Newton Investment Management’s 2016 annual conference was about bringing together some of the world’s leading financial thinkers to share ideas and reveal unique insights into the investment landscape.

The theme of bees was chosen to reflect this sense of collective achievement and collaboration. As with previous years, the role of the film was to set the tone of the event, instantly engaging the audience and immersing them in the theme.  We created a highly rhythmic animation with quick-fire ‘kinetic text’ captions. These were driven by an explosive percussion track, punctuated by short live action clips and unexpected music changes.

The visuals – ranging from psychedelic jungle animals to expansive cityscapes, Mahatma Ghandi to Jimi Hendrix (and, of course, lots of bees) were designed to tease and delight, playing with metaphor and optical illusion to hold attention and provide an intelligent and challenging introduction to the event’s key themes.

A series of short sting versions were produced to chapter-mark the four main sessions of the Newton conference.