Swift Momentum
YouTube Advert and Company Overview Video
Swift Momentum is a Tech Recruitment company based in Cape Town, South Africa. They specialise in placements for IT, Digital and Telecoms. Swift Momentum was embarking on a Search Marketing Campaign and needed a video that they could use as a YouTube Advert to attract both talented candidates and Tech clients looking to recruit the right people for their growing teams. They needed something punchy and different that wouldn’t just get skipped after 5 seconds. They also wanted a longer version of the video that they could use on their website as a company overview video to explain to clients and candidates how they work, and why they are different.
30 second cutdown for YouTube Video Advert:
Full version Company Overview Video for website:
I’ve been in love with stop-frame animation since the first time I watched Morph. This is the kind of brief I’d been hoping for. The client was looking for something edgy and different enough to get attention on YouTube and be memorable. And the target audience is geeky enough to appreciate a really fun stop-motion treatment. The budget, however, completely ruled out anything involving anything like Aardman’s Claymations or Tim Burton’s Stop Motion pictures, which I love. But a Robot Chicken style treatment, now that could fly.
On a smaller video production it helps if the process runs a little differently to how it would on a larger scale production. Usually a script would be written first and from there you’d write a directors treatment and then the production can be costed in detail. The client needs to know what they are in for, budget wise, as early in the process as possible so that decisions can be made and perhaps the whole concept needs to change.
So I first wrote up a basic concept and treatment with a costing and once that was approved then I wrote the final script. This is a great example of the concept changing completely from the initial treatment to the final script. And then once we were happy with the script, I drew out a story board and edited it together as an Animatic with some pilot voice over (by me) for approval before actually going into full production on the YouTube Advert and Overview Video.
Storyboard Animatic for YouTube Advert:
Storyboard Animatic for Company Overview Video:
My favorite twist in the story developed during the set and prop fabrication, sourcing and modifying toys for the characters. I decided to put Action Man forward for the main character (he has the look for it) so I sourced three different Action Man figures. I really wanted one with a pretty neutral looking fist to do the punching in the first three shots. Out of the three figures one had black gloves, one had bright orange boxing gloves and the third guy whose right hand was perfect had an eagle strapped to his left hand. So an eagle found it’s way into the story line and added some really funny elements to the full length video.
I made all of the props out of paper, modelling clay, cardboard and doll house bits, and the scenes were constructed one at a time on a trestle table the size of a door. Then the voice-over was recorded and edited together before shooting began, so that I could draw up timing charts and figure out how everything had to be moved frame by frame to get movements at the right speed and get objects arriving at the right place at the right time. For a seventy second video like this one shot at 4 frames per second, (except for the first scene where the guys are running which had to be at 8 frames a second) it gives you 300 pictures to shoot to tell a story by moving some toys incrementally between each shot. Sounds like a good time to me.
Many thanks to my friend Daron Chatz for his help and coaching throughout this project, and also to my wife the amazing photographer Vanessa Van Vreden, for helping me shoot till three in the morning, more than a few times to get this wrapped on time.