Frontiers Animation

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We run outdoor education programs and summer camps for young people and families. I’m the director of development, so I’m in charge of fundraising. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Frontiers Animation?

They helped us create an end-of-year fundraising appeal video.  

What was the scope of their involvement?

They created a video for us to send to our community to inspire their support. In the video they made, there’s a narrator speaking over a song we provided from the camp. Additionally, there were 10–12 characters in the 90-second video along with an appeal at the end of the video that directed viewers to a place to make a gift to our foundation.

We were new to the process, so their team walked us through their process. Our team initially wanted to have our staff handle the voice acting. However, they warned us that the audio quality may not be up to par, and they were correct. They recommended a professional voice actor, who we then hired to do the acting.

Their team also took photos and videos from our collection to guide the creation of their animations. That made their work authentic to the location and feel of our camps. They also incorporated all of our edits without pushback during the feedback stage.   

What is the team composition?

I worked with Mustafa (Managing Director) and one other team member. Others were likely involved in the project, but we didn’t speak directly with them about their work.

How did you come to work with Frontiers Animation?

My wife has seen many examples of their work in the healthcare industry. Based on what she’d seen of them, she recommended that I look into their services. I reached out to them and didn’t feel the need to look into competitors. Their capabilities and portfolio lined up with what we needed.  

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $6,000 on their work. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from October–November 2020.  

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve been monitoring the open rate of emails containing the video and the number of gifts that come to us via the link. Based on those metrics, we’re happy with their work. 

How did Frontiers Animation perform from a project management standpoint?

They worked hard to meet the deadlines we set. Our communication throughout the project was very positive and strong.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Despite knowing that some of our ideas wouldn’t work, they allowed us to explore those options anyway. They were able to create a project that felt true to our organization without having any prior connection to our work.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would’ve been helpful to know at which points edits were easy to incorporate into the work versus when edits would be more challenging to work into the product. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about the message you want the video to portray and use their creativity as a resource.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a nonprofit based in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, the capital city of the Himalayan state. We work with children with developmental disabilities. I lead the research and community follow-up programs at the foundation.

What challenge were you trying to address with Frontiers Animation?

We won a grant to create an animated movie that encapsulates the work done by our nonprofit during the lockdown. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to send out a message to the families of children with disabilities. We knew for a fact that they’d had to struggle quite a bit during the lockdown, being completely disconnected from services, care providers, and so much more.

The whole premise of the movie was that mothers were doing all the heavy lifting with their kids. The request was to find some way to convince the whole family to come together during these tough times, so they could all pull together and have an impact on the child’s development.

Frontiers Animation connected immediately to the work we did, and they did a lot of research to understand the premise of the project. With all this in mind, they created a two-minute animated video for us.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Mustafa (CEO) and Arifa (Project Manager).

How did you come to work with Frontiers Animation?

Mustafa and I are part of the same university fellowship. I’d seen some of the animations Frontiers Animation had done, and I really liked the attention to detail and the care they took to ground the movies in their respective contexts. I approached Mustafa about our movie, and he immediately agreed.

How much have you invested with them?

They received £3,000 (approximately $3,800 USD) from the grant institute.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Frontiers in April 2020. The idea was conceptualized in April, we got the grant letter in May, we started working on the movie itself in June, and it was finished and launched in August 2020. 

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We shared the video with other disability organizations, both in our province and across India. They, in turn, shared it with the parents they were working with, and the response has been phenomenal. Parents really understood the message, and they were inspired on what to do further.  

Part of our work is to integrate children with disabilities into mainstream schools, and we got very good feedback from those schools on the video. 

We also created a bilingual Google form, in English and Hindi, and shared it with all the parents, asking them questions about the film. They gave us a lot of feedback, including that the film is an illustration of a family facing difficult times during the pandemic, and that it helped build a positive attitude.

People told us that it showed them how to take care of one another during this difficult time and engage children in different ways with all family members. Overall, the video was very much appreciated.

We also tracked our progress on social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. We got 456 impressions on Facebook, and the average reach was 409. We had 1,250 impressions on Twitter and 94 on LinkedIn, and we got 736 views and 129 likes on YouTube.

All of this was within one month, and it’s not going to end here. We want to use this movie for a long time to come. The video beautifully encapsulates the work we’ve done and it’ll have a long-term impact.  

How did Frontiers Animation perform from a project management standpoint?

Both our parties knew that this was a time-bound project. We had a short period to deliver the movie, but Frontiers Animation was very prompt and stuck to what they told us. We mutually decided on deadlines for each step of delivering the movie.

There was one occasion where our foundation delayed the response a bit, but that was because we had various issues and had to work across different time zones. There was never a delay or lag from Frontiers Animation’s side. They were prompt with timelines and everything else.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Frontiers was very empathetic toward our cause. There was an instance where we had to change the timelines, and they embraced the change naturally. It may have cost them extra, but they didn’t project the cost on us. They were very accommodating, flexible, adapting, and understanding. They were nice throughout.

Everyone at our foundation agrees that it was a very pleasant experience interacting with their team. All along, they had a sensitive approach to the project. We were talking about a vulnerable population—not just people with disabilities but young children with disabilities—and Frontiers Animation was very sweet in their approach to the project while remaining professional.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Everything went as per plan and they’re on top of their game. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients have to be very clear about what the premise of the movie has to be. It was up to our foundation to give them the idea and storyline. Frontiers Animation helped build on it, but the main concept had to come from us. There had to be clarity in our minds about the message we wanted to convey. With that in place, their team can take an idea forward and create an excellent animation.

Please describe your company and your position there.

An international development services firm focused on education, behavior change, peacebuilding and socioeconomic development . I direct our digital development team.

For what projects/services did your company hire Frontiers Animation?

Frontiers has supported several projects for us from animation production for elearning content, marketing to in this particular case animating a game concept and producing a trailer and demo game.

What were your goals for this project?

To via beautiful and relatable character development, storyline and animation, engage children in language learning and improve their psycho-social well-being. The trailer video was to serve as our pitch to donors/clients.

How did you select Frontiers Animation?

Frontiers presented to us their capabilities, and while we connected with other groups, it was evident that Frontiers could be a long term partner. Frontiers have a successful portfolio of work for education and behavior change, and we were impressed by the staff we interacted with.

Describe the video(s) and the process in detail.

We had a couple design sessions with relevant subject matter experts and the energy that Frontiers brought to the sessions was infectious. They then came back with potential characters, animations, storyboards, and in record time we had an animated video trailer.

What was your vendors' project management or feedback process?

Frontiers' account manager was tremendous in staying in touch and eliciting feedback. In several projects, we have had several revisions and Frontiers had been amenable.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The video trailer successfully earned us funding from a client, and with Frontiers we further developed the concept and produced an interactive demo.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had a close working relationship with Frontiers and felt as though we were one team in one organization.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their work product is amazing. The graphics and animation are stunning. Their energy, immersion and spiraling with ideas is truly creative. Lastly, their price in unbeatable for the quality.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Graphics and video production is their strength, so am glad to see them double down on that.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for Stanford University in a health promotion role.

For what projects/services did your company hire Frontiers Animation?

As universities plan to bring students back to campus in the safest ways possible, we needed to find ways to communicate the most important public health practices that we would be asking students to follow upon their return.

We needed to reorient students to what life would look like on campus for the forseeable future and to do so in a way that was easily digestible and demonstrated empathy.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goals were to encourage positive health behaviors that are proven measures to reduce spread of covid-19. We anticipated that this would be a critical piece in training students on these health guidelines so that everyone returning to campus had the same baseline knowledge and knew what to expect.

How did you select Frontiers Animation?

We found Frontiers Animation after seeing a video they made for Stanford Medicine.

We considered working with one other group but ultimately decided to work with Frontiers Animation for several reasons; they have a vast team that were able to turn around our project on a very short timeline, they demonstrated a deep commitment to representing our campus culture and doing research to meet our needs, and they were extremely responsive and passionate about the project.

Describe the video(s) and the process in detail.

The Frontiers Animation team was able to take our ideas and run with them. We presented a preliminary script and from there they presented mock ups every step of the way. They created storyboards, narrator options, animated stills, etc.

They chose a chibi art style which worked very well for our student population and they were extremely mindful of representing our diverse community within the video.

They also did a tremendous amount of research and created characters with subtle nods to cultural aspects of stanford that were incredibly creative and showed a level of commitment to the project that we were extremely impressed with.

What was your vendors' project management or feedback process?

They garnered feedback every step of the way and were able to accommodate changes throughout the process which was hugely helpful as we continued to receive changing guidelines from the state, county, and university.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have received excellent feedback on the video. It was the most clicked link in a resource email sent to students. It has been live for 48 hours and has already received thousands of views.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Using fram.io was very helpful. It made it so easy to comment on different parts of the video through the editing process. Everything worked very efficiently and Mustafa and his team were highly responsive throughout; even during off hours which was incredible.

They managed working with us from a different time zone and on an incredibly tight timeline.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their work speaks for itself and is beautiful and well thought out, but what makes this company stand out is their passion for the work.

They were just as excited to create this project as we were and brought a level of energy and creativity that made the entire project feel fun. They also are extremely customer friendly and accommodating.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I cannot think of anything I would change about my experience working with Frontiers Animation. We had high expectations and they continually exceeded them every step of the way.