American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a nonprofit that advocates for birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. They work to prevent the extinction of endangered birds, conserve important bird habitats, reduce top threats to birds, and build an Americas-wide community of bird conservationists. ABC reached out to our team in need of two videos with motion graphics animation to educate the public and legislators on the findings in their recent report on the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides, also known as neonics, on North American birds.
ABC wanted one of the videos geared towards the public and the other more specialized for a legislative audience. Their vision was for both videos to be top-level educational pieces that would point interested viewers toward the insecticide report and include live footage and animated illustrations to support this information. Our Design and Video teams worked together on a script and storyboard for both videos, using stills from ABC’s existing footage and some stock footage. The videos needed to stay around the 30-second mark but include a fair bit of information, so we supplemented the scripts with some on-screen text.
Since these videos were educational in nature, a few primary sources of visual inspiration for our Design team were scientific flash cards and anatomical diagrams like you’d find in a science textbook. We organized the supplementary text on-screen on flash card-like shapes, and we created an anatomical illustration of a bluejay to start the section of the video that details the physical effects of neonics on birds. We also included silhouette illustrations of birds to accompany these effects, highlighting how big of an issue neonics are for birds in North America.
Some images from our mood board
It was essential to ABC that these videos feel urgent since the effects of neonics on birds are so severe. While the information itself is already grave, we worked to mirror this sense of urgency with voiceover actors who could give a serious, pressing tone to the scripts and background music that had just a bit of an alarming feel. We also worked with ABC to ensure that the stock footage and illustrations we used in these videos all included birds native to North America.
The final pieces combined the voiceovers, on-screen text, footage, illustrations, and background audio into two compelling educational videos. We were honored to be able to contribute in a small way to ABC’s work to end the harmful use of neonicotinoid insecticides in North America!
Public-Facing Video
Legislative-Facing Video
Online Optimism successfully completed all the project’s milestones — storyboards, scripts, voiceover recordings, drafts, and final videos. The team was prompt, efficient, flexible, and highly responsive to changes. Moreover, their work ethic, professionalism, and engagement were excellent.
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