I mocked up this concept to demonstrate the possibility of translating a web article into an animated video. I received an excellent and informative article by Randy Carter about 10 types of AI. The only problem was that it was a straight article. How could I make it more emotionally engaging? I wrote a script to deal with the first 3 types of AI. I injected a few jokes and streamlined a few things. I thought it might persuade the team that this type of approach would yield results.

But it's hard to persuade skeptical people with only a script. It can leave too much to the imagination. So I decided to work up a sample animated video. I designed the characters, asked a friend to record with me over zoom, mixed the sound in Adobe Audition, and put together a rough-cut in Adobe Character Animator. This all happened in 3 days (most of that was spent watching Youtube tutorials on Adobe Character Animator).

One benefit of animating the characters is that you can design compatibility. One character is built on angles with curved accents, the other is built on curves with angular accents. They inhabit the same universe but from complimentary sides.

A second benefit of animating the video is that you don't have to get actors together in the same space. As I said, the audio track was recorded on a Zoom call. I did the voice for Block Wellington and Nathan Bennett did the voice for Sam Anderson.

A third benefit is that you can edit a sound recording easily so that the conversation feels precise. This frees you from the burden of multiple takes or an extemporaneous approach that can feel sloppy. 

In the end, although the content marketing team enjoyed this approach, the team structures made it hard to implement, and it stayed a slap-dash experiment. Still, under the right conditions, I think this experiment proves that it's possible to make people smile while learning. It also shows a work-around to the production obstacles COVID presents. Furthermore, it shows one can translate well-written articles into a video format and expand the reach of a content marketing operation.