Bearded Fellows: Best of 2023

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Check out a year of creative triumphs! Have a peep at the best of Bearded Fellow’s animation and video projects. From L&D to brand videos, animations and more – our team have been keeping busy in 2023. Whether you’re looking for video inspiration for 2023 or you’re simply checking out what we do best.

British Red Cross – Reconstruction Videos

This year has seen a lot more interest in projects that combine video and animation techniques.

This project for British Red Cross delivered on many levels for us,  we were able to be creative, finding a creative solution to the problem of hiring multiple locations for reconstruction videos, which was an ongoing issue for British Red Cross. Working with green screen to produce environments through illustration, video and animation which pushed the brand and realised a new medium to communicate the training modules online.

Having to overcome challenges such as ensuring clinically correct actions are presented correctly, making the illustrations match the video aesthetic, multiple actors and injuries in a tight timeframe and post-production to bring it all together a great project that opened up new creative avenues for learning projects.

Read more about the project > 

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Servers.com – Brand Video

Take a new client in an aesthetically bland sector who has never created original content before. Add in a sprinkle of Bearded Fellows and we end up with this cracker.

We worked hard to come up with the right idea. This project could have ended up a bland corporate piece to the camera, but by working with the space, the team following the brief, and getting the questions right, we were able to create a video that made Servers.com human, enabling them to stand out in a crowded market.

This was achieved with a behind-the-scenes style helping to relax the interviewees and to get the essence of Servers.com across to their potential clients. We love this piece because it shows what can be achieved when collaboration is at the forefront of the process! 

Work with us on your next brand video> 

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Servers.com – Web 3 Animation

As one project led to another we wanted to highlight this animation we created again for Servers.com. We animated this project to music, which brings out an interesting question – what does sound look like in movement?

We built a cityscape within the environment which gives the piece more atmosphere and then worked hard on getting motion in-sync with the music flow.

This was Servers.com’s artwork, the style is Kurzgesagt – and we loved animating it!

Bring your creative vision to life >

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British Red Cross – Powerful Emotions

As part of a wider brief for a returning client this year, British Red Cross tasked us with creating a series of videos and animations for a new mental health learning programme that was launching.

We were working across this series of videos throughout the year so were able to spend time on creative, finding the right motion, pacing, aesthetic and colour palette. We also had the task of getting into the challenging topic of mental health, working with actors and voice-over artists to create stand-out performances and to create real empathy within the characters and voice-overs.

This is our stand-out animation piece from this series of videos and one of our favourite pieces created this year. We were able to break down creative barriers within the British Red Cross team and push the quality of the brand’s output this year.

Collaboration at its finest. Great work, BRC!

Grab us as your video content partner > 

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Made Smarter – Mikes Experience Animation

Sometimes, simplicity is key.

This animation created for Made Smarter is the proof in the pudding. Working with a niche key audience demographic, we were able to craft the appropriate narrative and translate the script into visuals that effectively communicated complex technological concepts was our main challenge with this project.

There was vital information that had to be picked up by the viewer. To help with this, we worked hard on character design and the balance of yellow white and black colour palette to create an animation that solved problems with both style and substance with effective video strategy.

If you’re unsure what an animation video project entails, you need to take a read of our previous blog: The Best Animation Process.

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Essity – DE&I One Year On

Essity’s DEI group wanted to celebrate the anniversary of the group’s previous film shoot. What better way than on the big screen!

We hosted it at a cinema, enjoyed some great discussion around DE&I issues and enjoyed watching our own work on a cinema screen too.

It was nice to revisit a previous project and reflect on the fact that it had benefitted the culture of a brand we are working with. Massive highlight! 

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Origins

This year we embarked on a collaboration with Colony Cowork and Polari Creative to produce a series of film events with the aim of celebrating the art of short-form storytelling while helping to put a spotlight on the talented filmmakers involved in the project.

We set out with the aim of highlighting the unseen talent in our creative community in Manchester, setting out a judging panel, and selecting films to showcase on the night.

This led to creating a short film about the Origins events. As we don’t usually do events, we tried to create a piece that is fast-paced, quick cut and kept a picture in a picture, this helped to keep attention and stand out from a crowded event video space!

Take a look for yourself.