OpenLitterMap is an open-source app for mobile that allows its users to capture photos of litter, categorise it by type and then upload it to a database where it is geotagged. The information produced by the app can then help identify locations with high concentrations of pollution like litter, medical waste and dog fouling, and in turn, can assist city councils and municipalities in making decisions on where to place new bins or enact preventative laws and policies to help reduce the negative human-induced impacts on the environment.
From late-2019 and throughout 2020, I worked with GeoTech Innovations on one of their intellectual properties, OpenLitterMap. In that time, I assisted GTI’s CEO, Sean Lynch in producing a promotional video of their app that could also be used for activities such as fundraising, sponsorship, investment and crowdfunding.
Pre-production took place in late 2019 and production commenced in the early months of 2020 with the original target release date of April 2020. Due to concerns with COVID 19 and after seeing a drop in app usage in that time due to national and global lockdowns taking place, the launch of the video and dissemination campaign by their marketing team was later pushed back to September 2020.
In addition to the video, multiple trailers and teaser videos were also produced in the lead-up to the launch of the video and were optimised in screen ratio to best fit social media and professional platforms like Facebook Instagram & LinkedIn respectively.
The Storyline
The storyline for the video had two goals. The first was to highlight the litter that people see every day in plain sight and is often passed by the general public. The second goal then was to demonstrate how OpenLitterMap is used in different environments and inform the user of the potential impact it can help make if used and adopted on a mass scale.
Sean himself plays the main character and app user in the video, while also the voiceover, co-written by the two of us. The overall storyline consists of three sub-plots that highlights the daily fight against litter and pollution which takes place in cities, parks, beaches and oceans. Throughout the video, Sean the narrator explains how OpenLitterMap and citizen science can be used to help make a difference in terms of protecting the environment, and eventually ends with a call-to-action to download and use the app.
The video was edited in Premiere Pro and the end animation was created in After Effects. The song “Hurrungane” by “Luwaks” was purchased from Epidemic Sound, where it was broken down by stems and remastered to better fit key moments and messages in the video. This was done by adjusting stem adjusting the volume of each stem independently throughout the video and editing the compilation of clips with a 4/4 musical beat in mind to fit the music.
Additional Videos
Once the main video was complete, three additional videos were produced. Two trailers were produced in the lead up to the launch of OpenLitterMap’s fundraising campaign and the third video, the app demonstration was released with a main promotional video upon its launch.
Fundraising Campaign
Openlittermap’s fundraising campaign launched in September of 2020 where a crowdfunding campaign was launched on IndieGoGo’s website and private fundraising activities were initiated in the weeks that followed. Since the campaign’s launch, Sean and Geotech Innovations raised their target funds privately, enabling them to expand their team and further develop the app. Additionally, the campaign video and trailers are now used on a regular basis as an effective set of dissemination tools, both for social media as well as presentations, pitches and conferences.
OpenLitterMap is now available on Android and iOS and they can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store and App Store respectively.