HSE Induction For Suppliers
Storyboarding / Illustration / Animation
I was hired as a freelancer to develop the HSE Induction for Suppliers for one of Belgium’s largest construction companies. This animated video is a key part of the mandatory online training that all workers must complete before accessing the worksites.
I was responsible for the entire production of the 20-minute video, working from a provided script and pre-recorded voice-over. My role included conceptualizing the visual storytelling, designing all illustrations and graphics, and animating the final piece.
The full 20 minute induction is composed of 18 chapters about health, safety and environment in the worksite and was released in 11 languages:
English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek and Polish.
Customer’s Request
The customer requested a video with simple animation but detailed illustrations.
One of the biggest issues the customer wanted fixed from their previous modules was the recognizability of the worksite and equipment. For this reason, it was important that the illustration for equipment and machinery perfectly matched reality.
At the same time, the customer already had a pre-existing character that needed to be used in the module. So a big challenge was matching the heavily stylized character with the realistic nature of the equipment.
All situations depicted in the induction needed to be on par with real life as well, so the workers could better understand the content and relate to their work.
For example, for the chapter describing a personnel marine transfer, the illustrations of the fleet had to be accurate, using both the main vessel (Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger) and the transfer vessel, instead of generic boats. All 100+ assets and backgrounds were developed with the same level of accuracy and attention to detail.
In addition, the customer’s main request was for the message to be clear and intuitive, and for the viewing experience to be pleasant, with a certain level of beauty in the elements of the video.
Challenges
Working as a solo artist on a project of this magnitude required careful planning, organization, and precautions, especially in its early stages. Even before any creative step began, all attention points and plans of action were outlined and thought through to make production as smooth as possible.
Since this project is about capacitating workers on critical topics such as safety guidelines, a very big responsibility lay in the elements of the video for its message to be clear. For this reason, the most important step of the project was storyboarding.
Illustrations
The biggest challenge however, was developing the illustrations due to their sheer volume.
There were over 100 unique assets developed, some with incredible level of detail for a reliable portrayal.
Animation
Once the storyboard was approved and all illustrations were completed, the animation phase started. Since the video would be released in 11 different languages, all versions needed to be perfectly synchronized with its respective audio. Simple editing would not be enough for that, so most of the resyncing was done in the animation itself. Therefore, all animation was built with that in mind, with layers and keyframes optimized for fine timing adjustment for the different versions.
Even though the animation is simple, planning ahead and optimizing was extremely valuable when adapting for the various languages.
Reception
The production was very successful and smooth in all of its steps.
The project met the customer’s needs and surpassed their expectations. For this reason, other branches of the company also requested similar inductions which I was also hired to produce. I’ve been working with this customer for over 4 years now on updates and many new iterations with very positive feedback.
Note: Due to an NDA agreement, I cannot show the video in its entirety.