ArtsWA

Overview

An animated video for the ArtsWA’s Creative Start program, focused on increasing arts integration in schools.

Challenge

Develop an engaging and concise animated video that clearly defines the concept of a teaching artist for a diverse audience, while also exemplifying ArtsWA’s values and mission. Additionally, create an audio-described version of the video for visually impaired audiences.

Users

  • Early Learning Educators: Seeking innovative ways to integrate arts into their teaching methodology.

  • Artists and ArtsWA Grant Applicants: Looking for clear guidelines and inspiration on becoming teaching artists.

  • Parents, Families, and Caregivers: Interested in the value and impact of arts in early education.

Role

I was responsible for animating the video based on a provided script and voiceover. My role involved collaborating on project planning, conceptualizing ideas, developing storyboards, editing, and revising the final cut.

Process

ArtsWA approached me with a proposal to animate a video using a provided script and voiceover, over the course of two months. They sent the script for me to review, and we met to discuss the overall vision, scope, and schedule. I did creative research for inspiration, followed by design for the storyboard. I then created an animatic to assess the video’s timing and flow, before producing the final animation. Throughout the project, I engaged in regular feedback sessions with ArtsWA to ensure the video was aligned with ArtsWA’s values of accessibility, inclusivity, and community.

Project Initiation and Research

ArtsWA gave me the opportunity to suggest script revisions, so I advocated for redundancies to be consolidated or eliminated, in order to make the most important parts of the script more prominent and memorable.

I gathered inspiration largely by watching a variety of music videos and short films on Vimeo, since oftentimes that’s where I see the most visually dynamic and artistic animation. I also did research to better understand the context in which the viewers would experience this video.

Conceptualization

Typically, for a commercial or promotional video, I provide clients with a choice of three distinct mood boards. However, in this case, ArtsWA emphasized their commitment to fostering artistic creativity and embracing their core values.

They expressed a clear preference for granting me the artistic freedom to explore and express my creative vision, rather than restricting the process to predefined options. Based on the script and research, I created a single mood board to communicate my artistic vision, which allowed me to explore the concept more in-depth than if I had divided my attention between three separate ideas. My mood board expressed a combination of:

  • Contour lines, to symbolize connectedness and the through-line of community.

  • Splashes of animated color amongst black lines and a white background, to represent the diversity and liveliness arts brings to education.

  • Stop-motion-style color fill, as an expression of my own artistic creativity and background as an animator.

Storyboard Design

I illustrated a low-fidelity storyboard, so I could get feedback on the fundamental structure of the visual narrative before developing it in more detail. Having already worked with the Producer on previous projects, and with many years of experience in the nonprofit arts world, it was easy to connect with the team, even though the timeline was short. This familiarity made it especially easy to bounce ideas around and shape rough concepts into clear, solid visions.

Animation and Design Iteration

With the storyboard approved, I moved into creating an animatic, which is essentially a preliminary version of the animation. This allowed me to fine-tune the timing, pacing, and transitions, ensuring that each scene flowed seamlessly into the next, before getting too detailed with animation.

Regular feedback sessions with the ArtsWA team were instrumental throughout the animation phase. We typically watched the whole cut beginning to end, and then we reviewed their notes scene-by-scene. I translated that feedback into a checklist of changes to make for each scene, which served as a helpful barometer for my progress toward subsequent feedback sessions.

Synchronizing the animation with the voiceover was the most challenging piece, given the nature of the continuous line, in that any large changes to one scene had a noticeable impact on the scenes surrounding it. This required meticulous attention to detail and multiple rounds of fine-tuning.

The final task involved creating a second version of the video, incorporating an Audio Description track recorded by 'Arts and Visually Impaired Audiences,' a company known for their visually impaired staff's expertise in audio recording. I re-timed the animation to accommodate the additional narration, looping specific segments of the animation during pauses, and extending the music track in certain sections to ensure seamless integration of the audio descriptions with the original voiceover.

Outcome

The project successfully culminated in the creation of two versions of the video (standard and audio-described). These videos now serve as informative and accessible resources on ArtsWA's platform.

Reflections

This project was a fulfilling experience, emphasizing the importance of iterative feedback and the power of creative collaboration. I also appreciated the opportunity to concentrate solely on animation, supported by a team well-versed in film production and the arts.

Explore the Project

To see the video I animated, alongside other videos in the Arts Integration series, visit ArtsWA's Creative Start Studio.