Animated Brand Film

Stellar Waterworks

Client Direct - Stellar Waterworks

Role: Copywriting, creative direction, animation, producing

Stellar Waterworks had everything except a track record.

Fifteen years of experience, patents on the technology, the people who built the last market leader, and a company that hadn't officially launched yet.

This film was how they'd introduce themselves.

Stellar has a challenge

Stellar Waterworks makes water treatment equipment. Their customers are city engineers and operators, and when the wrong equipment can affect thousands of homes, or end a career, their customers are naturally risk averse; wanting to buy from reputable, long-standing companies. Even though Stellar Waterworks formed from the people who made the best equipment on the market for the past 20 years, they didn’t have the reputation yet.

The other problem was the types of videos in their industry. Content in the waterworks industry is technical, safe, accurate, dry, and completely lifeless. This film had to accomplish two jobs at once: Earn trust from city engineers, and be watchable by anyone.

How it was made

I have a confession to make. Before starting this project, I didn’t know anything about water treatment operations, and that makes it difficult to write a story around helping their target customer.

The first step was to hop on a video call to provide us a crash course where all the “stupid questions” that their clients already know could be asked. Almost everything in the story came from those recorded calls: How the chemistry actually works, what keeps operators up at night, what competitors can't do.

Cliff’s knowledge was invaluable as we collaborated to write the script.

Text discussing project processes, water treatment, engineering challenges, and equipment maintenance. The text is split into two columns.

First Draft

Text document discussing water treatment, filtration systems, and the importance of system design and diagnostics in water quality maintenance.

Final Version

Sketches of spaceship design options, including asymmetrical, organic, geometric, rocket, UFO dome top, and water droplet shapes.

A digital space-themed display with starfield backgrounds, HUDs, graphs, and illustrations of spacecraft, planets, and space systems in shades of black, blue, green, and teal.

Building my team.

With the script approved, I handed it to Courtney Haberl — an art director and illustrator I've worked with for years, and my former business partner at Hyperfocus Motion.

I gave her a visual treatment so she'd know what had to happen on every frame, then got out of her way. She started by mocking up design inspiration (a moodboard) of what the final version could look like before she sketched all 33 frames of the storyboard.

She also mocked up a range of spaceship options for Stellar to pick from. I had a favorite, but the call belonged to the client. Cliff took it to his team and came back with the answer to everything — along with the best note of the whole project:

"Tactical for sure, we're a bunch of engineers in an engineer industry. All those wavy lines and fever dream-esque scenes make us clutch our side rulers and fall to the ground. The organic rocket ship wins the team vote, with water droplet in second."

That one email locked the visual direction for everything after it.

Illustration of a spacecraft cockpit with futuristic displays and controls, viewing a cosmic, water-like space environment featuring planets, nebulae, and flowing water streams.

A drawing of a kitchen sink with a faucet, a transparent test tube with a screw cap, and a view of outer space with planets visible through the window.

Sketch of a kitchen countertop with laboratory glassware and a large pill bottle in the center, under the title "ACT 1 - THE CALL."

A sketch of a test tube with liquid inside beside a checklist indicating poor water quality, labeled as BAD.

A diagram showing a pill bottle inside a microwave, with a hand pressing a button labeled "OUTPUT 1:1 to 20:1" on a control panel.

A sketch of a test tube inside a Petri dish, with a checklist on the right side showing a checkmark next to 'Stellar Waterworks' and an unchecked box next to 'Generic competitor.'

Illustration of a test tube filled with liquid, surrounded by a circular border, with a checklist on the right side containing three checked boxes and four unchecked boxes.

A hand pressing a button on a desk with a computer screen displaying the words 'Send Distress Signal'.

Line drawing of Earth viewed from space with radio waves emanating from a point near North America, indicating a communication or signal being received.

A hand-drawn sketch of a satellite or space station orbiting the Earth, with radio waves emanating from the planet.

A sketch of a control room with four people sitting at control panels, watching a large display screen showing the time 19:34, and multiple monitors surrounding the main screen.

Drawing of a control room with multiple monitors, with a large central screen displaying the message 'Incoming Distress Signal' in bold letters, and two operators seated at control panels.

A hand pressing a button on a telephone answering machine with a screen that reads 'ANSWER THE CALL.'

Sketch of a control room with multiple monitors on walls and desks, with three people operating control panels

Sketch of a rocket launching from a platform with smoke and clouds around it, two tall structures with flags on either side, city buildings in the background.

Sketch of a spacecraft dashboard with multiple screens showing graphs and gauges, and a hand reaching out to interact with a touchscreen.

A hand pressing a button on a device with the word 'LAUNCH' displayed on a screen.

Sketch of a spaceship launching into the sky with a trail of smoke, city skyline in the background, and clouds around.

Sketch of a spacecraft flying through space, with lines indicating speed or motion.

Drawing of a spaceship cockpit with multiple screens and control panels, a hand reaching for one of the controls, and lines indicating motion or speed.

A space scene depicting a spaceship launch in space with Earth and the Sun in the background, showing a rocket ascending into space.

Sketch of a rocket launching from Earth with dashed lines pointing to a set of charts on a screen, including a downward graph labeled 'Water Wrong'.

Sketch of a control room with multiple screens showing gauges, charts, and data, and a hand operating a device.

Sketch of a digital HUD display with graphs and a screen labeled 'HUD DETAIL', likely part of a video game interface or simulation.

A sketch of a dashboard with graphs and a sign that says 'Disinfectant' on the left side.

Sketch of a computer monitor displaying a sediment analysis, with a graph showing sediment layers, a small line chart, and a keypad.

A hand-drawn sketch of a control panel with multiple screens and graphs showing increasing trends.

Sketch of a laboratory or exhibit with a large teardrop-shaped object inside a transparent cylindrical enclosure, with technical or scientific markings and a circular base, set in a room with framed panels on the walls.

A black and white sketch of a large floating water droplet inside a glass enclosure in a room with paneled walls.

Sketch of a laboratory scene with a water test tube, a sign reading 'Water quality = good', and test tube rack with three test tubes.

Sketch of a spaceship cockpit with multiple screens and a hand reaching for controls, with a bright sky visible through the windows.

A hand-drawn sketch of a spaceship launching from Earth, surrounded by radiating lines.

A pre-visual test

With the storyboard completed, it was time to do a quick visual test or “animatic”. I recorded the script with my own voice, and cut between the different rough sketches to get a feel for the pace and story.

And a problem arose. Those I had written the visual treatment with intention on how the video would flow, the fact of the matter was it didn’t feel right timed with the visuals. So I used my video editing storytelling skills to reogranize and recut the visuals to make a stronger visual story on screen. This test saved HOURS of production time chasing something that wasn’t going to work properly, and is in my opinion one of the most important steps in the creative pre-prodcution process. Seeing it come to life, Cliff had some quick changes to address which once again allowed us to collaborate and save time in the production process.

All that was left, was to make it.

Spending so much time in pre-produciton allowed us to fine tune what needed to be said, what needed to be created, and have a solid road map to our land this project with ease.

I’m a big believer that 80% of the work happens in pre-production so the remaining effort is just assembling the plan.

This video helps Stellar Waterworks because noby contacts a water treatment company for fun. They call because something needs to be created or fixed. This films explains who Stellar Waterworks is, what they do, and whether they’re worth trusting - all in just two minutes, without a sales call.

That means people can self-educate, understand who the brand is, and build trust before reaching out - maximizing Stellar’s ability to spend more time being a successful partner, and less time trying to convince buyers they’re a trustworthy company.

“We all huddled around the monitor to watch for the first time. As a bunch of passionate sci-fi and water nerds, this was out of this world.”

— Cliff Tormaschy, CEO, Stellar Waterworks

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