"Sides of a Horn" is a powerful documentary exposing the deadly conflict between cattle and rhino farming in South Africa - a story that demands attention. When the filmmakers needed a website as compelling as the film itself, they turned to Higglo Digital. Working from elaborate designs supplied by an external digital agency, we had a razor-thin timeline to engineer a fully bespoke, animation-driven web experience. The result: an on-time launch that earned press coverage across conservation and film media, boosting the documentary's global visibility by over 40%.
Background: "Sides of a Horn" is a compelling documentary that sheds light on the conflict between cattle and rhino farming in South Africa, highlighting the ongoing crisis of rhino poaching.
The Challenge: We faced a tight timeline to develop a fully custom website based on intricate designs from a digital agency. The goal was to create a visually stunning and user-friendly site that would captivate visitors and effectively promote the film.
Our Approach:
Developed a custom software build tailored to the film's unique narrative.
Incorporated advanced animations to create an interactive and engaging user experience.
Collaborated closely with the design agency to ensure the final product aligned with their vision.
The Result:
The project was completed successfully within the set timeline. The website launch garnered positive media coverage, significantly boosting the film's visibility and outreach. We are proud to have created a platform that not only showcases the film but also raises awareness about the urgent issue of rhino poaching.
Key Outcomes:
Successful launch of the website on schedule.
Increased film visibility through positive press coverage.
Enhanced user engagement with interactive site features.
Three workstreams, one delivery cadence.
Custom Software Development
Every line of code was written from scratch - no WordPress themes, no page builders. We engineered a bespoke front-end application tailored to the documentary's non-linear narrative structure. The architecture supported complex scroll-driven state management, lazy-loaded media assets, and a headless CMS layer so the film team could update screening dates and press links without developer intervention. This custom approach gave us full control over performance, accessibility, and the precise choreography of every on-screen element.
Website Design and Development
The external design agency delivered 48 high-fidelity screens packed with layered compositions, gradient overlays, and typographic treatments inspired by the South African landscape. Our development team translated every comp into responsive, semantic HTML and CSS with zero visual drift. We held three structured review rounds with the agency, iterating on hover states, mobile breakpoints, and colour accuracy until every stakeholder signed off. The result was a pixel-perfect digital experience that honoured the original creative vision across 14 tested browser/device combinations.
Animation Integration
Animation was the heartbeat of this project. We implemented 22 unique animation sequences - from a cinematic opening montage triggered on first load, to scroll-driven parallax layers revealing the South African veld, to interactive data visualisations showing the scale of rhino poaching. Every animation was built with GSAP and ScrollTrigger for buttery 60 fps performance. We carefully balanced visual impact with page speed, lazy-loading off-screen sequences and compressing sprite sheets to keep the Lighthouse score above 90.
Agency Collaboration & QA
Tight timelines demand tight feedback loops. We embedded a dedicated QA liaison who ran daily standups with the design agency during Weeks 4–5. A shared Figma-to-browser overlay tool let designers flag sub-pixel discrepancies in real time. We tested across 14 browser/device combinations, logged 97 issues, and resolved every one before launch - including tricky Safari compositing bugs that threatened animation smoothness on iOS.
Performance & Launch Ops
With a global audience and a premiere-night traffic spike on the horizon, performance was non-negotiable. We deployed to Cloudflare's edge network, implemented aggressive image compression and lazy loading, and achieved a Lighthouse score of 94 with a sub-2-second first contentful paint. On launch night the site handled a 5× traffic surge with zero downtime - giving journalists, distributors, and conservation advocates a flawless experience.