Spring 2018

CT Innovations introduced ATION to SeeClickFix, a company that provides the ability for citizens who find public issues in their local communities to connect directly with the city government. This allows issues to be efficiently dealt with, and also creates a medium where the process of the resolution can be well communicated to the citizen. Our task was to create a concise, one minute video for the company that presented the product’s unique benefits on their website, as well as a tool they can use to pitch to city officials. The guideline provided was that they wanted the video to be a mix of live action and animation.

We dove headfirst into this project, as we all went straight into brainstorming the look and feel that we wanted this video to have. We scoured the internet for anything from TV shows or other companies’ marketing videos that met our vision of the project. The team very quickly was able to come to a unified understanding of the tone and feel wanted.

When we pitched our proposals to our clients, we found that we had the luxury of working with youthful invigorated members of the company who were very much on the same page with our plans for video development. They chose their favorite of the three narrative tones that we pitched, and it was time to get to work.

Our narrative focused on the process of how local governments solve issues in their community. Our focus was on two perspectives, “the user” and “the city”. It begins with the user walking down the street and tripping on a pothole. It takes the viewer through the current model of reporting issues in the community, and highlights the inefficiency and lack of communication. The video then introduces the same exact scenario with the user tripping on a pothole, and then introduces what the reporting model would look like with SeeClickFix implemented, highlighting the improvement on efficiency, as well as citizen satisfaction.

When we began preproduction, our clients wanted to have a very active part in our process. We would come up with the script, and they would write the narration. When we storyboarded out the script, the clients also delivered us a storyboard of how they envisioned it. This dynamic continued into production, as about half of the video was filmed with actors and locations chosen by us, while the other half was filmed with actors and locations they had in mind. We actually found this process extremely desirable and effective. We were able to meet the needs of the client, while still providing our creative and design understanding which they were very open to implement.

Project Team
Mike Carlson
Nini Constable
Danial Hamzah
RJ Jones
Daniel Lee
Carly Zaleski

Spring 2018

My Gene Counsel came to us with a problem which we were tasked to solve. The problem given to us was the word of My Gene Counsel not being spread. The client offered some ideas as to how we should approach the project. Some of the ideas given were considered but ultimately decided to be less than desirable for a deliverable product. After talking to the client and negotiating their vision and the most effective way to portray the company, we came to a decision and began animating the video. My Gene Counsel previously had an informational video made, but it was generic and did not portray the company in the best possible light. So we started storyboarding, discussing with our contact at the company Ellen, and designing a video that fit the company brand the best. This process was accompanied by building assets in Adobe Illustrator, creating the script and working on edits with the client, hiring a voice actor, animating in After Effects and putting all the pieces together in Adobe Premiere. This took a lot of coordination and communication from the team. But by the end of the project, we had completed and delivered an exceptional video. Our client was thrilled and even asked our team if we were looking for jobs in the future. Overall the project was a success, the client was happy, and our team learned a lot.

At the beginning of the semester, the client came to us with the task of creating an advertisement / animation. The problem this video would solve would be the lack of people knowing about the company and the benefits of its use. The animation was to utilize the color scheme of the “My Gene Counsel” logo. This animation was meant to attract young and old potential clients. Ellen, the CEO who we spoke with expressed that we take into account every age, gender, and ethnicity. We were given an old animated video made previously for the company and were told to follow it as a guideline.

Taking into consideration the client’s problem, we decided to take a simplistic approach to the issue. After researching the target audience we found that because My Gene Counsel goes after clients who have used products such as “My Ancestry” we decided to look into their target audience. We found, however that the primary buyer and target client to these products were middle aged white men. Our client, on the other hand, wanted to appeal to all genders, ethnicities, and ages. In order to remedy this discrepancy we took a simplistic approach which kept all characters blue. While matching the logo for My Gene Counsel, the blue characters also allowed us to bypass the need to represent every race while still appealing to a vast amount of demographics. Another issue we found was the video given by the client was not only an eye sore, but conveyed a poor message when it came to marketing. For this reason we opted to keep the message as straight forward and deliver a more visually appealing art style.

One of the obstacles that we encountered with this project was the program that we would use for our animation. Our CEO, Ellen, wanted our video to look similar to the company’s existing video, which was made using a website called GoAnimate. This site had a very specific look, and a lot of character animation, both of which would be incredibly time-consuming to implement with After Effects, which is the program we ultimately used to create our animation. To satisfy Ellen’s request, we just told her that we would make it look as similar as possible to the GoAnimate video, which we did. We used colors from the MyGeneCounsel logo so that it would be Additionally, part of the reason why it took us until April to begin animating was because of script disagreements. We spent several weeks working with Ellen to reach a script that we both agreed with. Especially at first, we did not see eye-to-eye with the content of the script – Ellen wanted it a specific way, however, we believed that it wasn’t enticing enough for the customer. Her script lacked something that would make customers want to utilize her service, and the tone was a bit odd. She wanted it to be conversational, but it seemed very unnatural. So, we compromised with her, and our script ended up containing a bit of both of our desired content. Ellen also wanted to target every demographic, but we knew that it would be difficult to include everyone, and all races. To solve this, we made the people’s skin blue, so that it doesn’t represent any specific race, removing race entirely.

Overall we feel that we did a good job on this project and were successful in the assignment that we were tasked with. We started out strong by having a strict schedule of when each piece of the process should be done. For the most part we stuck to this and even got ahead of schedule at some points. Towards the end we struggled a bit staying on schedule because our client had a personal emergency and didn’t get back to us for a while. This set us back for the start of animating but we managed to catch up and get everything done on time which was great. There was some difficulty in the script writing process because our client was unclear about what she wanted to convey. After some back and forth about the script we had to become more aggressive in our approach. Through several calls with her we did convince her to go with a script that we were happy with. We also were pretty successful in convincing the client to let us use our creative license more because she did not quite understand at first. In the end she was very happy with what we delivered to her so we are glad we didn’t try to conform to what she thought she wanted. Looking back this might have happened faster if we had made our storyboards more clear. Additionally, we think that we were successful in finding a voice actor and recording the script. At first this seemed a little daunting but through collaboration with the drama department we ended up with a great voice over. In the end we are very happy with the product that we delivered and we learned a lot in the process.

Project Team
Rachel
Maggie Chernovetz
Thomas Davies
Malik Harris
Cameron Sugrue

Spring 2018

We worked with the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and their Amistad Center for Art & Culture to help them find a way to display some of their most controversial artifacts. We went about solving this problem by meeting with the museum director to brainstorm ideas, researching and preparing proposals for these ideas, and ultimately presenting them to the museum director. After these steps, we prepared another consolidated and specific proposal that encompassed his notes, and passed that off to him to work on with another group or contractor in the future.

Throughout this process, we worked hard every week to flesh out the proposals with mockups, 3D models of the space, and in-depth breakdowns of the logistics of the project. Given that we were not actually implementing these ideas ourselves, we ended up having plenty of time to complete the work- perhaps even a little too much. All in all, we are proud of the work that we did and enjoyed the class and experience working with Frank immensely.

At the beginning of this semester, the Amistad Center at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford came to us with a unique problem, and an open mind in terms of how they wanted to solve it. Their problem was the unanswered question of how to display racially charged artifacts as part of their ongoing exhibit rotation in their corner of the Wadsworth. The director of the Amistad Center, Frank, was worried that if they just put the items out for display without some sort of curator, they would be misinterpreted and become the source of criticism towards the museum.

Our Student Agency group planned to help Frank begin solving this problem by first getting a clear understanding of the situation at hand, and then preparing a variety of digital solutions to help bridge the gap between the Amistad Center’s intentions and the public’s interpretations. We did not intend to actually implement these solutions, due to the limited length of the semester, however we intended to leave Frank with a detailed plan to either pass on to the next Agency class, or to some sort of independent contractor chosen by the Center themselves.

The first step we took in preparing our battle plan for the Amistad Center, was to visit the facility itself to meet with Frank and size up the problem with our own eyes. We drove to Hartford as a group and met Frank at the Center. He gave us a tour of the items already on display, and then took us into the storage section of the center to show us some of their more controversial pieces. We then sat down at talked about some of his ideas for the projects. With that information, we went back to UConn and began developing our proposals.

Over the course of the rest of the semester, we prepared 3 potential approaches to the problem. One was a database of museum-goer questions and answers, in video format and readily accessible via ipads displayed with the exhibits. Another was a looping series of facts about the items on display, projected on the wall next to the pieces to give them context. The last was an interactive “guided-tour/choose-your-own-adventure” hybrid. After completing mock-ups and presentations for each of these ideas, we met with Frank again to get his thoughts on them. Given his notes, we ultimately decided to combine the first two ideas-the final proposal: project the Q&As and the facts on the wall next to the exhibits.

We spent the last few weeks of the semester preparing our most in-depth proposal yet, which included a 3D modeled mockup of the idea implemented in the space. Finally, we presented this final proposal to Frank and the rest of our peers in Student Agency, and passed the proposal and all of our project materials of too Frank for future implementation at the center.

Overall, with the work that our group had accomplished throughout the duration of the semester, we believe that we did pretty well. The proposals that we prepared were in-depth and well thought out. We also took time to develop various mockups and prototypes for each idea that we proposed, which was helpful both for Frank and ourselves during our meetings with him. We wanted to be able to demonstrate models of how each idea could work, so that when we would discuss our concepts, everyone could be on the same page. Even though our job was to help develop a concept that could be implemented, we reminded ourselves about the logistics and parameters of what the Amistad Center could be able to install. We were allowing our creativity to get the better of us, while still being mindful of costs.

One weak area was created by the amount of time we had to complete the task at hand. In some instances, it felt that we were allotted too much time to work on these concepts. This led to some days where not much work was accomplished, because we felt our ideas were already fleshed out. That being said, we worked hard, traveled, and put lots of thought into our proposals. And in the end, Frank was happy with the work that we had completed for him, which is what we strived to obtain the client’s satisfaction.

Project Team
Alexander Crosett
Estelle MacDonald
Christian Partenio
William Rios
Benjamin Schultz

Spring 2018

We were introduced to the UConn Recovery Center or URC, an organization categorized under Mental Health Services focused on offering a space and support for students on their path of recovery. They came to ATION focused on solving their problem of “brand awareness”. They had a small following on social media and were unable to find a brand that can speak to students who might be potential members who can benefit from their services. Following that meeting, we focused on three major areas: developing a sound brand strategy, expanding their presence on social media, and reorganizing their website. Before we began this process, the URC wanted to make sure their current student body was involved with the creative process and made sure their work was represented properly.

We began work on developing a brand style guide that offered a clear sense of direction for future branding of the URC. This covered proper colors and fonts to use for web content versus print content, examples of social media content, a brand message, a refurbished logo and how to use it in proper content.

After gaining approval for the brand style guide, we then began work on social media content to help diversify the URC content strategy with the main message of “healing” and “the road to recovery” being the focus for the content. We decided to have content ranging from “Ways of Healing” to inspirational quotes to “Famous Faces of Recovery” to “Thoughtful Thursdays” to allow for a multifaceted content strategy, as well as launching an Instagram channel for the URC to increase their presence. Outside of static photo content, we also created a short kinetic typography video that conveys the message and work of the URC in a new light.

Finally, we began work on modifying the website of the URC to be more streamlined and organized. While much of the site’s elements stayed the same, the site is more focused on getting the user the information that they need. While taking in the needs of the students in the URC and the client, we were able to create a product that puts this organization in a great position to spread their message on social media.

Project Team
Matt Barry
Ariff Jeff
Kaity Seman
Sophia Valentin