Client: Fortress
Role: Writer, Director, Editor
Shot on: Sony FX3
Mentorship: Aubin Dyer (creative direction), Tiffany Mullins (content strategy)
The Story:
At the start of my internship, Fortress tasked me with producing a 30 second sizzle reel showcasing both their work and their team. As such, what you see below was originally designed with the intention of being the company’s forthcoming website’s homepage, and was composed without audio. However, upon seeing it, the CEO and head of digital marketing decided to pivot its usage to paid social promotion.
Process:
The process began with a storyboard I made in Canva. It was inspired by some vfx work I had done before, some trends I had seen, and other agencies’ sizzle reels. I came up with the title “We Are Fortress” because that truly encapsulated the basis upon which Fortress functioned: it was a tight-knit team that shared responsibility and in doing so, ensured high-quality deliverables for its clients.
The Opening:
I had this crazy idea for a match-cut track-back through-screen effect to convey that idea that everyone is working together to deliver to the client. We used a dolly to get the shots, and then I lined them all up in Premiere, cutting where I thought there were highlights. After that, I switched to After Effects to to achieve everything you see on the right here. I imported a 3D asset of the Fortress Logo from Blender, and then got to work making the effect as realistic as possible, using macOS-style pop-up animations and various fx to give the windows depth. More subtly, I blurred added a pixel overlay and, masked lighting and gradual blur to the in-camera footage to enhance realism.
The Middle:
This was where I wanted to showcase the agency’s best work, as well as the team’s contribution to it. It became a sort of figure-it-out-as-you-go situation, as I quickly discovered that my storyboard slowed the pacing and was too busy. I had fragmented animated sections demonstrating their different capabilities: web design, video production and web design, as well as live-action footage of the team. However, the challenge was knitting them together visually while remaining within the ethos of “We are Fortress”. I managed to do this through sequencing similar pieces of footage together and finding ways to transition between the work and its creators.
The End:
What’s fun? A logo wall. What’s even more fun? A logo wall with a spotlight. What’s even more fun than that? A logo wall with a spotlight and some 3D elements. Et voila: the end of this video was admittedly a happy accident. I had various drafts that were based on a storyboard but they just weren’t hitting. So I just messed around with the elements I had and ended on this composition that I had never seen before but I really loved. To me, it was like Fortress’ appearance on the red carpet against a backdrop of its successes.
Sound Design:
The sizzle reel had originally been intended to be imbedded on the forthcoming website update’s landing page, but upon seeing it, the CEO and head of digital marketing decided it would be more appropriately used as paid social promotion. This presented me with a challenge: sound designing the work backwards. Although finding sfx was not a major issue, finding music would be. However, I found that by combining two tracks, and creating some rhythm through various sfx (see the video on right), I was able to cohesively string the video together. This was actually my favorite part of the whole process, as I had been itching to sound design it from the offset.
