For the first time since the launch of the very first Kindle e-reader, the creative team was asked to produce the entire device launch video, which is used by the press and store front to showcase the current Kindle e-readers new features and functionality.
Eagerly accepting this challenge I lead a team of three 3D + motion design generalist to concept, animate, score, edit, render, composite and color correct this Kindle advertisement 100% 'in house" .
As a result, we saved a considerable amount of time and money by doing the work internally all CGI (meaning no live action shot footage of real people holding real devices.
Instead of contracting the entire production (including conception as we had done previously . . . officially saving over a million dollars in the process we were able to put back funds originally set aside back into our teams cost center.
The process took less than 3 months from start until finish, which included a standard very rigorous approval cycle. Our small, but nimble team of three (including my self) were able to swiftly combat notes and revisions from multiple layers of management all the way to the very TOP. Beyond our internal creative direction and notes, we successfully were able to rapidlly obtain approval from director level, to VP, to Sr VP and finally from the founder and C.E.O himself.
In addition to taking on all the "life style scenes" where the device is in a custom 3D designed environment space, instead of the blue solid background. These scenes in particular needed to retain a certain level of realistic qualities, which absolutely required special attention to detail. Seeing the device in context next to familiar objects (such as a pencil, marker or a notebook) helped provide cusotmers a sense of scale, which is important to communicate, as it can be a major variable in the decision to purchase with confidence.
Using Octane render engine I was able to achieve a look and feel good enough to be considered "photo realistic". In addition to the "life style" scenes I was also responsible for preparing and presenting for review cycles. I also helped in the wire frame process on other scenes, helping establish animation and timing as well as screen replacements. Another big challenge I faced in this project was the unexpected and first failure of our render farm. Working over through the night straight into the text I was able to push most all renders through to the remote server farm I had originally designed, configured and maintained. I accomplished this by rebuilding the entire system twice. Later I learned our server’s instability was due to an especially volatile computer virus that had made its way into our systems which I found myself tirelesslly troubleshooting in the 11th hour on top of my very ambitious set of responsibilities.
Despite this tragic and unexpected system failure, which was absolutely mission critical, I was able to get the system working on a temporary emergency setting.
In the end you could imagine how happy I was to not let my team down and be able to support everyones work by getting it all rendered (including my own contribution) on time and on budget. Under the circumstances I was incredibly happy to hear our VP so pleased with our accomplishment, not yet knowing even how much money was saved or what unexpected challenges we were faced with. He even mentioned on his way out that "not only is this one of the nicest looking detail page product videos we've produced at Kindle, but I think this might just be the smoothest device detail page project we've ever done, excellent work guys."
