Animating Change
Creatures United Case Study
Creating Authentic Experiences
In the video above you can see how a combination of movement of the eyes, head and even the tongue all contribute to weaving a more compelling and authentic narrative. This coupled with the strategic use of celebrity voices adds an element of familiarity and emotional connection contributing to the success of this campaign.
Creating truly authentic experiences requires a high level of precision to avoid animations falling flat. If part of the face cannot move, or the eyes appear dead it can be uncomfortable to watch. To tackle this, Rapport is powered by Speech Graphics’ award-winning facial animation technology. Unlike other facial animation solutions, it is audio-driven and based on an anatomically correct model of the entire vocal tract combined with accurate facial rigs.
Having control of all the muscles in the face and vocal tract helps create animations that can speak with a deep sense of realism. These unique characters, like Jin, can help fuel daily conversations and campaigns that; enable fundraising at scale, encourage engagement through positive content, and inspire people to act.
Creating a Harmonious Future
The plan of Creatures United is an ambitious one, it has to be to tackle one of the greatest problems of our time. They outline their four main objectives as:
Make people sit up, take notice, and act: Ecosystem collapse is impossible to solve without public support. So we’re going to create a mass movement.
Strengthen protection and conservation: By multiplying donations, our mass communications fundraising will be used to directly support the last remaining habitats of important species at risk of extinction.
Amplify the power of science, data, and technology: We are building one of the most accessible databases that has ever existed on species extinction, with over 33,000 species currently featured.
Shape international policy for a better future: Policy plays an extraordinarily important role in harmonizing the relationship between humans and the planet.
Find out more
If you want to find out more about Creatures United and how to get involved you can do so on their website.
The Rapport platform makes it easy to combine AI, text-to-speech, facial animation and speech recognition, to create rich interactive experiences with emotionally intelligent characters, on any device.
Increase e-commerce performance, improve customer satisfaction, optimize recruitment processes, or supercharge immersive learning.
To learn more about how virtual interactive personalities can help you reach your goals, contact us now.
The Mission
Creatures United was launched ahead of COP15 in Montreal by digital agency Media.Monks. One of the core objectives was to “make people sit up, take notice, and act,” on the issues of ecosystem collapse and climate change.
In order to stand out, Creatures United deployed “an army of animated, talking animals,” and used the technology behind Rapport to make a visually stunning and emotionally believable experience.
Building Empathy
Accurate lip sync is a key component when creating deeper connections. It breaks down the barrier between humans and virtual personalities - in this case the furry spokespersons of Creatures United!
With the help of the team behind Rapport, Creatures United were able to give a voice, and a personality, to Jin the clouded leopard.
In the video below, Jin makes a compassionate address to leading scientists, activists and philanthropists at the Saving the New Wild event at Stanford University. He outlines the problem he calls “the biggest communication problem in history,” (between nature and humans) and how Creatures United aims to tackle it. He introduces the work of Global Conservation and describes how people can help make a difference by engaging and changing their everyday habits.