LENOVO
LENOVO
ROLESCLIENT: Lenovo
AGENCY PARTNERS: Uncompany & 521 Studies
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Meryn Hayes
PRODUCER: Ashley Targonski
CREATIVE DIRECTION: Cory Livengood
ART DIRECTION: John McGowan
COPYWRITER: Kerry Skiles
CONCEPT ART: Meg Snyder, John McGowan, Megan DeMarco
STORYBOARDS: Kat Higgins, Megan DeMarco
KEYFRAME DESIGN: Steph Hallett
VO ARTISRT: Kasey Hott
VIDEOGRAPHY: BURKE
ART DEPARTMENT: Proptarts
HMU & WARDROBE: Mario Griego & Olivia Griego Martin
TALENT: Valonda Caloway, Evit Emerson, Lisa Pham
ANIMATION: Meg Snyder, Steph Hallett, Jacob Garcia, Will O'Connell, Xenia Galchin
EDITOR & COLORIST: Matt Yaple
AUDIO &MIX: Sanctus
DETAILSOperating a business can be highly fulfilling, yet challenges often arise. That’s where Lenovo Pro helps by offering an exclusive shopping experience for its members, continuous support, and the necessary resources to stay ahead in everyday business - eliminating the annoying hurdles. By personifying these annoying hurdles as little 2d, cel animated creatures, the viewer can see the awesome power of Lenovo Pro as it helps our protagonists poof-away all the little monsters.
DISCOVERYSmall to medium-sized businesses don't view challenges as problems; instead, they see them as opportunities.
Our idea for the “Creature Discomfort” approach was to put three business owners in an interview-like setup to talk about how much they love their freedom, their profession, and having the flexibility to be their own boss. But what’s immediately clear is even though they’re used to handling it all, they could use some help from folks they trust.
During the interview, we personify the tech problems with annoying animated “creatures” (broken computers, tech warning messages, cost issues, etc.) disrupting the scene; interrupting them from the interview and from doing their jobs. Once Lenovo Pro is introduced the creatures disappear, allowing the business owners to focus on the part of their job they love.
IDEATIONFor early style frame explorations and character sheets, we played around with just how silly our creatures should feel. Some characters were balanced and geometric while others offered a bit more organic variations to juxtapose the organized scenes. While there were unique variations, we ultimately chose a path that allowed our adorable but menacing monsters to share many of the same physical traits as the talent with props that correlate to the professionals they are pestering.
Final draft of the script.
PRE-PRODUCTIONBusiness owners choose entrepreneurship because of the flexibility and freedom to do tasks their way. They’re hard workers and have a get-things-done attitude. That’s why our script for Creature Discomfort is less about “you need the help” and more about “let’s make you more efficient.” Confident, driven, small to medium sized business problem solvers: that’s the target audience the future-focused Lenovo Pro is here to help.
The Creature Discomfort Monsters try to unplug an Ethernet cable.
Migraine? It’s only getting worse with these monsters.
One of the Creature Discomfort Monsters jumps up and down on the key.
Character sheet from some of the final mosters.
The final direction of the Black and White characters was a strategic choice to not interfere too much with the hero of the video - our entrepreneur. The characters needed to be annoying and noticeable, but still just a nuisance, not stealing the primary focus of the video away from our business owners. The lightly blurred-out fills of the characters enabled us to see some of the footage behind them and keep the live-action portion of the video as the main centerpiece and the animation as an accent.
PRE-PRODUCTION cont.
Storyboards show the overarching flow of the story and not only what happens in each scene, but also how scenes transition from one frame to the next. Because this is visualized through rough sketches, it’s easy to make adjustments and alterations before the investment in motion.
Storyboards also provide clarity to our narrative and animatics highlight the timing for video. Both are critical for production and post-production teams to better understand the the final deliverable and goal of the project. And when you’re as detailed as we are, specifics like camera framing, compositional layout, and perspective ensure our Director and Director of Photography know exactly how to frame the right shots.
PRE-PRODUCTION cont.Below are some of the process pieces we overlaid on top of the footage. Animation is a lot like masonry: it’s built in layers. Rough drafts and blocking of cel animated characters are the starting point once we get the edit locked for timing. Reference videos (like the one of our Co-Founder, Cory below) can provide animators life-like examples to mimic as they bring these characters to life. Last but not least is the clean up and color passes which solidifies our monsters into the environment.
PRE-PRODUCTION cont.
After all the organization, pre-production, production, and post comes together, the end result is a video that’s exactly as expected but better than you could have planned!
Final Files