Zimmer Persona Video Animation

The Challenge

Replacement knees are not sexy, but they are incredibly necessary. Zimmer, a worldwide leader in artificial joints, wanted to tell the story of Persona, the latest, most technical artificial joint in the world.

My Role

Pairing with Edward Carden, formerly of theNetkitchen, we created a 5-minute long whiteboard animation unlike anything being produced. As co-producer, art director, and illustrator, I was involved not only in storyboarding the entire piece but also fully illustrating the piece on a 6-foot long whiteboard for the video.

Insights

Whiteboard animations are typically under-produced, and our first version, while looking “clean” and “sleek” in the storyboards, was… underwhelming. There was simply too little going on to fully keep the viewer’s interest, let alone tell the full story. A different approach was called for, and Ed and I went back to the literal drawing board.

Process

Additional storyboards were created, along with new personas, and we “layered up” our designs in ways that people simply don’t do in typical whiteboard animation. We raided the local OfficeMax for more kinds of whiteboard pens to produce the effects that I envisioned.

Outcome

The final whiteboard video is a striking example of storytelling and pushing whiteboard illustration (a particularly unsubtle medium) as far as we could – live on camera (with time-lapse modification via after effects). The video was utilized in Zimmer’s worldwide launch of the Persona product.