2019 Harvest for Hunger Videos

The Akron Canton Regional Foodbank approached us about making two videos for their annual Harvest for Hunger kick-off breakfast event. The foodbank supplies food and essential items across eight different northeast Ohio counties. And we always enjoy helping client like the foodbank  tell their story, expand their potential and engage new audiences to get involved.

The request was simple: create two videos that display various information about last year’s campaign and promote this year’s initiative. And with nearly 500 food pantries, hot meal sites, shelters and hunger-relief programs, the foodbank has an engaging story to tell.

We knew we were on a tight timeline and knew that we had a lot of valuable statistics and information to share, so our team decided the best plan of attack was to create fully animated videos for the event. Animation allowed us to work quickly and on our own timelines in-house, while providing a platform that can be fun, colorful and direct.

Animation is a great way to deliver lots of detailed information in a simple way. From statistics to mission statements, lists of objectives to direct quotations, animated videos with a motion graphics style provides endless possibilities with how that information is delivered.

Creating storyboards are a crucial in the process when it comes to fully-animated pieces. It allowed us to share our vision and get the foodbank’s buy-in early and with our tight timelines, that early buy in saved a lot of time. And this also mean revisions were kept to a minimum after the videos began to get animated.

Full storyboards also it allowed the food bank to get a clear understanding of how the overall look will complement the event – and how the videos would enunciate the key themes and talking points of the evening.

The first video was a text-based video that presented a lot of statistics from last year’s Harvest for Hunger campaign. The text-based approach was to get people excited about the money raised and the impact made through this fundraiser. It clearly articulated the stats, so it left nothing to the imagination of the viewers.

The second video used a voiceover to detail the new Harvest for Hunger campaign. The VO complimented the on screen animations and gave details information about how people could get involved and what the expectations were for this campaign. In this instance, the motion graphics really made scenes come to life.

With storyboards approved, our team got right to work on these two pieces.

The songs for the videos and the VO were the last pieces that needed to be selected and finalized before the animations could really begin. Audio elements are important to have early in the animation process, because they help dictate that final pacing of the animations. While changing things like songs seem easy, fully-animated pieces rely heavily on these elements and can potentially effect revision rounds.

Since each video had to be animated simultaneously, there was a different editor assigned to each one. They had to work quickly, but also maintain a high level of quality and make sure the two videos worked well together since they would be shown at the same event.

Since the foodbank had already seen the full storyboards and approved, the revisions to the videos were minimal. This meant that even with the tight turnaround time, the foodbank was happy and the videos were completed in time for the event.

The videos debuted during the Harvest for Hunger kick-off breakfast. This launch event had an excited audience that engaged with the content we created… and then engaged with again when the videos were shared on social media. The bright colors and quick animations drew the viewers’ attention and made viewers stop and watch.

Plus, with so much text on screen, audio isn’t really necessary to get the full story, which made them ideal for use on social media platforms.

In the end, the team realized the shining moment of the assignment was the storyboarding process early in the process. Having a storyboard allowed us to set the project up to succeed because it is easier to make edits and changes to a storyboard than at the animated stage.

The result of our articulated process allowed for the food bank to quickly provide feedback and for us to quickly supply updates before the more time-extensive steps took place. And since this assignment had a tight deadline, our early steps saved us valuable time later down the road.

In all, the project was complete – from script to video – in about three weeks.

And in the end, the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank had two video they were happy with and proud to share.