Getting Real-time with InfluxDB

Time series data doesn't exactly photograph well. It's the readings coming off machines, sensors, servers, and networks, and none of that looks like anything on screen. InfluxData needed an explainer video that made the category understandable and made InfluxDB's place in it clear.

InfluxData brought in Gorilla Creative, a corporate video production company in San Francisco, to produce a video to do just that.

The Challenge

A database that records measurements over time is invisible by nature. It's the systems running underneath the visible world.

Every line of the script needed a decision about what a viewer sees while it's spoken, and on an abstract subject those decisions aren't obvious.

Our Approach

We pitched the idea for a hybrid video: stock footage from the industries where time series data actually lives, with animation built on top of it, carried by a voice over.

We started with the two-column script, which is where a written script becomes a visual one. Line by line, we worked out what would be on screen: which ideas were carried best by footage of a real environment, which needed an infographic-style animation to make sense, and where both should happen at once.

Time series data is generated in physical places, so we grounded the video in those places using footage from the industries and use cases the data comes from. Then we created animations that felt natural in those spaces, so the readings and visualizations move with the shot instead of floating over it.

With nobody on camera, the voice over carries the whole video, so we gathered custom auditions and brought InfluxData a short list with our recommendation before recording.

Music and sound design gave the voice over something to sit on and maintained the pace through the more technical stretches.

The Outcome

The test for an explainer video about invisible software is whether someone can accurately understand the concept after they watch it.

InfluxData got a video that puts time series data in the places it's generated, so the explanation happens in the same frame as the thing being explained. That was the reason we pitched the format. An idea sticks better when a viewer can see where it lives.