I Want to Enjoy the Artistic Freedom: The Interview with Yegor Faizov, the Founder, Creative Director, and Motion Designer of the Videocase.tv Motion Design Studio

We talked to Yegor Faizov, a Founder, a Creative Director and a Motion Designer of the Motion Design studio Videocase.tv. We talked about the journey he took to create his own company, awards he has won, and projects which he is most proud. We also discussed features of motion design and, his future plans.

To begin with and get to know each other better, tell us what path did you have to follow before you founded Videocase? How important was the experience that you gained in professional development?

My career began in a small Siberian town in advertising agencies, then I worked in television where I made commercial videos and broadcast design for TV shows. Then I got a job as a flash animator at BBDO Moscow. I worked in their BBDO Interactive (digital department); we were the best agency in the Russian Internet space.

That was where I learned about real creativity, met some cool people and did animations for Mercedes, Peugeot, Pepsi, Orbit, Mars, Wrigley, Lay’s, Cheetos, Chrysler, Dodge, MTS, and Beeline. I began to develop in the creative field, moved as a Digital Art Director to another network agency called Dentsu in the digital department SmartNewSolutions. There, I worked with clients such as Sony, Play Station, Toyota, Lenovo, Panasonic and created two successful advertising campaigns that won several festival awards (gold at W3 Awards and Davey Awards, silver at KIAF, W3, ADCR, shortlists at Golden Drum, KIAF, PIAF, Red Apple, Idea, etc.).

My next role was as the Creative Group Head in Progression with Google, Youtube, Nurofen, Renault, Nesquik, Maggi, and Nestle. I then decided to start something of my own. My experience in production and creative fields helps me understand all processes and provides me with the scope to create projects. It also allows me to switch from one direction to another in order to remain creative.

Give us a few words about your company, its features, differences from its competitors.

We create Motion Design and Animation for clients from different countries (USA, Germany, Australia, Italy, Mexico, Finland, Malaysia, etc.). We are not an assembly line, releasing videos one by one, but rather an agency that treats each brief individually.

Currently, I do most of the work myself because I like to create rather than manage. But for the individual tasks, we select specialists who are the best in their industries and will work best on the final result. For example, for our TV ad for Nesquik, the characters and backgrounds were made by a great person who is now a Senior Designer at Reddit. And Sound Design for the UFC promotional video, which, in addition to powerful visual effects also needed a powerful sound atmosphere, was made by a specialist who has his own Sound Design School. This flexible approach allows us to create individual products of high quality without inflating the price for our clients.

Are there any projects you are most proud of?

There are many of them. Perhaps, my most valuable project was for Levi’s in 2020. I was responsible for Motion Design and creating the content for various screens from the client’s footage. My videos run on the screen in Times Square and throughout the chain of Levi’s stores in the US during the holidays.

Another significant project was for the Pokémon Company in 2021. I produced 119 animated tutorials for their trading card game in seven languages. Now fans of this game all over the world are learning from our videos, too.

I would also like to mention the current projects for T-mobile, a client that gives a lot of freedom in creativity and even encourages us to make more unusual animations.

And as for your previous jobs, what would you highlight especially?

BBDO, where I saw and experienced how real creativity is made, and SmartNewSolutions, where being a Digital Art Director, I could put this knowledge into practice and create two unusual and successful projects that won a lot of festival awards.

Any success can be best described by its awards. What are the awards for the projects which you were engaged in?

Two projects where I was a Digital Art Director working at SmartNewSolutions won many awards, from shortlists to the gold award in 2011 and 2012 at festivals such as KIAF (Kiev International Advertising Festival), Golden Drum, ADCR, Red Apple, and W3.

The first project was for Sony; I came up with the world’s first web banner created based on Google Street View to show the realism of the graphics of their car simulator Gran Turismo 5.

The second project was for the blood service Torrent Your Blood; we used the message “the blood sharing = sharing files through torrents”. By the way, this was the world’s first advertising campaign that used torrents. For this work, the service reached the following:

• hit the shortlist of the Red Apple festival;
• received two silver awards as part of the prestigious award in mobile design and UX W³;
• won the bronze award at “Kiev International Advertising Festival”;
• won the silver award at ADCR (professional creativity and design contest);
• was included on the shortlist of “Idea”, a national advertising festival.

Videocase has been operating since 2013. What difficulties did the company face and how did it cope with them?

I had to try different fields before I reached what brings the most pleasure and the least difficulty to me. Previously, for example, we also worked on filming projects and once we shot a video in early winter in Moscow for the American office of Ford and their new car. We had trouble with finding the right car and suitable locations in bad weather and there were many other limitations.

In general, there are always limitations that are difficult to deal with when you work with filming. Everything went well, we found the car through Facebook, the footage was processed through several VFX layers and color correction. We added stock footage to some places, the client was satisfied, but we now prefer not to shoot videos because we want not to overcome the limitations but enjoy the artistic freedom. So now we are just focusing on Motion Design and Creative.

What are your future plans? Are you going to develop Videocase more or do you have any ideas about founding some other companies?

Videocase is now the main project. We are going to develop new areas of work within it. For example, we are now interested in AR and how it can be combined with Motion Design. In December 2021, I have already won several times at the international contest on Instagram and Meta filters. I think this is a promising and not yet fully-developed area of focus for both studios and clients.