Making Mighteor

[Making Mighteor]

Introducing our New Senior Motion Designer: Hayley Anderson

Whenever we add a new Mighteorite to our internet wunderkind crew, it feels like our universe is expanding a little bit. But this week, our crew is adding a shiny new star. As our animation needs grow and the world of animation continues to excite, it only makes sense that we would double down with top notch talent.

Check out some of the projects Hayley has worked on!

Hayley comes to us from Weber Shandwick, an internationally renowned communications shop where she worked with prestigious clients such as The U.S. Army, The U.S. Department of the Treasury, Honeywell, Cargill, Land O’Lakes, Unilever, IEEE, Opus, Sealed Air and Tork.

For the past 4 years she has worked as an animator, illustrator, shooter, editor and producer on over 600 videos for more than 150 different clients. She is deeply in love with motion design, married to Adobe After Effects.

Although she has worked in all areas of video production, she specializes in animation and motion graphics; focusing mainly on traditional 2D, vector-based, hand-drawn, kinetic typography, stop-motion and parallaxed photography.

But enough from us. How about a little insight from our newest Mighteorite:

Why Animation + Motion?

I started drawing and creating stop-motion films at a very young age. I guess it’s not a surprise that I fell in love with something that combines two of my favorite things!

What makes a great internet video?

Feeling… a great video should make feel something, if it gives you goosebumps then you’re onto something.  

What’s your favorite internet video?

Tim And Eric - The Innernette Segment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkr5ztKiXMM

Why should clients be thinking about animation in 2017?

You can literally create ANYTHING with animation.  I believe most humans are visual learners, animation is an incredible tool when it comes to illustrating complex concepts or showing off a new product or service that doesn’t physically exist in the real world yet.

Favorite thing to binge watch on Netflix?

Loving Black Mirror so far even though it’s starting to give me anxiety.

[Making Mighteor]

Mighteor 2017 Reel

From the beach to the mountains - the city and the studio - 2016 has been an exciting year at Mighteor. We’ve been proud to see our client’s videos earn thousands upon thousands of views - garner attention from Shark Tank to Engadget and of course, earn some new fans too.

It’s easy to look back on any given year and completely lose track of all the hard work that went into your year. But that’s part of what we love about being a video production company - we can actually revisit our year through the visuals we created. And that’s pretty darned satisfying.

Our new 2017 reel highlights our favorite projects from this past year, but it also hints at the exciting new partnership we will be announcing after the New Year.

If you’re thinking about video in 2017, now is the time to reach out. You can always drop us a line at hello@mighteor.com

[Making Mighteor]

Snapchat, Instagram Stories and How Your Brand Can Start Telling Video Stories Right Now

Snapchat has been a popular place for millennials, people who are bemused by face swapping technology and brands that want to be hip. As we watched the platform grow, we’ve also seen how brands have become obsessed with being young and fast and fun with the platform - but even if your brand isn’t like MTV, we can help you understand how to be hip with the face swappers.

The Discover portion of Snapchat has been leveraged by big name brands as a multi-tool to reach their customers for a variety of reasons including:

1. Authenticity - With Snapchat it’s easy to post genuine, behind the scenes interactions to the platform. Users know what they’re seeing is true content not being faked or glorified to make it seem creative and beautiful.
2. Creative Freedom - With the amount of filters and ability to post content in 1 to 10 second increments Snapchat allows users to have creative freedom to publish stories and content in an infinite amount of ways.
3. Length/Duration - Snapchat allows posts to be 10 seconds maximum so even if users only tune in for a short period of time chances are they can watch a significant amount of content and still feel connected.

Snapchat was the only platform that allowed for videos to disappear after 24 hours and have a uniqueness of duration of availability. For example, if Nike wanted to show a behind the scenes look at a line of new shoes coming out they could put that video on Snapchat and their customers would only have 24 hours to view that snap. This expiration timeline makes users engage with their favorite brands on a daily basis to make sure they don’t miss any important information and footage.

Snapchat had the competitive advantage for this reason until Instagram entered the arena. In August Instagram introduced the “Stories” feature in one of their updates that allows users to post short-form video to their profile that expires in 24 hours. If you’re thinking about getting started with these platforms, here’s a helpful video from our Founder and CEO on how to start using your day to day business life in video content: (0:55-7:50)

Video is the future. And Live Video is definitely a huge part of that. How do we know? Well, we’re not alone. Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today said, “Less than a month after the launch of Instagram’s Snapchat-cloning “Stories” feature, the company has revealed that the new option is already being utilized by more than 100 million people every day.” Link

Instagram may not take users away from Snapchat but competing against Snapchat with this form of content shows that video in short-form and video on mobile devices is only going to rise in 2017. Are you going to capitalize? We’d love to team up and help with your social strategy.

[Making Mighteor]

Sunscreenr on Shark Tank!

Every client has different goals for their videos. Number of shares. Amount of money raised. Reduced number of customer service calls. Number of views. Driving traffic to a website. But rarely, do we have a client say: We want to be on Shark Tank.

It’s a big, big goal. And it’s a goal that one of our clients just accomplished!

Keeping the goals and purpose of the video in mind is always something we aim to perfect at Mighteor.

We’ve helped startups and brands raise over $12 million in venture capital. We’ve launched 16 products through crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. One of our major energy clients recently used a Mighteor video to introduce themselves to investors. The results? They just closed a $4.5 million seed round.

Most recently though, our client Sunscreenr pitched on ABC’s Shark Tank and the most fun part for us was obvious: We got to see our footage in action.

Yep, that was Mighteor video footage seen by millions if people on the season 8 episode 6 of Shark Tank on ABC Friday, October 28, 2016. (link to ep on Hulu) Dave Cohen, Sunscreenr CEO and Co-founder pitched his unique product to help protect people from the sun’s harmful rays to the Sharks in hopes of a deal. The Kickstarter video we produced for Sunscreenr was re-purposed and cut to help Dave’s pitch to the sharks. Dave and Sunscreenr closed a deal with Kevin O’Leary for an $800,000 investment for a 33.33% share of the business.

We’re so proud of Dave and Sunscreenr and are so happy to see them succeed. Congratulations Sunscreenr!

[Making Mighteor]

Get Your Vote On!

Tomorrow is Election Day.

Not that you didn’t know that. It seems EVERYWHERE we look, someone is talking about the election.

We could bore you with all the blah, blah about civic duty and the importance of participating in the democratic process. But instead, we want to talk about how traditional political ads kinda stink.

It’s not often that you see a political ad that’s animated, has a little personality and doesn’t really much care about whether or not you have a candidate. That’s where some of our awesome clients step in.

With our partners at Himle Rapp & Co. - we worked on two great policy-based projects and brought a modern eye to both ideas. 

An animated wallpaper with a growing leaf in a campaign video!? We know. We love it too.

Simple, sweet and animated. Can’t get any better.

The Grow Minnesota Food Plan highlights the 400,000 jobs that are impacted by the agriculture and food industry and the importance of supporting candidates who are in favor of supporting those industries. Did you know that Minnesota is the leading state in supplying food to the US and the rest of the world? Learn more about the Grow Minnesota Food Plan here.

We love some rhyming. Poetry. And good, old fashioned storytelling. That was the creative direction behind State of Great, an effort by the Coalition of Minnesota Businesses to put a focus on supporting great companies in the state. Learn more abou State of Great here.

No matter how you vote, I think we’ll all be relieved that the political ads will be over. Unless they’re Mighteor spots - then, keep them coming!