During the lockdown last spring, a regular client asked this animation company to create an animation to support a new digital platform they were developing – in super quick time.
Kelly Earle is the Head of Marketing & Comms for FutureGov, a change agency supporting public sector organisations with digital transformation, service design and community development. Their company of 100+ works with local government, central government and health organisations across the UK and Europe. As Head of Marketing & Comms, she leads the strategic and operational direction of marketing activities as well as internal and external communications.
This is Kelly’s experience of working with Napoleon Creative, who help business grow through video and animation.
Kelly’s Challenge with our Animation Company
During the first few months of COVID-19 in the UK, we helped local authorities and NHS partners with their immediate emergency response. This meant a lot of rapid change in a historically bureaucratic sector, adopting radically new ways of working at a pace previously unseen. It was clear the scale of the emergency was too big and needs to people too complex for any one organisation to address alone. Which meant local authorities needed to adapt to work in truly multidisciplinary ways across services, the Voluntary Community Sector and the local community to provide support to people at the earliest possible opportunity.
Working with one London authority, we built a digital platform that enables local authorities to keep a combined list of vulnerable people in their borough, record their needs, and keep track of their fulfilment. Called Beacon, we can capture resident needs and connect them to the right support to ensure these needs are met through council and voluntary and community services. We built the platform in a matter of days and weeks, and needed a way to quickly and clearly communicate the benefits and uses of the platform to a range of stakeholders. We enlisted Napoleon Creative to help us achieve this.
Goal of the Animation
For a first use case, we needed to quickly and clearly communicate the benefits and uses of the platform to a range of stakeholders – from senior council leaders and Voluntary Community Sector leaders to council staff and voluntary staff as an introduction to the platform. Second to that, we intend to use the animation video for sales and marketing purposes, sharing the video on our social media and website.
The Proposed Solution
A colleague recommended animation company Napoleon Creative, as we’d worked with them for a separate animation before. We knew we needed the video created quickly and trusted their ability to understand the brief, understand the context of the emergency response and deliver a well-designed and useful video.
The Process of making the Animation
Our entire video process took 3 days. From brief to delivery of a final product, the Napoleon Creative worked FAST.
After sending an initial email, I had a call with Gavin to discuss our brief in more detail. I followed up this call with a written brief with a budget, timeline and branding details. While Napoleon Creative got to work on style, I started drafting the voice over script. Gavin sent over video examples of their previous work to help us decide on the overall style. Due to the tight deadline, we chose to repurpose animations they’d created previously, which was very smart.
With the style approved, Gavin and I went through the script together to check for clarity, clear story and timings. With a bit more work on my end on the story, I got to work recording the voice-over myself. This left Gavin’s team free to focus on creating the animations and sequencing. Once the voice-over was complete, I provided the raw audio file for Napoleon Creative team to manage audio editing. They put all materials together and provided the first version on a collaborative feedback platform. I love these platforms, as it makes it so easy to add comments collaboratively with the team. After a few edits and versions, we had a completed video.
Managing the Project
We had a small team of people working around the clock to complete in our very condensed time frame. We worked together through every stage from planning to script creation, with multiple rounds of drafts for feedback. Because of the tight turnaround, we had open communication using phone calls and What’s App messaging.
Feedback and Collaboration with the Animation Company
We shared the video with our client stakeholders to help facilitate important discussions about ways of working for the emergency COVID response. We’ve continued developing the platform with that client over the past year.
Connecting our Teams
The workflow between our team and the animation company was phenomenal. I trusted the Napoleon Creative team to make smart decisions and ask for guidance when needed. For the three days, we had completely open channels of communication. We used phone calls and What’s App messaging for quick communication. Overall, I was impressed by their willingness to take on such a rapid piece of work. They came up with creative solutions to help us meet our deadline.
Lasting Impression
The professionalism and communication shown by Napoleon Creative was next level. They clearly know what they’re doing, know what they need from clients in order to create their best work. Plus they come with no ego. The team worked with immense speed without sacrificing quality.
Animation Company London
Although we’re based in London, we work with organisations around the globe.
