Project Introduction
Hornbill Systems delivers market-leading Service Management solutions that enable organisations to automate business processes and provide first-class customer service. Drawing on over a decade of experience, Hornbill has packaged a number of applications designed for rapid deployment within any employee or customer service support environment.
We have worked with Hornbill for many years and among other projects have produced several presentations and demos for the shows, exhibitions and conferences that they attend. Each year Hornbill put together a stand at the Helpdesk & IT Support Show at Earls Court demonstrating their software and promoting themselves with an array of multimedia. Due to the good rapport between Digital Marmalade and Hornbill and the exceptional calibre of previous projects, they approached us to produce the show video presentation once again.
Hornbill provided us with a very loose brief and trusted us to deliver a high quality presentation lavished with the spit and polish that our clients are accustomed to. Their Marketing Department initially suggested high-tech design and visuals similar to those popularized in films such as Minority Report and The Matrix. With this in mind but without an army of special effects artists and a multimillion pound budget we set out to create an eye-popping, futuristic extravaganza that would raise the bar for the competition and reflect the innovative and sophisticated nature of Hornbill's brand and products.
Project Build
The exhibition video is predominantly talking head interviews that Hornbill shot themselves and supplied to us on Mini DV. The interviews follow a Q & A format with the IT managers of major corporations talking about the vital role that the Hornbill software suite performs within their departments and across their companies. These testimonials were captured and edited in preparation for use with After Effects later on.
Hornbill supplied us with a narrative for the different sections of the video which were recorded and mixed at Digital Marmalade as a voice over. The length of this plus the Hornbill client testimonials gave the production team an indication of the overall duration of the video. We also selected an ambient drum + bass soundtrack containing several peaks and breaks that would help to punctuate the animation and signal transitions.
Work then began on the overall look and feel design and one chief consideration of the project was that the video would be projected onto translucent rear screens and therefore all visuals would need to be vivid and bold enough to maintain clarity. Hornbill's signature square branding - used to denote the industry sectors that they service - featured heavily during the Concept and Company sections and were used unfolding, zooming and resolving into other elements. A looping graphic bed was designed in similar colours for use in the background over which all the main footage and action take place.
As with many of our motion graphic videos the piece opens with a dramatic sting to establish the Hornbill brand and grab the attention of the exhibition attendees. Low atmospheric rumbling leads into an eclipse animation graphically matching the logo. It then moves into the Concept section giving an overview of the company and outlining key features and USPs of Supportworks. The main interviews section follows next and we treated and colour graded the footage that Hornbill had supplied and arranged it according to voice over and on screen questions with. The presentation concluded with some company information and a competition promo that would encourage the viewer to stay at the stand for a live demonstration.
With all the sections in place all that was left was to ensure that animation was synced up and the audio levels adjusted. The finished video was rendered, encoded and compressed for delivery on a DVD.
The presentation has been adapted and refined for subsequent exhibitions; the most recent version focuses on Supportworks ESP, the major developments to the software, as well as the new identity and direction of the company. New logos replaced old and a series of 3D diagrams that were designed to illustrate the ESP framework now features in the Concept section.
Digital Marmalade attended the Helpdesk & IT Support Show 2005 and saw first hand Hornbill taking pride of place at the show's entrance and that they were a formidable presence among the rest of the exhibitors. We are justifiably proud of the overall package produced for Hornbill as it was the culmination of many weeks of varied work on their overall brand, product brochures, diagrams + photos, stand signage as well as the video presentation outlined in this case study.
