THE GLOBE AND MAIL – REPORT ON BUSINESS INTERVIEW

Katherine Scarrow, The Globe and Mail’s business journalist, recently visited our Go2 Productions Vancouver studio to interview our President & Creative Director Adrian Scott, to ask a few questions about how he has taking the innovative animation company and it’s award winning team of creatives into the global spotlight.

Watch the full interview by clicking here

BREAKING NEWS 
“The Rolling Stones” Announce World Tour! Easter Weekend Teaser Projections In L.A. Wednesday April 3rd 2013 – Official World Tour Announced. 

Go2 Productions were approached at the 11th hour last Wednesday to make something very special happen. The agency handling The Rolling Stones tour promotions approached us to create a buzz in and around L.A. and Hollywood.

After discussing the scope of what they wanted to achieve on Saturday night, we suggested a series of guerrilla style projections would be best. We discussed keeping everything very simple, showing only the song names of the world famous band, followed by the iconic mouth and tongue that everyone recognizes as the bands most famous logo. Our in house animation team set to work building the wall opening up with the giant 3D song names pushing forward and hovering in front [...]]]>

BREAKING NEWS 
“The Rolling Stones” Announce World Tour!
Easter Weekend Teaser Projections In L.A.
Wednesday April 3rd 2013 – Official World Tour Announced. 

Go2 Productions were approached at the 11th hour last Wednesday to make something very special happen. The agency handling The Rolling Stones tour promotions approached us to create a buzz in and around L.A. and Hollywood.

After discussing the scope of what they wanted to achieve on Saturday night, we suggested a series of guerrilla style projections would be best. We discussed keeping everything very simple, showing only the song names of the world famous band, followed by the iconic mouth and tongue that everyone recognizes as the bands most famous logo.
Our in house animation team set to work building the wall opening up with the giant 3D song names pushing forward and hovering in front of the building. With Go2′s connections in and around New York and L.A. for projection capabilities, we soon had the project planned, animated and ready to go by Friday afternoon.

The night of March 31st saw multiple sites hit by the massive projections all over L.A. during the course of the evening, ending up at sites along Hollywood Blvd later that evening, just in time to hit the club scenes for the biggest eyeball count.

Contact Go2 for more information on Guerrilla Projections and Projection Mapping

View More Projection Mapping Projects

It’s official! Floral designers everywhere are loving Florista, our floral design video tutorial apps. More than 50 beautiful step by step designs with professional guidance by Maureen Sullivan, renowned west coast floral designer.

5 Star reviews are coming in for Florista App from satisfied customers!

Awesome – ★★★★☆ by Patriciafisha Such a great learning tool, love it!

Anyone who loves flowers will love this app!! – ★★★★★ by JaniceLovesFlowers This app is absolutely fabulous! …step by step instructions, from how to select flowers, to developing the techniques required to making beautiful arrangements. The quality of the video is superb and the multiple angle feature allows you to see everything clearly. Maureen, the floral designer shares designs that you only see in very high end flower shops. I can’t believe how many gorgeous arrangement, ends of different styles are [...]]]>

It’s official! Floral designers everywhere are loving Florista, our floral design video tutorial apps. More than 50 beautiful step by step designs with professional guidance by Maureen Sullivan, renowned west coast floral designer.

5 Star reviews are coming in for Florista App from satisfied customers!

Awesome – ★★★★☆
by Patriciafisha
Such a great learning tool, love it!

Anyone who loves flowers will love this app!! – ★★★★★
by JaniceLovesFlowers
This app is absolutely fabulous! …step by step instructions, from how to select flowers, to developing the techniques required to making beautiful arrangements. The quality of the video is superb and the multiple angle feature allows you to see everything clearly. Maureen, the floral designer shares designs that you only see in very high end flower shops. I can’t believe how many gorgeous arrangement, ends of different styles are shown in this volume alone. I will definitely purchase the upcoming volumes. Love it!!!

Fantastic App – ★★★★★
by Dolce Ciani
Thank you for such a great app! Instructions to the point, I just can’t wait for the rest, I will purchase them all!

Great Value – ★★★★☆
by Lisa Kenning
You could search floristry online all day and have great difficulty finding anything with such excellent production values, as well as providing all the necessary skills and techniques the designs are contemporary and very attractive.

Want to learn floral design?
Download your copy of Florista now!

Now into it’s 5th volume !

Happy Valentines Day !

Florista App is beautifully crafted, designed and produced in conjunction with renowned floral designer, Maureen Sullivan, owner of Thomas Hobbs Florist in Vancouver, BC and instructor at the Maureen Sullivan Floral Design School. Florista is now in it’s 5th volume, “All About Roses”, bringing the total to over 50+ high quality tutorial videos – compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.

The feedback we are receiving from users has been very positive and encouraging, confirming how many people there are out there that want to learn floral design both professionally and as a hobby.

Each volume of florista features 10 or more beautiful floral arrangements in full HD.  The tutorials are designed to teach in progressive stages, all professionally shot from multiple angles. Each camera view is accessible [...]]]>

Happy Valentines Day !

Florista App is beautifully crafted, designed and produced in conjunction with renowned floral designer, Maureen Sullivan, owner of Thomas Hobbs Florist in Vancouver, BC and instructor at the Maureen Sullivan Floral Design School. Florista is now in it’s 5th volume, “All About Roses”, bringing the total to over 50+ high quality tutorial videos – compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.

The feedback we are receiving from users has been very positive and encouraging, confirming how many people there are out there that want to learn floral design both professionally and as a hobby.

Florista Vol.5

Each volume of florista features 10 or more beautiful floral arrangements in full HD.  The tutorials are designed to teach in progressive stages, all professionally shot from multiple angles. Each camera view is accessible using propitiatory SwipeCam™ technology. By simply swiping your finger across the screen at any point in the video, you instantly change the camera view to see front, detailed or over head video streams, ensuring you never miss a single detail.

Florista Video Quality

Florista Video Quality

Florista Video Quality

Florista Video Quality

Evey tutorial video has written details to accompany the video, with a brief description and tips about the arrangement you are about to learn, a complete list of tools required and the names of the flowers you will need.

Florista Tutorial Info

Maureen Sullivan is a pure joy to watch and personally guides you through all of the necessary steps required for you to make stunning arrangements in no time.

Florista Video Quality

Want to learn how to make amazing arrangements… beautiful bouquets… colorful center pieces… for Valentines Day, Weddings Christmas or any other occasion? There’s an App for that.  If you love roses, this app is for you. You will learn everything from creating rose bouquets to centre pieces including the classic one dozen in a vase.  A variety of styles are covered here from traditional to contemporary. Dazzle everyone at your next event with our unique floating rose mound or with a gorgeous contemporary pave. It’s all about roses!

Florista : Volume 5
Working With Roses.
10 Videos.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE

DOWNLOAD FLORISTA NOW IN THE APP STORE

Click on the image to enlarge.

Our Video Production Process Explained. When you hire Go2 Productions to produce a corporate video, web video or tv commercial, one of the first things you will have explained to you is our video production process. The steps may vary slightly, depending on whether we use live action, motion graphics, 3D animation or green screen to produce your video, but in essence the video production process is the same whichever technique we end up using. For corporate messages and company overview videos we recommend a target length of 90 seconds.  The idea is to only say what is necessary and get to the point FAST. Today’s world [...]]]>

Click on the image to enlarge.

Our Video Production Process Explained.
When you hire Go2 Productions to produce a corporate video, web video or tv commercial, one of the first things you will have explained to you is our video production process. The steps may vary slightly, depending on whether we use live action, motion graphics, 3D animation or green screen to produce your video, but in essence the video production process is the same whichever technique we end up using.
For corporate messages and company overview videos we recommend a target length of 90 seconds.  The idea is to only say what is necessary and get to the point FAST. Today’s world is fast moving and mobile. Decisions are made fast, so the quicker you can successfully deliver your message, the better.
An animated 30 second tv commercial or successful 90 second corporate video production actually takes a lot more work than most people think. It’s the result of several weeks work for our team. Typically, each 30-90 second project takes us between 3 to 6 weeks to complete. From the initial start up meeting with our creative team and the client, through to completion and delivery of the final project. Below are the many stages we go through at Go2, ensuring we always produce great video content for you.

Discovery Discussion & Ideas.
Through a series of meetings either in person or by phone, we will listen and discuss your needs, wants and goals to establish what it is you are trying to say and to who. Through this discovery stage we will do a lot of listening. It is only by listening to you that we are going to understand exactly what you want to achieve. Once we have a good idea of what you are looking to do, we will then start to create a concept that we believe will embody everything you need and want to achieve your goal.

Scripting & Content Development.
A very important part of the process. Your message is fleshed out during this stage and crafted to work perfectly for you. It may be selling a product, promoting your services, telling your story or educating your audience. Whatever it is designed to do, it will be driving the animation and live action we see on screen. This is the reason it needs to be approved and locked before moving on to later stages. Changes to the script after animation starts can cause delays in the process as we need to develop new voice over and new scenes.
A good script is the backbone of every great video and we work with some of the most experienced writers available to ensure your message is entertaining and engaging.
As we come closer to obtaining sign off on the scripting, we will start to fill in the visual description to go with the script. The visual description is the Creative Directors visual interpretation of the script, describing what is happening on screen at each point.

Music Selection & Voice Over.
We want to ensure your company has a voice, not just any voice, but the right voice. We audition many voice artists per project to make sure we have found the right voice for you. Sure we have our favourites and indeed we have a long list of talented voice over artists that we keep busy on a regular basis, but we always source new possibilities too. We narrow down the submissions and present you with our recommendations in a short list so you can have the final say. All the ones we present to you, we believe will work well. At the same time we will already be thinking of music to accompany the voice, something that resonates well with your image as well as with the voice over.

Storyboards, Style Frames & Animatics.
Many projects we do require storyboarding, style frames and animatics, although some projects only require style frames and animatics.
Typically each frame of a storyboard relates to a line or two of the script. A storyboard is often hand drawn but may also be digitally created.
A style frame is a series of near final quality images that visually represents a particular point in the video, to illustrate style and mood as close to the final quality as possible.
An animatic is a rough animation that can be made up of the approved audio track along with sketched or rough images, hardware renderings or even just animated text to explain what will appear at that point. The point of the animatic is to show flow and timing of each scene and does not represent the look or quality of the final video.
Each of these elements combined at this point should give you a very good understanding of what the project will look and sound like when completed.

Filming & Photography.
This stage is relevant for live action, location and green screen shoots. We obtain all principle photography required to completed any video editing for the project. Everything we shoot is HD 1920x1080p and sometimes UltraHD (RED Scarlet 5120 x 2700p) for visual effects and green screen shoots. We use the very best in equipment and talent to ensure your footage is of the very best quality.

Editing, Motion Graphics & Animation.
This is where all the magic happens. It is also the most time consuming part. By this point our whole team is clear on the concept and understands what is needed to get the project done. Contrary to what some people believe, we do not have a button that just “makes stuff happen”. Everything has to be very carefully key framed and animated and to do it well takes experience and talent. Our motion graphic artists and 3D animators are both experienced and talented.
Motion Graphics and 3D Animation has become an essential ingredient in today’s media, CG characters and product, animated typography and complex 3d dynamics and visual effects add a whole new level of possibilities to your communication creation. Our design team know what’s hot and what’s not and they’ll bring a level of creativity and solid brand awareness to your project that you will be extremely proud of.
We spend countless hours bringing everything to life, using the very latest in editing and animation software. Text and graphic elements are built and animated to work seamlessly with the audio track along with 3D environments, scenes and objects to ensure your message is engaging and entertaining but most of all – understandable. We may go through a couple of iterations at this point to tweak elements and colour to make sure everything is as slick as possible.

Audio Mastering & Additional Sound Effects.
At this point we go over the audio to ensure everything is mastered and equalized to sound awesome. As animation progresses, we also start to add in additional sound effects to emphasize various objects and actions in the video/animation, this increases the level of engagement with the audience.

Final Colouring.
The last thing we do is colour grading. This ensures every shot and scene is saturated to perfection, every animated line, shape or object is matching through out the video, every hue, shadow and highlight is perfectly spectacular. We then crush the blacks a little to really make everything really pop.

Tweaks and Changes.
We always allow for a couple of small tweaks and revisions. There are so many elements created during this whole process, that no matter how much we plan something out, until you actually see the final version, it’s inevitable you will want to tweak something. Hopefully by this stage, we have planned enough upfront that it is only a minor detail that needs adjusting.
Changing voice over at this point can be very problematic as a whole scene may need to change, which could end up requiring many more hours to fix.

Final Delivery.
With everything approved, we then set up the final files for full resolution rendering.
This can take anywhere from an hour or two, to several days to complete and depends heavily on the complexity of the scenes we have built for you. Fortunately we have several very fast machines we use for final rendering all hooked up to our network. so everything is kept to an absolute minimum. Motion graphics and video productions usually only take a few hours at the most to render and compress for delivery.

Contact Go2 Productions to find out how we can help you with your next corporate video production, tv commercial or product demonstration.

It is our belief that every business and organization can benefit from having a professionally produced video presence online – more so today than ever before. People can learn more about you and your organization by watching a short 90 second video rather than spending an hour or more clicking through page after page of SEO rich text entries. The future of the internet IS video, there is no doubt. The more mobile our access to the internet becomes, the more demand there is going to be for video. Click and watch some of the examples below, to see how powerful this medium really is and contact us today for a FREE consultation & estimate and see how we can help your organization both educate it’s audience and achieve the awareness it deserves through the power of online video using Motion Graphics.

In this [...]]]>

It is our belief that every business and organization can benefit from having a professionally produced video presence online – more so today than ever before. People can learn more about you and your organization by watching a short 90 second video rather than spending an hour or more clicking through page after page of SEO rich text entries. The future of the internet IS video, there is no doubt. The more mobile our access to the internet becomes, the more demand there is going to be for video. Click and watch some of the examples below, to see how powerful this medium really is and contact us today for a FREE consultation & estimate and see how we can help your organization both educate it’s audience and achieve the awareness it deserves through the power of online video using Motion Graphics.

In this months edition, we focus on one of the most popular forms of video available today – Motion Graphics.
Contrary to belief, motion graphics production today is very cost effective, easy to update and can be quick to produce. Motion graphics can also work for many different applications. At Go2, we have at least 4 or 5 motion graphics projects on the go at any one time. We love producing motion graphics videos and because there is so much ‘motion’, they are extremely successful at keeping peoples attention through to the very end. It is for these very reasons that many companies have corporate web videos produced using this technique.

Click on the examples below to watch some of our recent ‘motion graphics’ projects… enjoy!

#1 Corporate / Explainer Videos.

Corporate motion graphics can communicate a large amount of information to a viewer, but they also tell a story about the business. Because motion graphics engage the viewers senses more actively than a simple talking head, it keeps the viewer watching through to the end, ensuring the messaging about the personality of a company or organization is successfully delivered.

#2 TV Commercials.

Motion graphics are great for brand awareness, which is why so many corporations use them in tv commercials. Well designed graphic symbols and easy to read key words have all become very common place in todays commercial breaks. Using an easy-on-the-eye motion graphic approach, has been very successful for several companies like Lending Tree for example.

#3 Product Awareness.

We used a hand drawn form of motion graphics for this spot for an iphone app called Boss Yourself. Using a digital Wacom tablet, our artists drew our every item you see in this commercial and used After Effects to give it life. Fun and energetic motion, combined with youthful scripting gave the whole spot a playfulness the client wanted to target teens with a product awareness message, for the app that encourages teens to become entrepreneurs.

#4 Service Promotion.

In this example we see another form of hand drawn motion graphics called “video scribing“. Another name that has become popular for this technique is “whiteboard animation“. The thing that makes this technique so succesful, is the viewer wants to keep watching to see what the artists hand finally draws. Once the image is completed we go in and animate the drawing further, keeping the attention of the viewer all the way through to the end, again ensuring successful delivery of the message.

#5 Motivational Speaker Support.

If you have motivation event coming up, you may want to consider showing a motion graphics intro like this one. Designed to get an audience pumped up about a motivational seminar, right before the speaker enters the stage. Relevant facts were shown to the audience in a fast paced motion graphics piece that did a fantastic job at getting the audience engaged, focused and prepared for the main speaker of the night.

#6 TV Show Titles.

Probably one of the most known uses for motion graphics is of course tv show opening titles. These are very branded and very high energy, again designed to get an audience in the mood for the show that is about to start. We produced these titles for the very successful long running tv show – Business Television (BTV). In fact we did the entire motion graphics package for the in show graphics and even created the virtual studio that host Taylor Thoen presents from each episode.

We are starting a new series of expert advice blog entries that are designed to help you get the most out of your corporate video productions and web videos, ensuring a greater ROI for you and your organization.  This entry is written by Shannon Richardson, Account Manager at 6S Marketing Inc.

5 SIMPLE SEO TIPS TO GET YOUR VIDEO INTO GOOGLE. If you haven’t heard much about search engine optimization for video, you’re bound to become familiar with it soon. Public consumption of media is changing: with YouTube the #2 search engine on the planet, businesses are realizing that videos provide immense advertising opportunities. The demand for video ads is high, but competition is low—making digital video channels a new, fresh platform for product promotion. To improve the visibility of your video, we’ve compiled a [...]]]>

We are starting a new series of expert advice blog entries that are designed to help you get the most out of your corporate video productions and web videos, ensuring a greater ROI for you and your organization.  This entry is written by Shannon Richardson, Account Manager at 6S Marketing Inc.

5 SIMPLE SEO TIPS TO GET YOUR VIDEO INTO GOOGLE.
If you haven’t heard much about search engine optimization for video, you’re bound to become familiar with it soon. Public consumption of media is changing: with YouTube the #2 search engine on the planet, businesses are realizing that videos provide immense advertising opportunities. The demand for video ads is high, but competition is low—making digital video channels a new, fresh platform for product promotion. To improve the visibility of your video, we’ve compiled a few key strategies.
1. First of all, the length of the video should be considered. Shorter videos are generally more popular; in our rapid-paced world, few people have time to watch an hour-long promotional spot.  Keep it short —but not too short—and informative.
2. Choose to upload your video on an accessible server. You can host a video on your own server, but by uploading to YouTube, your video gets automatically entered into their search engine, making it easier for viewers to find.
3. Remember, the title is what most people will search for. Find a way to incorporate your brand name into the title, as well as vital keywords. Tools like Google Adwords can provide recommended related search terms, estimated search volume, and other helpful information.
4. Likewise, the video description should also contain keywords. The video description is important: it helps search engines understand your video quickly, as it’s easier to process text rather than intensive video format.  If there’s an external link that should be included with your video, place the link in the video description.
5. Tags can be added to your video to further increase search potential. These tags should be keywords optimized for your target audience—place the most critical keywords at the beginning of your tag sequence.
If you utilize these tips, your target demographic will have a better chance of finding and accessing your video. Optimization doesn’t stop there—after you’ve uploaded, tools like YouTube analytics can provide information concerning your audience demographics, playback locations, engagement statistics (views, likes, shares, etc.) and traffic sources. You can even receive direct consumer feedback in the form of online comments. As you can see, improving your video’s search potential is a valuable means of increasing your company’s visibility overall.