Citrix DaaS Jams
2D ANIMATION | AWARD-WINNING SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN | CITRIX
The ask was simple: Educate and influence users to transition to DasS and make Citrix their VDI-DaaS of choice. The execution was anything but. In order to get the engagement we needed to be successful we had to think outside the box and present high-level, technical discussions in an easily digestible format. Queue DJ DaaS and the Notorious VDI.
Animator: JJ Surkin
Illustrator: Michael DiMilo
Copywriter: Chris Liakos
Music Production: The Mayfair Workshop
Art Director(s): Heath Rudduck, Chris Liakos
Awards
PRSA Silver Anvil: B2B Content Marketing
Gold Telly: Branded Content Campaign – B2B
Silver Telly: Social Video Series – Products & Services
Ad Fed MN Bronze Pin: Branded Content & Entertainment Campaign
Recognition
Shorty Awards (2 categories): B2B and Product Feat. Video, Finalist
2023 PR Week: Best in B2B, Finalist
In2SABRE: Social Video, Finalist
PRovoke SABRE Awards: B2B Marketing, Finalist
Animation Process
Storyboard Concepting
After some discussion with Citrix's brand team and a couple revisions with our illustrator, we finally landed on character concepts. Once we had that locked down I concepted out storyboards and shot lists to share with the illustrator to ensure we had all the necessary assets to build from.
Rig Test for DJ DaaS
While waiting for the illustrator to build out final assets I built and tested character rigs. Using Joysticks 'n Sliders I rigged up the concept illustrations and rendered out quick proof-of-concepts.
Storyboard For Animation
With the character rigs tested and set up I had a better understanding of how these little robots would come to life. My next step was to revise the storyboard and pose out DJ DaaS for an animatic.
Once that was done I timed out the frames to our music so I had reference keyframes for animating.
Animatic
Above is the reference animatic and the first draft side-by-side for comparison.
The last step of the process was to add in the facial expressions. I wanted to save that for last so that I could introduce as much personality as I could with just the characters' movements. Also because it was hella time consuming and I didn't want to get hung up on the details before the structure was in place.