Stormy Studio were selected by media agency Wooshii to produce a high quality, illustrative Pharmaceutical animation for their client Thermo Fisher Scientific. The narrative called for the clear and concise explaining of the Covid-19 / Novel Coronavirus pandemic, before then highlighting the positive impact Thermo Fisher were able to have at different stages of the virus's discovery, research and work to tackle it.
After some early group creative discussions with both the the agency team and end client, an approach was agreed on to take a hand drawn and illustrated approach to reduce the 'corporate feel' of the video. As well as create an engaging aesthetic.
We needed a flexible pharmaceutical animation production approach
We were aware that (due to the quickly changing nature of the global pandemic) any stats and new information would impact the video narrative till late in the production.
Stormy Studios own professional script writer had to initially work with a wide range scientific material and references to build up the first draft of the script.
Depicting the spread of the virus
To maintain the hand-drawn illustrative style of the video we used ink-bleed footage/effects and fades to depict the spread of the virus in a creative way, that still tied in with the hand-drawn illustrative style of the video.
This effect could then be staggered, timed and played in reverse to help inidicate the timeframe in 2020 the particular seciton of a video was referring to.
"The product illustrations needed to balance both realism and style. Ensuring products were recognisable, suitably stylised and quick to produce."
Updating Animation Stats...
We animated stats in a variety of was. Having number rise up or down to highlight the incredible production rate of text kits and PPE in an attempt to meet global demand.
The animation project was designed, so these animated stats could be quickly updated as new information rolled in before the pharmaceutical animation project deadline.
News Footage...
Whilst the video could have also worked well with real news footage cut in and audio.
Due to the time restraints in sourcing permission for media footage, a decision was taken to depict the key news scene and W.H.O. announcments through illustration.
This both hleped the production move forward without any extra delays and maintained the overall look and feel.
Sourcing accurate Pathogen models
The Stormy team looked to the science community to find a useful image to accurately represent the 3D pathogen and models.
Upon discovery of a great 3D model and animation on Twitter. We contacted various people to both source a higher resolutino model and request apporval to use it in our own pharmaceutical animation.
Fortunately someone got back very quickly. With a great media file and the required captions to acknowledge the study and authors.
Which we'll also add here by way of thanks.
• Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus spike glycoprotein (EMD-21375). Image by EMDB (emdb-empiar.org)."
• Primary publication: Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation. Wrapp D, Wang N, Corbett KS, Goldsmith JA, Hsieh CL, Abiona O, Graham BS, McLellan JS
Science 367 1260-1263 (2020) doi.org/10.1126/science.abb2507
Highlighting that people at the heart of success...
The video ends with a building montage of Thermo Fisher Scientific employee photos. This works really well at highlighting the input by real people on the ground around the world. Helping the company achieve fantastic work at a very testing time for all.
