Microsoft / Shimmy

A story for a changing workplace

Microsoft commissioned a short animated documentary about Shimmy Technologies, whose digital training helps garment workers learn to operate new machinery. The campaign was developed around International Women’s Day. COLOR Creative led production, with Bhavisha Sharadhi producing, and contracted JBN for direction and production through post.

The subject carried a difficult tension. Automation could make some work safer while leaving experienced workers afraid for their livelihoods. Explaining the software would only tell part of that story. The film needed someone whose experience could make the change matter to a viewer.

Begin with what Ruma already knew

Ruma Akter had been curious about sewing since childhood. She learnt from women around her, persuaded her sister to teach her, and made a sky-blue three-piece dress. Years later, garment work became a way to support her daughter.

Those details gave the film a person to follow before introducing the technology. Ruma was already skilled. The uncertainty came when computerised machinery arrived and she worried that women would be passed over for the new roles. Her account connects a change in factory equipment to something much closer: being able to provide for a family.

Let the form travel beyond the factory

Research and interviews in Bangladesh supplied the lived detail. The animated form gave the film room to move between childhood memory, factory work and the possibilities Ruma was beginning to imagine.

The finished frames use bright patterned surfaces against a dark ground, with fine line drawings holding the spaces around the characters. A child beneath trees, hands against fabric and women at sewing machines can share the same visual world. The approach keeps clothing and the people making it present, even as the story moves into digital training. JBN coordinated with an international animation team through the production.

Make learning a human turning point

The training becomes meaningful through Ruma’s change in role. She begins with apprehension about using a tablet, learns through Shimmy’s app, and goes on to teach other women. Her curiosity has somewhere new to go.

That progression gives the audience a way to understand the product without losing the person. The technology enters an existing working life; the film follows what learning allows Ruma to attempt. The intended feeling is confidence with some weight behind it: someone who understands the uncertainty is now helping another worker through it.

The original campaign account describes short digital tutorials, games and quizzes on a Microsoft Surface Go tablet. Workers learn the terms and operations they need for new machines, with support from Shimmy’s trainers. Those ordinary actions make the training legible. Ruma’s move from learner to trainer gives that explanation a personal consequence.

Carry one story across an international team

JBN’s remit covered research and interviews, editorial and creative direction, and location production of video and stills in Bangladesh. Post-production continued through a remote edit in the UK and coordination with animators working internationally.

The same story had to survive each stage: the detail of the interviews, the decisions in the edit and the world created by the animation. JBN’s involvement continued into post and the versions prepared for release, working within COLOR Creative’s production led by Bhavisha Sharadhi.

A hero film, with versions for its release

Delivery included the finished hero film and versioning for social assets. The campaign also used the title Microsoft: Empowering Women in the Garment Industry.

By the end, Ruma is teaching other women to use the tools she once found unfamiliar. That change gives the training a human consequence, and returns the story to her own curiosity and skill.