Working with a new illustrator. We’re in love!
A few weeks ago, we wrote about how we were asked to do some work for The World Bank and yesterday we wrapped up production on a series of 4 animated videos. It was a really exciting project and we are proud of how the videos turned out, but I think the thing we are most excited about as a company is the relationship that has developed with the illustrator we hired for the project, Kiril Tchangov. We’ve talked about the importance of illustration talent before, but with these videos it’s pretty obvious how much of a difference it can make. We can’t share the videos yet (Bank policy) but for now, take a look at some of these stills from the series:
TV showing 1/10 people as policemen
Two people communicating in a market setting
The impacts of development on a landscape
Earth shown with windmills, trees and solar panels
Our client wins it all at Games for Change conference
A few months ago we introduced one of our clients on the blog and I just wanted to take the time to congratulate them on their success at the Games for Change conference in NYC yesterday. With their new Duke & the Duck animated trailer in hand, U.O.Me. Game won the Festival Competition & “Most Likely to Succeed” award.
U.O.Me. Game is a Flash game about the national debt. Players make personal & policy decisions to lower their share of the debt, & learn more about the possible solutions to getting the country on sounder financial footing. For more about the game, check out their website.
U.O.Me. Game Trailer from The Duke & the Duck Productions on Vimeo.
The importance of size/experience when dealing with NGO’s
One of the peculiar aspects of doing business in DC is how bureaucratic the contracting processes can be. In addition to the Feds, there are so many semi- and quasi- governmental organizations around town that wrap themselves up in red-tape cocoons that it’s often hard to get anything done, especially as a new company. One such example, is the last month I’ve spent wrestling with The World Bank contracting apparatus.
Almost a month ago, we submitted a proposal to do a series of animated videos and have since heard back that ours was both the cheapest and highest-quality (their words, not mine) but without a valid vendor ID number, they couldn’t hire us. Since then, we’ve been running around like crazy trying to get approved as a vendor but it just didn’t look like it was going to happen because of our relatively small size. Luckily there is more than one way to win a contract, and this one involves my new hero and role model, Dan McKee.
I happened to meet Dan of Insomniac Design at the TECH Cocktail a few weeks before all of this went down and he mentioned that he does a lot of business with The Bank. I asked if he’d be willing to project manage this operation and he agreed! So with our team and experience and his all-important vendor number, we got the business! I have since spent a lot of time at their offices and met the people that make up Insomniac, and I have to say that if I thought Dan was cool, these guys are even cooler. If we can build the Duke & the Duck up to be anything like Insomniac in 5-10 years I know that we will have succeeded.
Working With Expert Illustrators
A couple of weeks ago we were asked to create a short video for the Kwame Brown campaign, and to do it in less than 2 weeks. Ordinarily our animated videos take 5-7 weeks to complete but we’ve been wanting to get into politics and we decided we didn’t really need sleep all that much, so we took the job. Two weeks of exhausting work later, we now have it done, but it’s only because we hired help.
Up until now, all of our videos have been completely us (Dave & Alex) from the illustration to the animation but in order to meet this very aggressive deadline, we hired a talented illustrator to help us out with the asset development. Ben Jancewicz is a full-time designer for Brightline Interactive, an inspiring company out in Alexandria, VA. Like all creative people, Ben does some freelance work and offered to help us out. The results of this collaboration speak for themselves and I look forward to hiring lots of gifted illustrators to help us on future projects so if you do illustration or know someone who does, please reach out to us.
Here’s the video:
Kwame for Chair from The Duke & the Duck Productions on Vimeo.
Why You (Yes, You) Need a Video on Your Website
Here is the first of what will hopefully be a weekly series of short animations. Our idea was to create something quickly that had a clear message and simple visuals. Animated videos on your website will help tell your story better than almost anything else. If you’re looking for help getting started, please reach out.
An April resolution: Produce more!
As a new company, it’s sometimes difficult to step back from the Herculean task of filling up the sales funnel. In fact, it’s easy to forget that we got into this business to create animations, and that shouldn’t change even if client work is slower than we’d like. With that in mind, we are going to commit to a simple resolution: produce more animations!
Here is the first of what will hopefully be a weekly series of short animations: “Why you (yes, you) need a video on your website”. If you have any suggestions for what else we should do, please leave a comment on the Vimeo page or email us at mail@dukeduck.com.
New Project: U.O.Me. Game
The U O Me game is precisely what you think would happen if you combined our zany brand of animation with the ideas of a couple of economic policy geeks. Coming May 2010 (hopefully!) this will be a fun flash game aimed at educating the millennial generation about the national debt. The producers of U O Me are some friends of mine that I met through Coffee Break DC and initial funding came from Mobilize.org. We’ve been asked to do all the creative assets and animation for the game, as well as an animated trailer to help with fundraising. Find out more on Facebook and Twitter.
While development is still in the earliest of stages, I wanted to share some of the initial concept art here. This scene will serve as the primary choice menu, with more options exposing themselves when the player clicks on the buildings.
Imagine Lite
A while ago we said that we were getting involved with Imagine Alexandria. We said we’d do a video for their website or to be presented at conferences and what not, but the scope of the project has been changing frequently enough to make them think that maybe now is not the time for a video. Instead they asked us to get involved in a spin-off effort, Imagine Lite.
The concept behind Imagine Lite is that the Imagine vision is quite big, and while we are all working hard at getting that to happen, some thought that we should also try to meet smaller milestones along the way. Imagine Lite is meant to be just that, a co-working space with some room for a small gallery and maybe some conference facilities. We produced some video work for a launch party for Imagine Lite last night and hopefully that will be a new space we can get involved with.
I think we’ll still get a chance to create a video for the larger Imagine project, but in the meantime it’s very cool to get involved with something concrete.
Rolling up our sleeves with ReadySetDC
For anyone who doesn’t already know about it, you should go check out ReadySetDC. It’s a great website all about the arts in DC. I met the founder of the site, Justin Young, last week and I think we’re going to have a lot to work together on in the future. In fact, we’re already doing stuff together. Head on over to our portfolio page and check out a couple of logo reels that we developed for last night’s The Art of the Blog_ and The Gallery at District events.
Both events were great in their own ways. ”The Art of the Blog_” featured local bloggers, Prince of Petworth and And Now, Anacostia who talked about what it takes to be a neighborhood blogger and how they see the “art” in blogging. The Gallery at District is a great idea that turns the Adams Morgan club District into an art gallery that kicks off once a month and then continues to show the work throughout the month. This month, the featured artists were Francisco Esteban, Brandon Hill, and Peter Chang of the No Kings Collective. I got the chance to talk at length with Brandon and I have to say, he is one cool dude.
That’s all for now, but be sure to head over to the portfolio and check out all of our great work.