Speakeasy was asked by the NHS Education for Scotland education and training body, NES, to create an animation to raise awareness of the prevalence and impact of trauma within the workplace. The goal was to inform practitioners and other staff how to deal sensitively with people in order to minimise the risk of distress and re-traumatisation, and highlight how traumatic experiences like sexual and domestic abuse can affect people.

Throughout the process Speakeasy worked with the client in character design, storyboarding, scripting and creation of the final 2D animation.

Given the sensitivity of the subject matter, Speakeasy opted for an expressive, emotive, hand drawn style, highly impactful whilst also being able to convey a sense of profound vulnerability, which is so fundamental to this area of work.

The use of the first-person narrative as each of the characters recounts their own personal experience of abuse allows us to hear the emotion in the characters voice and helps us to better relate to, and empathise with, the characters. The scenarios themselves clarify that anyone may have suffered trauma in the past. The 3 characters speak together with one voice to highlight the importance of standing together to help and empower one another.

Lloyds Banking Group’s Diversity & Inclusion team commissioned us to create a series of videos showcasing colleagues from diverse backgrounds who were carving out successful careers in the organisation. They were to include an analyst with cerebral palsy, a member of the graduate scheme who was blind, a gay area manager, a woman who had been granted significant of time off to deal with fertility issues, and an Asian director.

Our conversations with Jimmy, Simon, Louis, Jenny and Mark revealed powerful stories of tremendous challenges being faced and overcome. We felt a documentary approach would be a much richer and more memorable viewing experience than simply watching people talking in an office.

After viewing the films, hundreds of colleagues wrote to express how they had been inspired by what they had seen, and conveyed their support and solidarity. Making the film was life-changing for some of our ‘inspirational people’.  For example, it gave Jimmy Asuni an awareness of power to inspire others, and he went on to establish links with an organization supporting children with disabilities in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

The University of Aberdeen commissioned Speakeasy to produce more than 20 films to help promote its postgraduate programmes. The brief was to raise awareness of the university’s Business and Law Schools, with a particular focus on international markets, including China and the Middle East.

On the theme of ‘Getting There’, our films present the University of Aberdeen as a portal into a new world of opportunity. ‘To get there – come here…’ Interviews were filmed against green screen with a motion-controlled camera to allow us to move in on a virtual background representing the student’s aspiration – where they hope to go as a result of the qualification.

Filming also involved the use of drones to capture dramatic footage of the university’s unique and historical buildings, as well as User Generated Content and bespoke motion graphics added in post-production.

Speakeasy also produced films to promote the university’s ‘Instant Offer’ proposition, as well as coverage of the Law Graduation Ceremony and marketing materials aimed specifically at the China market.

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi is Japan’s largest bank and one of the world’s largest, with 35,000 staff across 40 countries.

The bank commissioned Speakeasy to produce a film to help kick-start its induction

sessions and support HR staff in delivering the vision, culture and values to new recruits.

The film had to be inspiring, motivational and introduce some key ideas about the

business. It had to be applicable to everyone in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa region – and easily adapted into multiple foreign languages.

Our film also had to introduce each department within the bank and bring the business to life for the audience.

Aimed primarily at shareholders, this film was produced for one of SSE’s annual meetings to illustrate the company’s commitment to exceeding the minimum requirement and doing the right thing for customers, staff, shareholders – and the environment as a whole.

The film references some of the difficult decisions made by the company in recent years, such as freezing gas and electricity prices and making a commitment to the living wage.

Messages are delivered through a combination of unscripted interviews with staff and managers, and simple ‘motion tracked’ captions inserted into the footage to appear as if they’re part of the scene.

The film includes a number of case studies showing how SSE works with communities to go the extra mile, making a real contribution to the lives of those it serves.

Filming was carried out across the UK, from Portsmouth to Strathy in the Highlands of Scotland.

At the launch of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, Scottish Enterprise and its partner organisations held an event for business leaders, government officials and high-profile VIPs. The aim was to encourage the growth and expansion of industry through the tremendous business opportunities presented by the games and surrounding events.

Scottish Enterprise commissioned Speakeasy to produce a short, impactful film that introduced the concept of Scotland’s innovation heritage to the conference audience.  This was a mood piece, intended to surprise and engage the audience ahead of the opening speech.

We combined archive footage and stock images with an animation style that gradually gathers pace as the entire history of Scottish innovation unfolds, culminating in a flurry of snapshots of Scottish inventions – both old and new. A carefully chosen music track helps to build the momentum of the piece, whilst evoking a sense of purpose and promise.

Speakeasy produced seven launch films and the first main launch event for the opening of the £1.35 billion Queensferry Crossing, Scotland’s biggest infrastructure project in a generation.

The brief was to create a visual spectacle that would attract international media attention; celebrate the work of the contractors involved and mark the handover to the Scottish Government. Speakeasy’s creative involved staging a dramatic night time light show that would be filmed by drones and helicopters and would showcase the bridge at its most striking.

Speakeasy had eight camera crews at strategic points across the site, as well as two aerial crews. We delivered seven films in total, including two overnight edits to provide footage for international media syndication. Six of the films were specifically for social media. Our main 1-minute launch film attracted 25,000 views within three days of the launch and supported the #LoveQC social media campaign.

As part of an organisation-wide print, video and digital brand refresh, Speakeasy was commissioned to create a new brand film for Scottish Development International. This would highlight how Scotland is brilliantly connected for businesses across a number of sectors including the financial and technology industries.

We mixed new and archive footage to showcase Scotland and its businesses at their most dramatic, colourful and engaging.

Scotland’s ‘connectivity’ was visually represented in the film by a dynamic neon graphical ‘pulse’. This zoomed through and over different settings in Scotland – landmarks including the Kelpies and the Forth Rail Bridge; Scottish cities seen from above and a business meeting with advisors – connecting businesses to each other, via vital infrastructures, people and innovative technologies.

We also created seven case studies to accompany the main brand film. These featured interviews with companies including Barclays, JP Morgan and games specialist Outplay.

Arup is a global firm of consulting engineers, designers and planners, headquartered in London.

Speakeasy’s ‘Arup Fellows’ films aim to educate and inspire the internal audience by showcasing the achievements of engineers who are masters in their fields.

In previous years, the Fellows were filmed on location, at buildings they had played a part in developing. Then, we introduced CGI models to bring the buildings to the Fellows instead, in a stylized white studio.

In Series 3 we took the concept further by blending CGI with props and graphics to create an interactive context for the Fellows, bringing the creative process to life and externalising the ideas and conceptual thinking that have put them ahead of the game.

Global engineering giant Doosan Babcock specialises in engineering, aftermarket and upgrade services in the energy sector.  The company’s most precious resource is its people and it wanted a brand film that would not just convey who it is and what it does, but also express the link between the engineering projects and the people responsible for them.

Speakeasy developed a concept to convey this link in a visually powerful way. In brand films we usually see staff talking in the location of their workplaces. Our idea was to turn this on its head. Using the ‘double exposure’ technique, increasingly seen on television and in film title sequences, we placed the working environment inside the people instead of the other way around.

This involved filming employees in a studio as well as filming power stations around the UK, before creating the effects in post production.

Safe Drive, Stay Alive is a live event organised by Surrey Fire and Rescue Service as part of its campaign to reduce road traffic accidents and the suffering they cause, particularly amongst young people.

Speakeasy was asked to refresh the event’s filmed content – a dramatised scenario of four young people embarking on an ill-fated car journey.

Our approach involved sourcing five new case studies of real accident victims. This was the biggest challenge of the project and involved research with support groups, emergency services and social media, including Facebook.

Steadicam and time lapse sequences helped to create the reconstructions. One continuous shot involved choreographing more than 30 people as the camera passed through the scene, including crew, actors, ambulance, fire and police.

Feedback suggested the film had significantly helped increase engagement with the campaign, with viewers describing it as ‘powerful’ and ‘emotional.’

Lloyds launched a campaign to help make the organisation more inclusive and wanted a 60-90 second film to provide the emotive punch of the campaign. The aim was to help stimulate cultural change in an organisation of 90,000 people.

We built the film around the idea that even seemingly innocuous comments can cause serious hurt, building up over time until the recipient feels at ‘breaking point’. The image of a light bulb shattering captures this in a memorable way. We had a cast of five characters, and filmed them talking straight to camera, spot-lit against a stark backdrop, creating an intimacy with the audience.

Words Count became the most clicked on film in the history of Lloyds Banking Group’s iWatch channel, where it was watched by more than 22,000 staff.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks – the distribution arm of energy supplier SSE – wanted to overhaul its external communications for customers experiencing a power cut.

Speakeasy was tasked with scripting the films to provide accurate advice in an engaging, reassuring and accessible way.

Using friendly 2D animation, we created a rural village location and a small number of simple characters – Jack and Mavis and their dog Buzz.

The first of our films delivers advice on how to prepare for a power cut, providing a series of tips on what to expect and how to respond safely. The second film gives advice for those already experiencing a power cut, including how to connect with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks

Speakeasy also created five shorter social media films, each offering one specific tip.