The Beard Club

I was approached by the folks at The Beard Club to create a 30 second promo for their brand.

Let's go through the steps we took together to achieve the below result:

Script

Every story needs a script. I was provided with one and some visual cues to hit along the way. The client had a clear idea of what they wanted, but they were open to suggestions on how to make that vision pop on screen. This is where visual scripts come into play. The idea is simple: the script on one side and the visuals/actions on the other.

Moodboard

Putting together a visual language by using references is very helpful. Creating a moodboard helps tremendously with narrowing the look of the animation. Often times I use Pinterest to look up artwork and Figma to arrange them:

Sketch Animatic

At this point, I like creating an animatic with the sketch storyboards so we can get a final good look before bringing in color and details. Adobe Premiere Pro was used for creating an animatic. We also use some temp music and Voice Over (yours truly) to get a sense of timing with everything layed out.

Storyboarding

We flesh out each scene in the storyboarding phase and bring it to life. I like to start with sketches first and only move on to color once the client is happy with the layout and characters. It is much easier to make modifications here, so we spend as much time as necessary in this phase. After several passes and feedback from the client here is the result:

Boardomatic

When the style frames are approved, we apply the treatment to all the other sketches. The client went with the middle section that was closest tot he brand colors. Next, we create an animatic with all the finished boards:

Animation

When all the feedback is in and the animation is approved, we move on to sound design. There is a reason why we use temp music and temp VO. We want to move fast when we make changes. A professional voice over artist comes in at the end to take my track and improve it with their style and pace. Sound and Music are also something we leave for the end unless the music track informs animation. After adding these last important part to the whole, here is the result we get:

We finally get to flex our motion muscles and bring the story to life. We take all the previous scenes, animate each one, and tie them together with transitions:

Music, Sound Design & VO