PeerStreet Explainer Video - A Case Study in Planning and Client Feedback
Client: Peerstreet
Studio: Retrofit Media
Creative Director: Nicole Brown
Design: Peerstreet
Animation: Steven Jenkins
Project Overview
I was approached by an amazing Studio, Retrofit Media, to create this for their client, PeerStreet. The purpose of the video was to demonstrate their Originator Suite tools. They wanted a clean, 2.5D look. This video was shown at a company conference and was warmly received! PeerStreet has since returned and requested 10 more videos.
Storyboard
PeerStreet provided assets to me by allowing access to the work in progress website they had created using Figma, a collaborative user interface design tool. At first, I felt a bit outside of my comfort zone. Surprisingly, I learned quickly how to navigate Figma and download pages of assets. These original vector assets allowed maximum pixel sharpness when creating the animation. The client also used these pre-created pages as mock storyboards that I could animate and transition between. Thankfully, Battle Axe's Overlord plugin was a timesaving tool for importing assets into After Effects.
Construction of Animation
During the time the client needed to create the voiceover, based on the client's instructions, I created the first After Effects file. This file contained all of the imported assets from the Figma site, organized into twelve compositions representing each of the screens PeerStreet wished to demonstrate.
Project Complexity and Organization
Due to the complexity of this project, organization of assets is especially important. Layer naming, composition naming, and layer colors helped me visually keep track of all assets. Later, when changes were being made, this extra time spent organizing really paid off.
More Project Complexity
Things can really get crazy once key framing and animation starts. Using After Effects' default way of organizing means working from bottom to top chronologically. Since After Effects only processes visible layers, keeping layers trimmed to only where they will be seen helped to keep the computer responsive.
Throughout this process, regular communication to this amazing client and their actionable feedback kept the project on track. Obtaining the voice over, as well as the music track early in the project was so important as it provided the pacing for the animation. I regularly provided rough, early animation drafts to the client, so that feedback could be incorporated as soon as possible, and later, kept this up so the project could be fine-tuned for the client. I've really been privileged to work with such awesome clients!