Tulcan Anthem: A Brand with Purpose

This video, titled Anthem, is the culmination of a brand-building process that reflects Tulcan’s deep purpose—one that goes far beyond most private equity firms. In fact, Tulcan doesn’t see itself as a traditional private equity company at all.

The heart of this video lies in its audience: the employees of the companies Tulcan owns. It’s about providing security, fostering longevity, and preserving legacies. By flipping traditional marketing on its head, Anthem takes a bottom-up approach, focusing on the people who make these companies thrive.

For owners considering Tulcan, the message is clear: their companies will be in good hands. The employees will be cared for. Vendors and partners will feel secure. Future prospects can trust that the businesses they’re working with are backed by Tulcan’s unique philosophy.

Visually, the focus is on what Tulcan does and how they do it differently—without drawing comparisons or calling out competitors. After all, when done right, Tulcan doesn’t have competitors. This video tells that story.

Pre-Production

Concept & Scripting

The original vision for the Tulcan Anthem animation was built around showcasing the brand’s legacy through a highly stylized, conceptual 3D language. During early development, we explored multiple creative directions—ranging from 2D and documentary-style to photorealistic 3D—but quickly aligned around a more abstract and conceptual approach. This direction gave us the flexibility to marry clean design with meaningful storytelling.

One of the earliest visual anchors was the use of parallel red stripes, inspired by both the Tulcan logo and the U.S. flag. These stripes became narrative devices—literal and symbolic conduits connecting modular scenes and representing themes like legacy, stability, family, and growth.

We kicked off pre-production with a detailed moodboard focused on clean architectural geometry, soft shadows, and stylized motion design. The goal was a bright, high-key aesthetic—white and gray surfaces interrupted by bold red accents. Every design decision centered on staying visually on-brand and emotionally grounded. We avoided harsh lights in favor of soft, subtle shadows that added just enough depth while maintaining an intentionally minimal, abstract look. Everything—terrain, structure, motion—was reduced to its most essential form for maximum clarity and conceptual strength.

To build around this direction, we started scripting early, based on scratch voiceover and brand tone inputs. Messaging like “Help make the things that make America” and brand-driven keywords such as stability, family-owned, and responsibly guided influenced everything—from copy to layout to camera framing and compositional priorities.

Storyboarding & Rapid Prototyping

Once we had the concept locked, we created internal storyboard to visually lay out each scene and assess the spatial flow and narrative pacing before moving into animation. This board helped fine-tune everything from visual transitions to how the red line would navigate different environments—from history and architecture to industrial spaces.

We moved from storyboards into a critical Rapid Prototyping (RP) phase. Using Blender, we built a master base scene, enabling each modular environment to connect along a single continuous red line path. That line became the glue. We focused intensely on timing—making sure every movement synced tightly to the voiceover and music cues.

Instead of treating RP as a rough pass, we pushed shaders and materials further than usual so the client could see something close to final quality early on. Eevee’s fast preview rendering and real-time shadows were perfect for fast iteration during this phase.

One standout RP moment was the U.S. map reveal. Using displacement maps, we elevated terrain features while the red lines flowed beneath them, forming a stylized American flag in the landscape—highlighting Tulcan’s national presence while staying in our conceptual design space.

For the “Family-Owned” section, we originally planned animated family tree diagrams built in After Effects and imported into Blender. After testing, we simplified the idea: rows of industrial-style 3D buildings with red stripes flowing through them. These became symbolic stand-ins for generational businesses—more effective, more on-brand.

The “Stability” shot went through multiple rounds. We tested various structural metaphors before landing on a platform supported by red pillars with the word “STABILITY” subtly spelled beneath. Feedback from the client helped strike the balance between metaphorical weight and visual clarity.

Another technically intensive scene was the miniature town. We used Blender’s OpenStreetMap (OSM) plugin to pull real-world geographic data, building a city layout with accurate roads and building placements. The red stripe moved through the space, triggering structures to rise—visually illustrating growth and industry.

During RP, we also fleshed out the timeline section using placeholders for text and graphics. This was designed to walk viewers through Tulcan’s client history using a single red line guiding the journey—setting the stage for more data-driven work in full production.

One of the most debated RP shots was a family portrait in an industrial setting. Stock options didn’t cut it. So we used Midjourney to generate a custom image that gave us full control over composition, mood, and demographics. This was composited into the 3D environment with the red stripe “reading” across it—embedding a photoreal moment into our conceptual world and tying emotional resonance into the overall story.

Throughout RP, we stuck mostly to isometric camera angles, only breaking that rule when the story demanded it. Movement was kept smooth, slow, and cinematic—underscoring Tulcan’s core themes of groundedness and trust.

Internal brainstorm sessions shaped the RP in meaningful ways—especially around growth animations in “Stability” and how we handled the “Family-Owned” visuals. The AI-generated family photo was chosen with client sign-off after reviewing several visual and demographic options.

Once RP was finalized, we moved into Full Production with a prototype that provided unusually strong creative and technical direction.

Production (Full Production / FP)

Look Development

With RP approved, Full Production kicked off by refining shaders, materials, lighting setups, and render outputs that were roughed in during prototyping. Though the aesthetic was minimal, achieving believability required layering in subtle textures, soft shadows, and authentic surface behavior.

We stayed in Blender, shifting from Eevee to Cycles for final renders. This preserved visual consistency while enabling raytraced lighting and softer shadows that made each shot feel more polished. White ground planes and architectural elements used diffuse materials with detailed bump maps and noise patterns—mimicking textured plaster or fine paper. These imperfections kept visuals clean but avoided sterility.

Lighting was tuned to eliminate harsh shadow edges. We used large area lights and HDRIs with low contrast settings to create soft, ambient illumination. Every shot was composited with careful light falloff, helping guide viewer attention to key elements like text, structures, or photo inserts—without introducing unnecessary visual noise.

Design & Animation

All animation happened in Blender. The red stripe was a constant—a throughline entering and exiting each modular scene to keep everything connected. Each environment was built around the master path, with individual scenes animated as standalone units, synced precisely to voiceover and musical cues.

Procedural animation tied to curve objects let the red line trigger events dynamically. For example, in the city build, buildings rose in response to the stripe’s motion—made possible through driver-based node setups linking animation states to curve progression.

Camera work was mostly keyframe-based with isometric dolly and tracking shots as the norm. We added orbit or push-in moves only where they improved visual clarity. In the “STABILITY” scene, we paid special attention to syncing pillar animation with red line movement and text reveals—strengthening the visual metaphor of structural support.

The “FAMILY-OWNED” section was reworked without the family tree animation. Instead, we used schematic-style warehouse buildings in 3D, arranged to suggest continuity and scale. Red lines moving through these forms told the legacy story in a more subtle and cohesive way.

We also completed the timeline section in FP, replacing placeholder content with real client data pulled from Tulcan’s history. After researching companies like Aaron Concrete and Dyson Corp., we compiled text and visuals, using ChatGPT to help format it efficiently. All content was then animated inside Blender to move in sync with the red line.

Every scene was rendered in Cycles, using multipass techniques for depth control, occlusion, and compositing flexibility.

Style Choices and Reasoning

Every design decision pulled double duty—driving clarity while reinforcing Tulcan’s brand values: stability, responsibility, legacy, and American heritage. Clean white structures signaled modernity and scale. The red stripe evoked patriotism, direction, and order. Soft shadows humanized the industrial context. The stable, slow, isometric camera language echoed Tulcan’s foundational support role.

Keeping environments stripped down gave priority to the red stripe, embedded messaging, and photos. Sticking with Blender for the whole animation pipeline ensured consistent lighting, material behavior, and allowed us to export clean camera data into After Effects for 3D UI overlays and text integration.

Technical Details

Animation and scene layout were handled in Blender using procedural nodes to control line movement and trigger object transformations. The miniature town scene used the OpenStreetMap plugin to bring in real-world GIS data, ensuring accuracy in street and structure layout. Everything ran along the master red line path, divided into shots and aligned to a base production timeline.

Shaders were built using principled BSDF materials, with custom bump and texture maps to keep the white surfaces realistic. Text was rendered either in Blender or in After Effects using JSON-exported camera data. This let us build layered 3D text with parallax, while retaining full post-production flexibility.

Final rendering used Cycles with path tracing. We optimized sample counts per scene to balance speed, quality, and compositing needs—minimizing noise without burning unnecessary render time.

Collaboration & Revisions

Client input was central to finalizing visuals and direction. The choice to go with AI-generated photography came after in-depth discussion around tone, demographic fit, and brand alignment. Stock imagery didn’t hit the mark, and the AI workflow gave us full creative control.

“Stability” went through multiple internal drafts before timing and structure synced with the client’s expectations. The timeline was another heavy revision area—Tulcan’s internal data was parsed and reformatted to match brand storytelling, with every date, image, and partner name fact-checked and integrated.

Every major production milestone—RP, FP drafts, final versions—was documented and approved through internal communication threads, ensuring alignment and accountability.

Challenges and Solutions

Finding a realistic multi-generational family photo in a factory setting was a non-starter. Stock failed both visually and legally. So we generated a custom Midjourney image, upscaled it, and post-processed it for seamless 3D integration.

Timeline data was fragmented and inconsistent. We used ChatGPT to aggregate, structure, and format it into a clean historical sequence—saving time and keeping everything accurate.

Render efficiency was managed by splitting shots into modular passes, allowing parallel rendering and smoother post workflows.

Post-Production & Delivery

Final Compositing & Color Grading

Post kicked off in After Effects, where we layered in 3D text using Blender camera data to ensure everything tracked perfectly—especially for words like “RESPONSIBLY,” “STABILITY,” and “FAMILY-OWNED,” along with the closing line.

Color grading used layered adjustments to balance shadows, mids, and highlights. We sharpened and contrast-boosted key objects to make them stand out against the neutral background.

The AI family image was fine-tuned in AE to match lighting and color balance, ensuring it felt integrated with the 3D environment.

We added depth of field, soft bloom, and motion blur in post to give transitions a polished, cinematic feel. We skipped flashy effects like lens flares to maintain the clean design language.

Fading overlays and gradient transitions were added to unify scenes during stripe movement, helping scenes blend without jarring cuts.

Timeline infographics were animated in AE using modular templates. All text, dates, and logos were flexible and easily updated. Exposed parameters in the pre-comps made revisions fast and efficient. All assets—text blocks, logos, overlays—were built to match Tulcan’s brand system.

Final Edits & Optimization

We fine-tuned audio to prioritize VO over the music bed, applying EQ and compression to balance clarity. Text timing was carefully synced to match the cadence of speech and animation flow.

Stripe reveals were dialed in for emotional impact—especially for worker photos and the closing sequence that lands on the Tulcan logo.

Final outputs included:

• 16:9 master with SRT captions

• 5:4 LinkedIn version with burned-in subtitles

All exports were bitrate-optimized for high fidelity across platforms. Subtitles were reviewed for timing and line breaks to keep everything clean and legible.

Transcript:

Our purpose at Tulcan is to help make the things that make America. 

The businesses we partner with are family-owned, many of them for decades. 

We understand how special it is for mothers and fathers to work alongside their sons and daughters every day, because we’re family-owned ourselves. 

We’re a different kind of investment partner–we aim to bring more than just capital to the table.

We know industry inside and out, and we know how to grow businesses responsibly. 

To us that means growth that preserves the legacies of what generations of hard work have built

And provides the stability a business needs for everyone involved to be able to buy in with their whole heart. 

In short, we know it’s not about us. It’s about the men and women crafting the tools that keep our country moving. 

Together, they are Tulcan.