BMW
(Japan)
Online Customer Journey
About the Project
Last year Sejal Studios was asked to create a customized animated product explainer video for BMW Japan. The challenge was to show BMW Japan’s online customer journey. The goal was to let the viewer know how convenient and easy it is to buy a BMW through their website by following four simple steps.
Once the brief came in from BMW, Sejal Studios took the challenge of overlooking the entire animation production. After few rounds of discussion over concept we created a script which was simple & effective in communicating the online customer journey and as per the script, we created storyboards to visually understand the flow & transition of the story. At each step we received few feedbacks from BMW which we implemented & got approved.
We created various visual styles in accordance to BMW Marketing needs and went forward with character & background asset creation, rigging. We animated using an English voice over and once the final version was approved, the video was remastered incorporating Japanese VO & subtitles.
We created various visual styles in accordance to BMW Marketing needs and went forward with character & background asset creation, rigging. We animated using an English voice over and once the final version was approved, the video was remastered incorporating Japanese VO & subtitles.
Below is the final version with breakdown of the entire video making process.
Story Boards
The brainchild of the entire video! The complete storyboard was created using industry standard Adobe Photoshop. With the help of storyboards, the flow of the story was clearly understood and so it under went through a couple of changes which helped us a lot later, at the animation stage.
Style Frames
The bold, colourful and minimalistic style frame which were created by keeping BMW Marketing and brand guidelines in mind, was approved.
How we started vs How we ended
Initial Design & Approved Design Style
Initial Design & Approved Design Style
Character & Background Assets Design
Keeping BMW Japan's marketing needs & brand guidelines in mind we spent good amount of time for researching and developing designs and with various feedback iterations this design style for characters & background assets was approved. Also, hey, did we mention that all the cars illustrated are inspired from actual BMW models!
The playful characters were created as per BMW guidelines. We designed it as per Japanese geographic & demographic factors to give the target audience a sense of closeness and connection.
Illustration & Visual Boards
Stills from the Visual Boards that are worth taking a second look!
With Adobe Illustrator being our wingman, We created these amazing visuals from the approved storyboards.
Our design head was on cloud nine when the final designs were approved.
Rigging & Animation Breakdowns
All the characters were handcrafted with love and stuffed in dozens of layers to give advance rigging controls in After Effects addon - Duik bassel.
As for the character animation style, we opted for semi-realistic approach, so we shot the whole storyboards into live action video for character animation reference & planned the animations with pose-to-pose principle by creating blocking & breakdowns and polishing at final stage.
Take a look at our Animation Snippets.
Take a look at our Animation Snippets.
Thank You For Your Time.
