What a Silver Telly Award Reminded Us About Craft
Excellence in Craft: Best Stop Motion
When we set out to create a stop-motion animation for Think Blue MA, we knew we were choosing a challenge. This wasn’t our first stop-motion. (Learn more about our work in Public Sector Communications here).
We knew it would require more hours, more focus. We knew we’d spend days building tiny sets, handcrafting miniature props, and obsessing over details most viewers would never consciously notice.
But we also knew the pay-off would be worth it.
And guess what? We were right. We’re proud to share that the project earned a Silver Telly Award for Excellence in Craft: Best Stop Motion. But more than the award itself, the project serves as a reminder of something we believe deeply at MediaBoss:
Craft matters.
Clean Water. Simple Actions. One Big Challenge.
Think Blue Massachusetts exists to help residents understand how everyday actions impact local waterways.
But their challenge isn’t explaining how stormwater pollution happens. Their challenge is getting people to care and helping them understand how their simple actions can result in meaningful impact.
This is where we come in.
Our partners at Capital Strategic Solutions brought us into the campaign to help Think Blue MA distill their message into talking points viewers could relate to. The first step was meeting with the team and listening to their pain points to identify the top three to highlight in a video.
Pick up after your dog, prevent vehicle fluids from leaking into storm drains, and use fertilizer responsibly.
Why We Still Believe in Making Things
The next step was pitching our Stop-Motion concept. Why Stop-Motion? We’ll get more into the “whys” behind Stop-Motion in a future Insights post, but to simplify it here: because it is real.
Viewers’ feeds are overloaded with AI generated content and they’re getting sick of it. They don’t trust AI generated content the same way they trust human-generated content. 69% of people who view online content say they don’t trust AI-generated content as much as human-generated content.
That means that more than two-thirds of online viewers do not trust AI generated content. That’s a big number.
Computer generated animation can look AI generated. Stop-motion, with its rough textures and perfect imperfections does not look AI generated. I mean…our very human fingerprints are literally imprinted all over it!
The team at Think Blue MA was all-in. They loved the concept. We wrote the script, got the greenlight, and started creating. For four weeks, our team hand-built a miniature world and brought it to life one frame at a time.
Trusted Voices Matter Too
If you’re from Massachusetts, you may recognize the voice behind Think Blue Means Clean Water from You. That was by design. Because when you’re asking people to change their habits, trust matters.
We reached out to our longtime friend and collaborator, local radio legend, David O’Leary, and asked him to work with us on this project. Viewers know O’Leary from listening to Magic 106.7 and WCRB Classical 99.5.
Having him voice the script helped make the video feel less like a public service announcement and more like a conversation.
Great Partnerships Make Great Work
Now, this project wouldn’t have happened without our good friends at Capital Strategic Solutions.
We’ve partnered with the CSS team on a variety of municipal and public communication initiatives over the years, and we continue to value their trust, collaboration, and commitment to helping communities better understand important issues.
Their team developed and executed the broader campaign strategy and we were honored to help bring one piece of that vision to life.
“The Think Blue MA campaign is a great example of what happens when talented partners come together around a shared mission. MediaBoss brought an extraordinary level of creativity, craftsmanship, and attention to detail to this project, transforming an important public education message into something that was both memorable and engaging. Their Silver Telly Award is a well-deserved recognition of the team’s commitment to excellence. At Capital Strategic Solutions, we’re proud to have partnered with MediaBoss on this effort and many others over the years, and we continue to value their collaborative approach, innovative thinking, and dedication to helping organizations connect with the people they serve.”
The Award Is Nice. The Outcome Matters More.
We’re grateful for the Silver Telly, but what we’re proudest of is creating a piece of work that helped support a meaningful public education effort. Because while technology will continue to evolve, we still believe some of the most effective communication happens when people make things for other people. One frame at a time.
Watch the MediaBoss and CSS teams discuss how the Think Blue MA campaign came together and why we chose stop-motion to communicate a complex environmental message, below!
Interested in creating memorable communications for your organization?
Watch the Telly Award-Winning Stop Motion Animation Below: