The Robollox Show

Eye-catching animation for the nano-second attention spans of the Millennial audiences.

Unique Radio Personality. Getting to the right ears.

Rob Bollox is a broadcaster based in Auckland, New Zealand, originally come from UK. He reviews sports, soap drama and some conspiracy segments. One of his most popular broadcast channels is the “Can you Adam and Eve it?” podcast hosted by Mickey Havoc at 96bFM. It is a 20-minutes podcast talking about unbelievable theories around the world. The majority of listeners is university students.

Rob makes the extravagant-ridiculous stuff funny. With his unusual and unique personalities, his random talks and conversations gained listeners overtime. However, he works as an volunteer and wants to make broadcasting his job with income. I am tasked by 95bFM through Media Design School to help him.

The Impact

The 2-minutes shortened animation I created for one of the most popular episodes in Rob’s podcast is adored by the audience and open new streams of revenue. It pleasantly surprise the client and create positive influence to the growth of his profession.

The Mission

To create effective promotional campaign for Rob Bollox to raise popularity and attract potential investors, the challenge is clarifying his positioning, the target audience and the aesthetics.

Scope of project

Brand Strategy

Design Thinking / UX Methodology

Art Direction

Audio processing and editing

Motion Graphics

Understanding the talent

I sat down with Rob Bollox in 95bFM station office, got to know him, the environment he is working in, and his aesthetic and expectation. After the meeting, we came to conclusion that an animated podcast would be of his best interest and a good launch for the promotional campaign.

Understanding the listener

Some quotes gathered from listeners. User Personas are created.

“He is smart about being wired.”
“What makes their commentary engaging isn’t their expertise, it’s their genuine fandom. You can tell he love what he is doing.”
“Talking about random stuff, but it’s funny.”

The personas provide a basis for design by concentrating many pieces of user data into key focused, believable descriptions of the primary audience.

Understanding the Trend

Based on research and statistics, Online Video achieves 4 times ROI than traditional broadcast medium. Kiwis are also opting for podcasts which they can access on their smart phone and want fast interesting and informative clips to watch on their news feed. Nearly a quarter of kiwis subscribe to digital content and the number is increasing. Visual content is where it comes to having popular post. These findings further convince that a video should be created for an effective promotional campaign.

Ideation

Based on Rob’s characteristics and aesthetic, a few keywords was summarised and a mood board is created. Keywords: Rebel, punk rock, British, street arts, Misery, anti-social, pop artists like Andy Warhol.

Rob wants to be presented as an cartoon figure of himself. From the observation and his interest, I found some similarity between him and Daft Punk.

The moodboard created a solid base for the style of the animation.

Motion Design

I created the figure of Rob looking like him, but very cartoony, weird, and adding humour and a bit of twist of Daft Punk’s helmet to glasses. I hardly remember Rob’s eyes, as Rob wear his sunglasses always, even indoor. After some experimentation, the style of character is created to fit the comedic animation and the aesthetic from the moodboard.

With the style and design of Rob’s figure completed and approved, the stories is brought to life using Crazy talk and Adobe After Effects programs. I animated the episodes using dynamic movements and innovative techniques. Instead of painstaking and tedious frame-by-frame lip-sync that would have been impossible under the deadlines,

I employed new, cutting-edge technology from Crazy Talk.

The animation is created from one episode called "Message from the Water" - reviewing a New York Times bestseller book and a documentary by Dr Masaru Emoto. The book describes the ability of water to re-transmit human feelings and emotions - heal people. This episode is considerately selected since it got lots of attention when its first released in bCast.

Making this animation takes the following procedures:

Design Rob Bollox animation figure.
Edit a Full 15 minutes podcast into a <2 mins trailer teaser.
Modelling image-based lip sync in Crazy Talk.
Plan structure of the content, VFX and storyboard - add visual jokes.
Gather resource and animate.

The Result

The animation is completed within a tight project span of 3 weeks and the promotional campaign were successful. The client was very happy by the animation and was looking to do more episodes. The advantage and characteristics of Rob were highlighted in the animation and surprised himself.