Dinowood Studios: Jess’ October Blog
So, it’s time for my monthly blog post – ‘A witty illumination into the life of a Marketing Assistant at RealtimeUK’ …hopefully it’s just as bright as the snazzy ones down the road in Blackpool.
October has seen me turn my marketing desk into a mini production studio; as I geared up to get creative for our sponsoring of this year’s TIGA awards; whilst I also tried my best not to drown in Lego.
I thought it would be a fun idea to pretend to be one of the talented artists at our studio, and give you a behind the scenes step-by-step look, into what went into making one of our hilarious dinosaur videos…
Step One: Fall Down The Idea Hole
It could be described as one of the most creative phases, and I guess it was. Much like Alice, my mind fell down the rabbit hole; as lots of mad ideas popped into my head about what our Dinos could get up to. (Sadly, yet more rationally) the pages of ideas were cut down to a clear and concise bullet list that we felt hit the ‘simple, fun and humorous’ angle that we wanted to achieve.
Step Two: Storyboard This Creative Wave
With our ideas down, it was time to start bringing them to life. I rested on my -not so terrible- art skills to draw a selection of storyboards. Each board depicted how I would like the scene to play out, what sort of shots I wanted, and which Dinos needed to be there. Below is the storyboard for the FIFA tableau.
Step Three: Lights, Camera, Dino
After I was happy with the storyboard and sure of what shots I needed to gather, I grabbed the camera and channelled my inner Tim Burton to direct the stop motion video. A tedious process yes, and it didn’t help that Jeff (the t-rex) is a total diva to work with, but once I had a steady rhythm the production of the video seemed to be in full swing.
Step Four: Bringing The Dinos To Life
Post production is where things started to come together. Going back into artist mode, I had my best go at messing around with photoshop to bring the RealtimeUK Dinos to life. I added their lovely expressions, and even mocked up their troublesome FIFA game.
Step Five: Editing
Once each of the frames had been perfected, I handed them over to Zoe so she could work her editorial magic on the shots and pull together a finished video.
Step Six: Football Dino Mania
*Drum roll* and we have the finished product! Ready to go out over our social media channels, so you guys can enjoy our Dinos in action.
And that’s my October… that and drinking coffee. If you want to find out more about our TIGA Awards campaign you can head over to my other fabulous blogpost here; it explains our involvement with TIGA and introduces you to Darius, Jeff, Susie and Greg (The RealtimeUK Dinos).
Jess