Visual Essays, Narratives and Music
Established August 2011 | @videoessay
Ask me anything
-
What is “The Story of Animation”?
The Story of Animation is an educational film about the process of animation. Although aimed primarily at potential animation clients, the film has something for everyone - animation students, animation artists, animation producers, and anyone who has ever wondered about how animation is made. Please see our website -thestoryofanimation.com
The Story
The film follows the journey of “You” (the main character), a 3rd-tier technical writer who dreams of one day being a product designer. Working after hours, he creates a fantastic new product. When he presents his product to his employers, they inform him that it’s up to him to create an advertising campaign for the product - an advertising campaign that must be animated. This poses a problem for “you” - he knows very little about animation, and is instantly filled with doubts, and thus his future hangs in the balance. This is where our friendly narrator steps in, to guide “you” through the process of making an animated film. Step by step, our hero’s anxiety and doubts are put to rest, and in the end, he is triumphant!The Production
The Story of Animation came about as a solution to a problem: The Animation Workshop, an animation school in Viborg, Denmark, had been graduating a great number of incredibly qualified animators, animation producers, and CG artists over the past 10 years. These artists had been forming small companies and beginning to produce fantastic work. The problem was not with the studios, or the quality of work they were producing, but rather with the clients: Most of them seemed to believe that animation was a simple, uncomplicated process, and were often disappointed to learn that there were very specific stages in the animation process that required their participation (and finances). It’s almost as if they believed that creating animation was as simple as pitching an idea, and then sitting back while a couple of animators with pencil and paper goofed off, told jokes, and drank copious amounts of coffee until “wallah”! the animation was finished! Furthermore, they seemed to think that there would be no difference in cost between an animated film created in flash, 2D, stop motion, cut-out, motion graphics, or fully rendered Pixar-style 3D animation! At the time Morten Thorning, Director of the Animation Workshop approached me with the idea for the film, I was experiencing similar problems with a client in Copenhagen. In fact, I’d just spent several days creating a presentation about the benefits of using animation for an environmental messaging campaign. I was tasked with convincing a panel of scientists, sociologists, environmental activists, and architects how animation could be used to create positive, engaging, and entertaining content for environmental action messaging - no small feat! -
Johnny Kelly has posted a brilliant ‘behind the scenes’ film for his “Back To The Start” spot, which highlights the depth of complexity and attention to detail required to create the resulting film (which feels easy and charming to watch).
The crew discuss all the elements that help tell the story. They also give insights into technicalities, of which there are many.
loading…
