Maker Moments: Bringing Creative Solutions to Life

Welcome to Maker Moments, our series where we feature guest contributions to our blog from QuickFrame Makers. This month’s post is written by maker Michael, owner of Mippi.

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Hey, I’m Michael, the owner of Mippi, a Brooklyn-based motion studio. I’m stoked to be contributing to the QuickFrame blog! Reflecting on our recent project with MNTN, I wanted to pull back the curtain and share how we brought this piece to life from start to finish.

Collaborating with MNTN 

MNTN is truly a one-of-a-kind company. They’re revolutionizing TV advertising, making it possible for brands to create and air professional, TV-ready ads faster and more affordably, something unthinkable a decade ago. We were thrilled when MNTN first reached out after seeing our 2024 Boost Mobile Halloween campaign, “Hell Phone Bills.” The campaign is playful and over the top, but beneath that, we demonstrate a high degree of sophistication in our craft and approach. MNTN was shifting this spot from live-action to animation and knew Mippi would be a great match to develop an animation that would perfectly meet their needs.

After learning more about MNTN’s rationale for the project, our studio’s beliefs were confirmed: creative matters more to campaign success than any other factor. According to a 2017 Nielsen Catalina study of sales lift in the CPG category, creative was responsible for 47% of sales, more than any other input. With the brief underway and our team in place, we were ready to produce a sleek animation with seamless transitions that showcased how MNTN’s Performance TV platform transforms Connected TV advertising. The final result was an animation that creates a sense of empowerment surrounding performance television while establishing MNTN as an expert in both the creative and performance TV industries.

Our Process: Creativity, Collaboration, and Efficiency

Pre Production

1. Concept and Script Development: Our creative team starts by aligning with MNTN’s brand voice and objectives. Initially, we played with some narrative-heavy ideas, but as the concepts developed, we realized a more direct approach would have a greater impact. By collaborating closely with MNTN, we captured the core messaging in a visually engaging way.
2. Storyboard: Working off of scene descriptions from the creative team our illustrators sketched each frame in Procreate. We then uploaded the frames to Boords, allowing MNTN to provide feedback on the storyboard.
3. Style Document: The style document was crucial for aligning expectations before production began. It included mood boards, color palettes, and style frames. The mood boards contained a series of inspiring visuals that aligned with the project brief, while the color palette options maintained MNTN’s brand colors. The styleframes build upon select frames and give a sample visual of the finalized look and feel.
4. Boardomatic & Picture Lock: Next, we created a boardomatic, aligning the storyboard frames with the script using a scratch voice-over as the final voice-over was not ready. This helped us identify any slow moments or areas needing more action. We then secured the picture lock, which meant that timing was finalized and our animators could reference the boardomatic for exact timing.

Production

5. Vector Illustration: With the storyboard locked and style selections made, our artists switched from Procreate to Illustrator to refine compositions, create clean linework, and build scalable assets ready for animation.
6. Voice-Over & Track Selection: We used a talent agency to assist us in finding the perfect voice based on the brief. Our top options were then shared with MNTN. We held a virtual live recording session, captured multiple takes and selected the best ones to create the final voiceover. The music track was sourced from stock libraries, ensuring the final selection perfectly matched the animation’s tone.
7. Animation: With vector assets complete and the edited voiceover in hand, we were ready to start the animation. We divided scenes among animators whose strengths matched each scene’s style and challenges. In this scene the transition from the editor to the computer screen was a challenge in particular as we did not want to break the character rig we set up on our editor. A little secret here is that we have two different computer screens which we swap out behind the head to help us with a seamless transition into the screen. Creative solutions like this are always fun to come up with and help to avoid any distortions on the character and the screen. The animation was then uploaded to Frame.io for client review.
8. Final Mix and SFX: After incorporating feedback and final revisions, we sent the music track, voice-over, and SFX direction to our audio team, who blended and balanced the elements for a polished final mix.
9. Delivery: Given the range of social media formats, we prepared final deliverables in 1:1, 9:16, and 4:5 aspect ratios, including shorter cut-downs from the original 30-second video.

The Outcome: Impactful Animation Delivered Fast

We brought MNTN’s story to life with an animation that captured their goals and resonated with their audience. By delivering high-quality work on a tight deadline, we reinforced Mippi’s reputation as a trusted go-to studio within QuickFrame’s Maker Community. 

Watch the full MNTN Creative Solutions video:

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