Keeping Content Flexible with Dynamic VFX

If you've ever worked in pharma marketing, you're likely familiar with how important it is that copy and content is up-to-date and accurate. Everything down to the alt text of images is reviewed, checked, reviewed again, and so on.

Changes after regulatory review are extremely common so when Avalere set out to produce this 30-minute promotional explainer program for their client, Argenx, they needed the content to be as flexible as possible should anything need to be updated once filming was complete.

The concept was built around a genuine patient spokesperson (not an actor) sharing her story and inviting the audience to follow along as she shares info and discusses her experiences with other characters that played a part in her own journey.

The creative direction for the production was a fourth-wall-breaking approach to a Mr. Rogers-style soundstage where the host presents to the audience and stagehands periodically come and go to transition the sets and provide additional info with cards, dry erase boards, and other mobile set pieces.

In order to maintain full flexibility, all of the cards and boards were totally blank. Most didn't even have tracking markers. The content was to be added in post, and that's just what we did.

Once the initial edit was complete and the right takes had been chosen, I began creating the vfx/compositing workflow with Director (and friend), Dan Pedersen. We found the right lens distortion values and I began setting up the massive After Effects file that would be my home for the next few months.

I flattened the plates, tracked all the cards and other moving elements, composited the new graphics into the scenes, redistorted the plates, and generally maintained the project structure and postproduction pipeline from there, including keeping it all neat and tidy for other collaborators like the 3D animator and colorist.

It was definitely the most comprehensive, granular vfx work that I've collaborated on to date… but I kind of loved every minute of it because it challenged me in ways that I had yet to experience.