Hi! Whelan here! Today on the blog I am going to chat about our recent OpenText Aviator spots.
This project was uniquely challenging because we were writing, designing, filming and editing it all alongside another big project. That project is a story (or a blog post) for another day, but it was vastly different in style, execution and scale. As a small team, this led to us having to have our heads in many different directions at once. We also only had 7 weeks to pull them both off.
The Ask
Create a series of five 30-second videos that show the speed and efficiency of OpenText’s new AI tool, Aviator.
The Journey
OpenText came to us with the idea of the videos showing ways Aviator frees up time for someone. They wanted them to be fun but informative – showing each of the Aviator tools in a simple way.
Pre-Production
We approached our initial brainstorming with a fishbowl ideation session where we examined types of activities that our heroes could participate in that would be fun, diverse and pun-friendly.
We narrowed it down to five genres: hobby, exercise, activity, eating, and entertainment and then got to work on the scripts. The most important thing for the scripts was that we explained the products within the first 10-12 seconds and used the remaining time to highlight all the time saved. This was tough because we didn’t want to be too vague and reductive with the product but still show the values (speed, efficiency, quality) in a holistic way.
Once we landed on scripts we and OpenText felt good about, we needed to cast our leads and design the set. We wanted to have a nod to the aviator theme by filming in a place that looked like an airplane hangar. We scouted real airplane hangars, warplane museums and industrial studios to find the right look. In the end, we landed on a large black industrial space.
When it came to the production design, we wanted to take an approach that was a nod to an airplane runway as well as bring in some of the textures and colours that were associated with the Aviator branding. Working closely with our production designer, June, we went for an abstract, minimalist look that leaned into the blues, blacks and whites of the brand. Acrylics and accent lighting brought in the textures of the brand.
June put together mock-ups for both the main set and the secondary sets and sourced everything we needed in under two weeks.
Here’s a comparison of the initial mock-up to the final set:
Fun fact:
Midway through pre-production I got COVID and the only thing I had the capacity to watch (okay I wanted to watch it) was ‘Selling the OC’ (Netflix). On the show, the agents sit at these airplane wing-inspired desks in their offices. After some feverish googling, I was able to find that the desks were part of a 2011 Restoration Hardware line and are in fact called the ‘Aviator Wing’ desk. It felt perfect for the project and incredibly, June was able to source one from a rental shop in Toronto. Dreams do come true!
Because of time constraints on the project, we couldn’t do exact photoboards on this one, but we did do storyboards on a pre-viz software called Cinetracer which helped us have more of an exact feel for how each shot would look.
Production
This production was one of our biggest and most ambitious yet. The scale of the studio required a comprehensive and substantial lighting plan.
We shot everything on our new RED Komodo-X with an Angenieux Optimo 17 – 80mm lens which gave us a nice textured look, agility on set and my beloved snap zoom.
We shot five 30-second spots over the course of 4 days (1 pre-light day, 2.5 shoot days and 0.5 tear-out day)
Post-Production
When it came to the post-production, we had three phases: Edit, VFX, and Polish (Colour and Sound).
Tyler, our editor, worked to pull all of the edits together within 3 days of us wrapping production. Once we had rough edits in place, we were able to get stills off to Evan and Ken (our graphic and VFX team) to start mocking up graphics. The key aspects of the graphics were that we wanted them to take advantage of the scale of the space and we wanted them to move in a natural way that complemented the script without distracting the viewer. When it comes to complex tools like AI, UI replications can get unnecessarily hectic and overcomplicated. Finding the balance of simplicity and reality was top of mind as we developed the designs.
Here is an example of our graphic boards:
Ken, our VFX artist, then went to work on animating the graphics and Spencer, our sound designer, developed a fun sound mix for each of the videos.
Here’s a look at the VFX breakdown:
And that was it! Another one down. Check out the videos when you have a chance. Thanks for reading!
Check out our crew below:
Credits:
Director: Kaitlyn Whelan
Producer: Tallen Kay
Director of Photography: Callan Langen/Brad Scholl
1st AC: Hazel Lee
Production Manager: Nicole Quesnel
Production Assistant: Liisa Steinwedel
Art Director: June Charles
Set Dress: Theresa Hopkins
Art Department PA: Renat Absalyamov
Art Department PA: Paige Brady
Art Department PA: Sophie Duarte
Gaffer: Tony Smith
Grip: Eddie Hernandez
Swing: Antonio Martinez
Sound: Spencer Seibert
HMU: Meghan Victoria
Client: OpenText
EP: Jon Lucas, Kurtis Thomas
Catering: Green Machine Food Truck