Any time a client asks us to combine a dinosaur, a flying pig and a “magical” serum, we are generally all over it…

Well…first we ask if they are serious about the flying pig - THEN, we’re all over it.

Such was the case when Essential Pharmaceuticals of Ewing, NJ contracted us to create a product animation for their revolutionary new FBS replacement, Cell-Ess. Since the Dawn of Time, research scientists have struggled with the limitations imposed by the organic nature of the old stalwart - Fetal Bovine Serum - when culturing cells. Cell-Ess, a 100% synthetic interpretation of FBS, solves many of the issues with FBS and features the flying pig as a mascot of sorts. Feels win-win to us!

As the story of “The Cure of Cell-Ess” began to come into focus, Essential Pharmaceuticals shared a photo of a stuffed, caped pig that they use as a prop at their trade show booths. It makes sense as a Cell-Ess mascot for the research science community audience, FBS having been used for so long that a replacement seemed about as likely as…well, you know.

We initially had other ideas as the story’s protagonist, but the more we thought about it, the more a Flying Pig made sense, ironically. While the stuffed prop wasn’t a big part of Essential Pharmaceutical’s marketing plan prior to the animation, integrating him as The Hero could help to jump-start the airborne swine as a component of the Cell-Ess brand, or even across other products in the Essential inventory.

From an animation standpoint, the fact that the pig flies (very mobile, allows for flexibility in getting him around the “set”), wears a cape (who doesn’t love a whimsical, magical pig?), and can ultimately be converted into bacon (truthfully, that part of the concept never made it past proposal stage…) sold us, and in two shakes of a stick “The Cure of Cell-Ess” was on the road to converting the hearts and minds of stodgy research scientists around the world.

With a crash course in the history of FBS, the quirks of research scientists and the science behind the magic of Cell-Ess, we scripted a story of prehistoric research and super swine while simultaneously designing the set and characters. Once the assets were approved it was a few weeks of caffeination and keyframes as we brought the scientists, the dinosaur, the pig and, perhaps most importantly, the Cell-Ess plant, to life via a two minute animation.

Essential Pharmaceuticals will be rolling out the animation as a part of their Cell-Ess marketing package throughout Fall 2014 - check it out at a research science trade show near you! Or, more conveniently, click on the movie below to view: