CleanPath NY
Connecting renewable energy for all New Yorkers.
Overview
The inspiring folks at HelpGood are always cooking up great ideas with a strong emphasis on social impact. Working with them is a ton of fun, and truly rewarding. So when they came knocking about a video to spread the word about clean energy in New York State, we were totally on board.
Brief
Campaign brief: Get New Yorkers to support and learn more about Clean Path NY by focusing on how the project will make for a healthier, more resilient New York State.
Video Focus: Educational, approachable video about why now is the time for NY to make the switch to renewable energy.
Tone: educational, approachable
Creative Considerations: because of the very short format, the video needs to be conversational, friendly, and clear, touching on the very basics of the project and avoiding super detailed, or technical jargon.
Audience: Environmentally conscious NYers (Interests: Solar energy, renewable energy, sustainable energy, renewable fuels, public utility)
Length: 1 minute, ~120/150 words
Platforms: YouTube, Instagram, X (fka Twitter)
Pre-Production
By the time we joined on to the project, HelpGood had already written a super concise and impactful script. They had a color palette and some campaign iconography, but hadn't yet developed a design language for the video.
That meant we could take a lot of inspiration from the script, colors, and fundamental design — and at the same have the freedom to totally run with the creative direction.
CleanPath NY Campaign Iconography and Color Palette
We had everything we needed to get out the pencils and paper and start sketching. Once we had a few sketches going to set the scene, we started developing our design approach.
Style Frames
Illustration Prep
The next step was to do our storyboards. To start out, we do our storyboards as fast sketches, and then edit them into an animatic. This allows everyone to see a demo version of the video a lot faster than if we illustrated every single scene.
At this stage, we also started the audio pipeline — searching for voiceover artists, and demoing sample music in the animatic. And while the audio direction would eventually change, it was important that we started thinking about it at this early stage.
Sketched Animatic
Once the animatic was squared away, we went back and fully illustrated all our scenes.
One thing we really enjoyed about this project was making it as New York as it could be. We drew inspiration from landmarks, landscapes, and neighborhoods across this huge, beautiful, diverse state. We even brought in New York’s state bird, the Eastern Bluebird, as a supporting character throughout the video.
For good measure, we edited our final illustrations back into our animatic, which allowed us to see how the video was shaping up.
Final Animatic
As we finished illustration, we locked our final VO and music, and we were ready to really ramp up production.
Production
With the animatic as our guide, we got to work on animation. This is our favorite part. It’s always exciting to see the work come to life, and we love that we get to share that with the client.
And with that, it was time to render the finished product.
Final Animation
Before rendering out our final exports, we went back through to do a sound design pass. Here’s our final cut of the video with just the effects tracks.
Sound Design
Summary
This was no doubt one of our favorite projects of the year.
One thing we learned is that the clarity of vision contained in HelpGood’s brief and their original script was so important to the development of the project.
We loved watching the project evolve from colors, shapes, and a few choice words, through rough sketches, and into its final form. And every step of the way, their brief was our touchstone — so we could always have an insightful conversation about why it worked to take one creative path or another.
We’re always excited when a project feels like a true mind meld — and the end result is always better off for it. We count ourselves lucky to work with such a great team.
Credits
Bianca Bello: Senior Strategist, HelpGood
Hailey Valdez: Project Manager, HelpGood
Scott Moe: Chief Creative Officer, HelpGood
Rob Bellon: Creative Director, Illustration, Animation Lead, Sound Design
Esteban García Vernaza: Illustration, Motion Design, Creature Animation
Nicole Carino: Voiceover Artist
Juqbox Music: Music