Client testimonial
“Communications were always so clear and responded to quickly. Deliverables were realistic and the results fantastic.”
Overview
RTS Waste Management required a strong and welcoming explainer video to illustrate and sell their innovative waste services, brand ethos and scrupulous standards on their website homepage. Vox Pops International worked in close collaboration with them to bring their company and vision to life through a coherent and warming animation – just in time for their rebranding.
The brief
It was important that RTS Waste Management’s video addressed; who they are and what they do, their family-run, professional and ethical approach, their personal service, their innovation and technology as well as accreditations plus environmental and expansion targets.
Using “live footage” wouldn’t have been an effective way of branching all the areas they needed to convey. However, animation was the perfect medium needed to bring together all of the aspects that make their operation a whole while narrating their services, achievements and philosophy. Animation allowed VPI to cover multiple locations, people, illustrate key information, show processes and machinery and symbolise meaning, too. RTS undoubtedly saved money by choosing animation video.
To read more about how animation can bridge so many areas, and the different types of animations and their uses, read our blog here.
From the outset, it was important for them to set a friendly and professional tone while conveying exacting technical depictions of AI sorting robots, cranes, and processes. This would require strong communication between the RTS and the chosen agency, plus RTS were new to animation video. They opted to go with VPI as an experienced and attentive local agency who are primed for working as collaboratively as the client wishes.
Our approach
In this spirit, VPI acted to help RTS understand what they wanted and needed from the animation. Then, the pair creatively discussed scenes and characters for customisation and images of workplace props and machinery. VPI worked on personalising specific areas for two videos to be used by two brands operating under the same company in different areas. To achieve this, two impressive opening scenes were created for the different brands . The first, a rural opening scene was created for the brand outside of London. For the other, VPI pulled landmarks to make a beautiful London-specific skyline creating familiarity and a strong sense of place in their client’s environment. In both opening scenes, the rural and cityscape depictions feature as bright and aesthetic backgrounds, while animated cars and cranes are at the forefront to create an impression of productivity and hustle and bustle in the frame.
To find out more about Personalised Animations – read the Co-op’s case study and see their video here.
It was essential that RTS conveyed that it’s a family-run business and has been for over 30 years. To show this, VPI’s animators worked from reference photographs of the father and son to mock up simple and likening character designs according to their budget. Their innovative tech was also created from reference material – including an animation of an AI robot arm used to sort waste.
Because of the above, the animation has a cohesive style but is nonetheless representative of what RTS’s world actually looks like. This is due to the huge amount of reference material they shared – skips, trucks, yards and more are all created from photographs they shared – enabling the animation to give a real sense of their company and processes. An enthusiastic rapport and creative alliance between RTS and VPI aided every step of production.
Meanwhile, animated transitions, voiceover and on-screen text brought together meaning, script and images to inform the viewer on what RTS do and how to get in touch, while also highlighting their clear, friendly and conscious brand identity from start to finish.
That animation production took 13 days from the start of work to delivery of the final video, and it features on RTS’s rebranded homepage, here.
