How do you turn an academic report into a viral video? The Rauch Foundation challenged Duarte to solve this puzzle as they re-launched the Long Island Index in January.
The Long Island Index aims to reveal the challenges and opportunities facing Long Island through the collection of unbiased data. Like many academic documents, the reports are dense with information and aren’t intended to reach a broad audience.
When they launched their last two reports, the Rauch Foundation sought Duarte’s help creating a video to introduce their report at an event filled with academics, foundation supporters and those with an interest in the future of Long Island. Following the event they published the video online. Since these projects were tailored to introduce several other presentations, Duarte built videos resembling self-animated slides that highlighted key data and findings in the reports.
But this year, the Rauch Foundation had bigger goals. Instead of focusing only on the launch event, they hoped to craft a video that had more online appeal. The more clicks, the better. Both the leaders at Rauch and the creative minds at Duarte knew that they needed to think outside the box if they were going to turn zoning laws into entertainment. Luckily, the Rauch leaders were open to new ideas and suggested an RSA-style animation.
The Rauch and Duarte teams worked together to winnow all of the report’s findings down to five minutes worth of content. The team wrote a voiceover script suited to the casual type of conversation you might hear between friends in a coffee shop. When the actor Brian Dennehy generously agreed to read the voiceover, the Duarte writers adjusted the script to suit his voice.
After the script and voiceover were completed, a team of Duarte designers and producers created visuals to accompany the script and produced a video showing the animation. The final product was showcased at the launch of the new Index and has now begun its campaign to reach as many online viewers as possible.
Long Island at a Tipping Point
At Duarte we’re always working to try and find new ways to move people to action. We’re happy that the Rauch Foundation gave us this opportunity to take sociology and make it fun for the masses!
Read the report here: http://www.longislandindex.org/
Find out more about the Rauch Foundation here: http://rauchfoundation.org/