Survey Says – Employee Survey promotional video

Another Employee Survey video I used to focus on learning new skills, this one features a ton of work done in Blender and DaVinci Fusion. This project predates the other employee survey video I did that was also quite the task, but we had less time and more challenges here.

This one was an undertaking. We had originally anticipated a roughly 2-3 minute video (we asked to keep it short to allow for post-production since we knew there would be a ton of composite work). Unfortunately, we were given a much longer script and denied when we asked about shortening it. So, we now had the same amount of time for twice the video length.

For starters, the entire set is 3D. I designed it from scratch in Blender drawing inspiration from Family Feud (the same inspiration for the idea and script). That was the most simple part of post-production. Once I got to work on the composite, things got tougher.

I started trying to composite the scenes in After Effects, but after a short period of time realized that it was going to be too much for the software. I needed something that could process everything more quickly and allow for modular updates. Enter DaVinci Resolve Studio (specifically Fusion). I’d never used the software at length, but I had recently traveled to Las Vegas to attend the National Association of Broadcasters Show where I had seen Fusion demonstrated firsthand. It was impressive so I started to learn it.

The node based compositing was new to me (though I was familiar with nodes in Blender), so the learning curve was there. However, I was able to create fairly complex node setups that I could then plug and play my clips into to make compositing a bit more simple. It was still a lot, but I know I saved myself hours and hours of trial and error had I stayed the course in After Effects.

In the end, I was able to get the edit out (with nearly a week of extra hours accumulated by the end of the month). This project led to some deeper conversations which changed the entire timeline we have for our yearly promotional video.

I learned a ton on this project, though. That was a side goal of mine, so I was happy with it. And the spot itself turned out nicely, too.