New York State Office of General Services
Design & Construction Visitor Orientation Guide
Our Back Story
The Digital & Media Services Center is not your typical state entity. Overall, we provide multimedia services to various state agencies throughout New York State and creative solutions to public and internal communication needs. Due to our expansive knowledge and skillsets, OGS Design & Construction Group (D&C) commissioned our team to create a training video to educate and inform OGS construction site visitors of on-site hazards and safety protocols. The target audience included various contractors, vendors, and other state and private officials with different levels of training and varying reasons for their respective visits.
Our team started pre-preproduction a few months before the pandemic began, with a target shoot date at the end of March 2020. Our original concept included a choreographed walkthrough of an OGS worksite with an actress who interacts with her surroundings and provides important safety information along the way. As COVID numbers continued to soar in New York State and our team was sent home to work remotely, it became clear that the only way this project could forge ahead would be by pivoting and changing the creative. We scrapped months of planning, switched the concept from live-action to full animation, re-wrote the script, and got down to work.
After countless Zoom meetings, Team chats, emails, and hours animating in Adobe After Effects, designing in Adobe Illustrator, and editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, our team proudly completed the D&C Visitor Orientation Guide. It was a team effort by combining our distinctly different personalities and styles and allowing each of our creative voices to shine through and complement each other. It truly became a labor of love! In the end, we delivered a final product that was both creative and innovative without sacrificing the timeline, budget, or training content.
How it impacted your organization?
Initially, safety information was administered to visitors in person by Director's Representatives as they arrived at the worksites. This delivery method resulted in the training becoming cumbersome, time-consuming, rudimentary, and, at times, inconsistent. It also proved challenging for OGS Safety Managers to manage and update the distributed information as needed.
The D&C Visitor Orientation Guide helps streamline distribution by allowing visitors to view the video before arriving on the worksite, ensuring their visit is more time-efficient and within COVID protocols. It alleviates Director's Representatives from the burden of administering the information in person and assures all visitors across New York State receive consistent training. OGS Safety Managers can also monitor and easily update the safety content when needed.
Creatively, this project continually evolved and changed due to various outside factors that were out of our control. At each turn, we pushed ourselves to think outside the box to come up with realistic and feasible creative solutions. It forced us out of our comfort zone and allowed us to explore and attempt new techniques. For example, our “draw-on” technique mixes the Echo FX, Motion Sketch, and Track Mattes to create that “illusion of hand drawing.” This project also allowed us to grow as professionals in the production industry by providing us a platform to further develop our skillsets in Adobe.
Additionally, the D&C team is proud to share the Visitor Orientation Guide with its visitors because it provides a great first impression and sets itself apart from traditional training videos. It also helps the D&C team keep up with industry standards and stay relevant. Most importantly, the Visitor Orientation Guide equips visitors with the necessary information to keep themselves and others safe while on the worksite.
How the project created an amazing experience for your constituents?
The D&C Visitor Orientation Guide sets itself apart from traditional training videos by presenting the information in a fun, innovative way that provides an enjoyable viewing experience. Early in the creative process, we recognized how entertainment and engagement help promote both learning and retention. Although we had to share an abundance of important facts with the audience, we took it upon ourselves to find fun and entertaining ways to present the information. Moments of humor are tastefully peppered throughout the video to help break up the seriousness of the subject matter and maintain interest. These bits of humor help encourage viewers to remember the content. Also, each scene has its own fresh approach, so the material never comes off as stale and helps keep people engaged.
Visually, the animations keep viewers engaged by presenting a consistent look/style that is quirky, original, and continually moving to help foster intrigue. The visuals demonstrate and support the information presented in the voiceover to assist with visual learning.
Audibly, the sound design further helps to sustain the viewer's attention and adds to the overall fun of the video. The voiceover also explains all the safety information both clearly and concisely to support audible learning.
How it met your organization’s objectives?
Our objectives were to create a training video that exposes worksite dangers without fearmongering, expresses the importance of following D&C procedures, is different than a traditional training video, and is understandable by all skill levels. To achieve these goals, we created a one-of-a-kind animated world unlike any other video out there. Its distinct look/style was designed specifically for this project and carried throughout its duration. The animations present and demonstrate the on-site hazards and safety protocols while sprinkling in humor to avoid finger-wagging and spreading fear. This animated world also makes the content relevant to all visitors across New York State, from New York City to Buffalo, and provides the material in a format enjoyable to all viewers.
