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Check City Commercials

I helped write, direct, edit, and animate Check City commercials for connected TV, keeping the financial message clear across the campaign.

Main animated Check City spot, using simple story beats, friendly city visuals, and restrained financial messaging.

Project details

  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Adobe After Effects
  • Frame.io
  • CTV Commercial DirectionDirected connected-TV spots from concept and script through production review.
  • Animated CommercialsBuilt motion-led ads around Check City’s financial-services message.
  • Commercial Concept DevelopmentHelped write scenarios and plan the visual beats for each spot.
  • Video Editing & Post-ProductionBalanced footage, graphics, timing, and revisions across several cuts.
  • Financial Services Ad CreativeKept on-screen claims and benefits within what the product could support.

The Commercial Work

For Check City, I helped write commercial concepts, directed connected-TV spots, and animated campaign pieces. The job was to make short financial-service ads that sounded like Check City and gave viewers enough time to understand the message.

The claims and benefits needed careful review. We could still make the spots warm and watchable, but the writing, on-screen text, and timing could not imply more than the product offered.

Compliance-Conscious Storytelling

Financial advertising can lose trust quickly when it overpromises, gets vague, or leans too hard into urgency. For these spots, the writing and direction had to focus on clarity: what the viewer needed to understand, what could be said responsibly, and how the brand could stay warm without making the message feel careless.

I worked through the script, edit, and graphics together. A callout had to appear long enough to read; a transition had to move the story forward; and an animated example had to clarify the idea rather than compete with the line being spoken.

Additional animated campaign cut exploring the same Check City motion system and brand tone.

Brand Motion Across Formats

The illustrated spots used Check City's color and simple iconography to explain the message quickly. I built the motion in After Effects and edited in Premiere, keeping each cut legible on the kind of screen where it would run.

Because the campaign included multiple cuts, consistency mattered. Each piece needed to feel like it belonged to the same family, whether it was a short animation, a longer spot, or a CTV scenario with a different setup.

Shorter animation cut built for flexible campaign placement while keeping the same brand rhythm.

CTV Direction and Production Rhythm

The live-action CTV spots brought in performance, production, and a different editing rhythm. I directed the scenarios and worked through the handoff from concept and script to footage, edit, graphics, review, and final delivery.

Frame.io kept review notes tied to the right version as the team refined each spot. That mattered when a small wording or timing change could affect both the edit and the compliance review.

CTV mall scenario spot directed around a simple customer story and careful financial-service messaging.
CTV rock climbing scenario spot using a clear visual metaphor while staying aligned with the campaign tone.

The campaign combined writing, live-action direction, editing, and animation. Across formats, I kept returning to the same test: would someone understand the offer after one viewing, and was every claim supportable?

Related Workshop Articles

A closer look at building movement into illustrated characters in After Effects.

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