Arrows International Vision Night spot

Recently, I had the opportunity to work on a quick turnaround animation project for Arrows International in Oklahoma. The project involved filming, designing, layout, graphics, and compiling, all completed within a week. The end result was a nearly 45-second video spot that premiered at the end of January to commemorate the 15-year anniversary of the dance group’s mission to the nations.

The initial brief I received was to create an animation with arrows going forth into the nations that the group had missioned in. I began by filming several dancers in a repetitive dance and then sketched out a storybook with the animation timeline. As I work with music, selecting the right song was one of the earliest pieces I considered. While driving, I went through a hundred or so songs loaded on a USB stick and came across the perfect song by musician Hannah Parrott.

With the music selected, I was able to mark down the graphics, realism, and color palette I would use in styling the film (when I was finished driving). Balancing these elements against the time constraint of a quick turnaround project, I had to consider how much detail I would be able to add.

I used After Effects, Premiere, and the RunwayML app for keying and put in 40 hours of work, including a few frustrating computer crashes on my MacBook. In the end, the project was published and met the expectations of Arrows International.