A Window to the Soul

Enter AMO

Our client, Advanced Medical Optics (AMO) was a global leader in vision correction technologies. With over 3,600 employees in 60 countries, AMO’s team of professionals focused on designing and delivering innovative products and services that address a wide range of vision disorders to support to patients of all ages. They were a company of innovative, creative problem solvers, they reminded us a lot of, well….us.

AMO was created as a spin off, subsidiary by Allergan. During its reign Advanced Medical Optics acquired another prominent eye care brand called VISX. Later, AMO was acquired by Abbott and kept as a separate division, Abbott Medical Optics. Funnily enough, while the corporate ownership changed, the initials remained the same. It is a story of corporate boardroom "survival of the fittest". To cap it off, all of these companies have been or still are clients of TBA. From a Darwinian perspective TBA is looking pretty good. "It's a firm eat firm world out there."

AMO approached us looking for a high-level corporate video that would appeal to clients, employees and the general public, showing AMO’s operations, corporate values and vision. AMO wanted everyone who saw the video to get a clear sense of their global leadership, innovation and growth potential. At the end of the day, our mission was to create a video that needed to capture AMO’s specialized-technologically-advanced-global essence in three mesmerizing minutes, to leave their audience touched, moved and inspired.

To begin, our creative team began to familiarize themselves with AMO – the company, their products and services, in order to develop high-level concepts that fit with their corporate branding and culture. These ideas were then developed into a set of digital storyboards, that captured the main narrative touch points, and the emotional arc of each concept. Our approach was to get as much feedback from AMO as possible, including gauging what ideas and story fragments resonated best with their own sense of who they are as a corporate community. We were interested in tying in their sense of themselves with the story of their products and their impact on the lives of their end customers. All of this feedback was worked into refining the storyboards for the next presentation.

From the beginning AMO was clear that they wanted the video to create a strong impact on their audience. Obviously, the visuals are critical in telling a story about a company that is literally all about vision. What is less obvious is the role that music would play in making the necessary emotional connection to the visuals. That is where we started.

Our Art Director, and project creative team researched a huge array of audio and video references for music that would capture the feel and tone they were aiming for. Imagine a couple of “creative types” speaking in the dulcet tones of a mock narrator’s voice and humming evocative “tune-scapes” while making lots of sweeping arm gestures, and you get the picture.

Eventually, they thought that a piano score for the soundtrack would fit the best. Piano is typically a tough sell from Agency to client, because piano can mean so many things to different people. So, imagine a couple of “creative types” presenting to the client, speaking in the dulcet tones of a mock narrator’s voice and humming evocative “tune-scapes"’ while making lots of sweeping arm gestures while presenting detailed storyboards, and you get the picture. To our amazement the client was convinced and bought the idea that piano was the perfect instrument to support our multi-strand narrative.

Our creative process for this kind of project is more involved than usual as the script, narration, visuals and score all play off one another. Practically, the creative team needed to be coordinated in terms of who hands-off to who, in what sequence, with all of the appropriate client checkpoints and approvals along the way. Creatively, the script writer, narrator and recording engineer, the composer, videographer, editor and graphic designer all needed to be on the same page; and to be able to collaborate synergistically to blend with the vision.

When the time came, our production crew traveled to AMO’s headquarters. The original video segments were shot on location, and feature a large number of actual AMO’s employees. In post-production the narrative was fleshed out with stock video sequences from high-end video libraries, according to the direction from the original storyboard concepts.

The different shots were edited to the script, and seamlessly blended. The pace of the narration and visuals was worked to match the rough music score that was being composed for the video. When the picture was “locked” the composer matched the score to the visuals, the audio engineer did the final mix and sweetening, and the vision came to life.

The video is about a visionary company that employs people who care deeply about what they do. They work to help people see better. It is a human story about a global company that produces high-tech products that profoundly shape how we see the world. The video is about seeing the soul of the company, with your heart.

Unlike, Corey Hart, whose eyes are hidden…. even at night.