- Task
At WebSummit 2021 in Lisbon, we wanted to present our newest product concept – a smartphone app with access to verified medical providers for cancer patients. As the product itself was in its early stages of development, we decided to present it in an animated product pitch.
The video was to include the problem statement, our solution and its key features. It also had to be clear and engaging enough for the general audience of Web Summit, most of which might not have known much about cancer and oncology.
- Challenges
- Limited production budget (approx. $4000)
- High cost of quality animation
- Complicated product functionality that had to be explained in a simple way
- No actual product demo or app renders existed, so no real visuals could be used to showcase the look and feel
- Result
- An engaging animated video that was easy to understand
- Potential benefits and values of the product clearly conveyed
- The video captured the attention of NHS's Hill Foundation, AstraZeneca, Roche and other major medical institutions that were present at Web Summit. We received numerous invitations to discuss potential collaboration opportunities as well as invitations to join local HealthTech accelerators and ecosystems
To access the budget range for our future animation, I started by writing the script for the voiceover and the description for some of the shots. Some of my colleagues helped me imagine the scenes which required a bit more abstract thinking. Eventually, the script was ready, so I could time it and lay out a detailed task description with deadlines, references, key points regarding our tone of voice and branding, etc.
Production
The next step was to find the animators. After a round of asking for personal references and looking through offers I received on LinkedIn, I realised that what we wanted was likely to exceed the budget that MediXSpace could afford. However, the search paid off: we reached an agreement with Ben Wild Studios, a production studio that kindly offered to bring our ideas to life despite having BBC, Manchester City, NHS and numerous other big names on their portfolio.
The biggest challenge of producing animation from scratch is the difference between what the clients may have in their mind and how the animators might see it. Once we approved the storyboard drafts, the hardest part of our step-by-step, idea-to-reality work started.
Ben and his team would send me the full draft versions of our future animation, and I would sit with them for hours watching and rewatching the videos, noting every single detail I wanted to change. I'd send the list back to Ben, and the cycle repeated. Ben was incredibly helpful and responsive at every step of our revisions. Even when we realised something wasn't working and I had to come up with a completely new idea for a shot to cover the voice-over in the midst of the process, his team applied all the changes I asked for.
While the first draft was completely different from what we had imagined before, by the end of those three weeks we had exactly what we wanted: a powerful animated product presentation that had a subtle emotional touch.
- Expenses
The whole production (including the equipment rental and actors) cost us $4000 plus expenses involved in processing an international wire.
- Money earned/saved
The average price range for a similar project starts from $6000. As we were not seeking investment for MediXSpace at WebSummit, the potential financial impact of the video is yet to be assessed at the upcoming HealthTech events in the USA (HIMSS 2022, ASCO Annual Meeting 2022).