a creative journey, you will have some insights into how sound can elevate any piece of creative content. 

For other creative tips, tricks and trends check out our other blog posts. 

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Restor: Content Partner

Restor

Restor’s mission is to advance conservation and restoration efforts globally to protect biodiversity, while benefiting people and the planet. The platform allows local communities, NGOs, businesses and governments to share details of their restoration projects, and connect these sites across the globe. 

Reports and Print

Restor produce a number of reports and information documents, sharing important research and restoration action from around the world. We work with Restor to design these reports so that the information is easily digestible and the data is presented well and easy to understand.

UI Explainer Videos

Restor’s platform allows users to view and analyse restoration sites across the globe. We created a number of UI explainer videos for Restor’s website, showing viewers a step by step visual of how to use certain features on the platform. For example, the UI videos show how to analyse an area’s restoration potential and how to monitor a number of restoration projects in one place. 

Video 

We created several additional explainer videos for Restor, and offered video translation services, as the platform’s users are global.

We also supported the #WeSearchResearch campaign, by producing interview style videos to get to know key researcher’s, hearing about their career pathway and details about their research. For example, see Lead Scientist and Lab Founder, Prof. Dr. Thomas Crowther’s interview below.  

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