3-D animated video, created to illustrate how the flagship product functions.
The old animation that needed replacing
My Role & Responsibilities
Producer/Creative & Art Director/Project Manager. I served as the producer and project manager within the company. Coordinating the content and feedback amongst the various departments and stakeholders internally. Externally, I served as the Creative & Art Director, in working closely with a freelance 3-D animator in another city and time zone, to sketch, wireframe, prototype and eventually create the actual finished video.
Project Length 6 Months
Methodologies Worked closely with the clinical & engineering department staffs, to ensure the accuracy of the content. Extensive, iterative design process, by which wireframe and prototype designs were created, feedback gathered from internal stakeholders, then fleshed out into the actual 3-D video renderings.
Tools Autodesk 3-D Max & Maya Animation software. Photoshop, white boarding for sketching out initial ideas, flow, & storyboarding.
What are the business goals?
To illustrate, in an immediately intuitive manner, the functioning of a complex machine, in order to vastly simplify the task of sales team in gaining wider adoption of this product.
To illustrate, in an immediately intuitive manner, the functioning of a complex machine, in order to vastly simplify the task of sales team in gaining wider adoption of this product.
Target Audience
Respiratory medical professionals who needed a lay person’s understanding of a complex medical simulation device, that was designed by technical engineers.
Respiratory medical professionals who needed a lay person’s understanding of a complex medical simulation device, that was designed by technical engineers.
Research insight
It was determined, that actually filming the device, its inner workings, and how it interacted with an associated manikin, other equipment and the instructor and students, was impractical and would not be effective.
Thus, we decided to utilize 3-D computer-generated animation, to illustrate precisely how the device itself works, its relationship to other associated equipment, such as a ventilator, a mannequin, and how the instructor and students can actually observe and use the device in an instructional setting.
Key user needs
Clinical respiratory professionals need to become certified as respiratory therapists, so that they can work in this role in a hospital ICU unit. In order to do this, they must undertake an educational/training course, that teaches them how to manage a ventilator machine. These are extremely complex medical devices that seriously ill patients depend on, to help them breathe when intubated, due to covid, being in a coma, etc. IngMar Medical has a long history of developing hardware and software products, that teach, in a simulated fashion, how to correctly manage these computerized ventilators, before they become certified to work with actual human patients in a true clinical setting.
Clinical respiratory professionals need to become certified as respiratory therapists, so that they can work in this role in a hospital ICU unit. In order to do this, they must undertake an educational/training course, that teaches them how to manage a ventilator machine. These are extremely complex medical devices that seriously ill patients depend on, to help them breathe when intubated, due to covid, being in a coma, etc. IngMar Medical has a long history of developing hardware and software products, that teach, in a simulated fashion, how to correctly manage these computerized ventilators, before they become certified to work with actual human patients in a true clinical setting.
Pain points to address
Existing animated gif, created by an engineer, was very primitive and did not convey the workings of the Ingmar device very effectively. Without a more sophisticated visual aid, it was historically very difficult for the sales team to effectively convey to prospective customers, exactly how the simulation device worked, and how it could function to teach their medical students.
Existing animated gif, created by an engineer, was very primitive and did not convey the workings of the Ingmar device very effectively. Without a more sophisticated visual aid, it was historically very difficult for the sales team to effectively convey to prospective customers, exactly how the simulation device worked, and how it could function to teach their medical students.
Process
Web-based review process, using simple file storage apps such as Dropbox, to obtain rendered output files from the freelance animator. Then, internally, we used a built-in markup function, embedded within our private Vimeo account, for my team to review and embed comments directly at key points on the video timeline. Analogous to the commenting feature used in Acrobat file review.
The outcome
The new animation, a new & vastly improved 3-D animation.
Featuring great production values, with narration, people, cutaway views of the machine innards, showing its mechanics, interactions with associated devices, including a sophisticated manikin, and also the ventilator!
Summary
A very enjoyable and interesting project, as albeit also a very complex and challenging one. Due to covid, all of us working remotely, as well as me working remotely with an animator based in Los Angeles, who is Russian, and 3 hours behind me, all coalesced for a quite challenging time in getting this project completed.
Also, this project took much longer to complete, because of the fact that the key stakeholders really did not have a very clear idea of what they wanted the finished product to look like. There were no existing examples that they could point me to, to show me what they wanted. Also, their attempts to clearly articulate the “creative brief” to me, were a dismal failure.
This sort of “we’ll know it when we see it” approach, was quite challenging, created an unnecessary amount of revision work and iterations, which delayed things, and added cost, as the nature of creating and rendering this type of video, are very labor intensive for the animator and also very expensive.
If I had this to do over again, knowing what I now know, I would insist on a solid, clearly-articulated creative brief, a definite scope of work for the project, a more realistic budget to work within, as well as clearly designating one chief stakeholder as the ultimate decision maker.
The committee approach, while somewhat useful from a team-building perspective, was definitely not efficient, not at all streamlined, nor was it cost-effective.
Conclusion
However, the good news is, that the critical reception and feedback from all concerned, both internally & externally, was universally that it is a definite “10”, a 2-thumbs up, etc! This new piece, now enabled the sales/business development team to easily conduct effective product demos, either live, via Zoom, or by emailing a link to prospective customers. And, from a marketing perspective, we ramped up our efforts to promote this new piece, via email campaigns, blog posts, news releases, webinars, social media, etc. All available channels were utilized to get the word out about this new and vastly improved explanation of how the flagship product works.