MRI Ascend Conference

We collaborated with MRI Real Estate Software to utilize their new internally-developed 2D graphic characters and style to create a fully animated video and toolkit for their MRI Ascend conference.

Our plan was to provide a high-level overview understanding of MRI’s expansive software offerings and flexibility by focusing on two main characters: Raul the Resident and Ava the Entrepreneur. Each character’s story represents a few of the many features of MRI Software’s open and evolving interface that aim to streamline their customers’ experiences. By creating beautiful scenes in this 2D space, we were able to communicate the story with nominal character animation, allowing the transitions to carry us from scene to scene as the story progressed. 

Our challenge this year was to provide additional animated elements pulled from the original video as standalone deliverables for future use on the website and other modes of communication. We delivered 2 illustrated scenes and 8 loop-able videos with a few extra seconds of animation to extend the runtime, delivered over white and an alpha channel to cover every possible circumstance they could encounter in the future.

Welcome to the Global Anytown

For the past few years, MRI and Elevation have teamed up to create event materials, including thesis videos that kick off the MRI Ascend conference. After MRI refreshed their brand to 2D characters with bright, vibrant colors and flat textures, they challenged us to take those illustrations and bring them to life.

We first worked in this idyllic world of a Global Anytown for MRI Ascend 2020, which was a virtual event. We continued to develop and expand within this style for a series of animated product videos, as well as the in-person MRI Ascend 2021, which was held in Cleveland, Ohio.

Story & Styleframes

For the 2020 MRI Ascend Conference video, our writer, James, pored over pages of marketing strategy and scripted out the story that would best express a high-level understanding of what MRI provides to their customers: an open and flexible software platform for residential and commercial real estate alike to connect, grow, and thrive. He created 2 characters: Raul the Resident, and Ava the Entrepreneur and utilized them to explain several features of MRI’s software. From there, our Art Director, Dianne, and Animator extraordinaire, Kito, got to work exploring the style and characters, building out sections of the spot in static styleframes.

Building Animatics

Animatics are test versions of the animation that we can quickly build to experiment with “light” character animation, as well as test music, VO, and overall timing. Hearing a script read in VO tends to help us revise the script to nail the exact right tone. The animatic is the best way to see everything together early so we can catch these changes well before timing is solidified and animation is underway.

Up to Code

Finally, along with the finished video, MRI had requested separately rendered aspects of the final video for them to use on their website and in future marketing videos for the year. In years past they’ve pulled these assets from our conference video, but with a new line of in-depth software videos in their future percolator, these animations separately-delivered as looped graphics were an added value that will make MRI’s future marketing videos a breeze.

Live, Work, Play

The 2020 MRI Ascend video utilized MRI's new style and the characters and environments we developed to tell a story of how technology can help communities can live, work, and play in new and exciting ways.

A New Vision

For MRI Ascend 2021, the event's theme was "Unleash the visionary in you." In this video, we expanded on the world we've been working with by creating new characters and environments. This short video tells the story of Marco, whose coffee shop doodles spark an idea for a thriving real estate business. We wanted to show how a visionary matched with the right tools can not only transform their business, but the community around them.

50 Years of Advancing Real Estate

2021 also marked the 50th anniversary for MRI. To celebrate, we created a video briefly recapping the company’s history, from their origins as Management Reports Incorporated in 1971 through their ambitions for the future. Using archival logos, photographs, and stock imagery, this shows a story that starts on a 1970s computer screen and goes all the way to Mars.