2d animation Archives - Trunk | Animation Production Company

26

Oct
2020

By Layla

Michael J Fox Foundation

On 26, Oct 2020 | In clip, Home | By Layla

Back in Summer 2019 the Michael J Fox Foundation in New York contacted us. They wanted to make a film to describe how Parkinson’s Disease can impact a family, how symptoms may manifest and to communicate the need for volunteers to take part in testing. Working closely with our great American rep Cath Berclaz, it was great to be involved from the preliminary stages, we did a lot of reading around the subject and had long calls with the researchers at the Foundation who talked us through the stages of the disease. From this crash-course we wrote a script.

Layla did some initial character designs which the Foundation loved. The aim was to use simple avatars rather than recognisable human characters. This meant the story could be effectively told in it’s simplest form without showing gender, class or race.

Using Layla’s characters we collaborated with the excellent Spencer Wilson of Peepshow Collective who used his Illustrator magic to create backgrounds for the piece. Here you can see how Layla’s animatic sketches were worked up into finished designs.

We pulled a small team together and got down to the animation once the script, animatic and designs were signed off. Most characters were rigged and animated in Adobe After Effects using shape layers. Our lead animator Alex Potts created hero animation in Adobe Animate. This was an effective way to animate multiple characters.

This film is aimed at a wide audience so our challenge was to translate some of the complicated scientific in as concise a manner as possible. This lead to some fun experiments in data visualisation.

Although a longer process than usual, we are super pleased with how this film came out. The cherry on the cake was getting to work with the great Alan Alda who provided the narration. His warmth and empathy for the subject are an important part of the storytelling. We can also recommend Alan Alda’s Clear and Vivid podcast where some fascinating scientific topics are explored.

Tags | 2d animation, after effects, alan alda, alex potts, animate, cath berclaz, illustrator, Layla Atkinson, michael j fox foundation, MJFF, Richard Barnett, spencer wilson

20

Feb
2018

In Press

By Pip

Trunk has created a series of beautiful teasers for the Financial Times.

On 20, Feb 2018 | In Press | By Pip

Alasdair + Jock like lunch, in fact they like all meals, it would appear food nourishes them. But it’s lunch that has taken centre stage the last few weeks due to a project for the Financial Times. At first our producer thought it was for an article about his magical budgeting skills. No. It was in fact much more wholesome a project; to make a set of teasers and illustrations for the acclaimed feature ‘Lunch with the FT’, an article that has been popularly carried for decades, and that features every major creative and business name you can think of. The relaxed, yet spirited interviews take place in a restaurant of the interviewee’s choice, and the bill is footed by the FT, who else? The order and receipt are then published for your deliberation, cogitation and digestion.

With an extensive archive of wonderfully candid lunches to exploit, the FT editorial team wanted to give them a fresh twist. Alasdair + Jock developed appetising little mysteries for each, revealing subtle clues through beautifully animated vignettes that reflect the humour, warmth and tangue of the interviews. With two new ones from Charlie Brooker, and Alma Deutscher, and two oldies from Jonathan Franzen (coming soon) and Nigel Farage, there was a nice mix of subject matter to call on. Chris Swaine and Marty O’Brien at Fonic created beautiful soundbeds for each, which really help contextualise the pieces, even using a snippet of Alma Deutscher’s piano work to help illustrate her story.

Producer Richard Barnett notes, “Large established media houses have a massive mine of data which remains essentially untapped. For example the Financial Times has articles stretching back over a 100 years. These teasers demonstrate how archives can be made relevant to the contemporary media conversation, whether interviews, opinion pieces, or historical articles, as history repeats itself, they often become more relevant with time. By creating visual introductions to published interviews a wider audience can be captured than could have been achieved by text alone.”

The interviews along with Jock’s wonderful illustrations were published in the FT Weekend edition, as well as online, and the teasers were successfully shared and re-tweeted on social media. The projects were created using a mixture of photoshop, flash and after effects.

Click below for press coverage :-

Credits:

Directed by Alasdair + Jock

Producer: Richard Barnett

Illustration: Jock Mooney

On 29, Sep 2017 | In news / blog | By Layla

We were beyond thrilled when the guys from RPA got in touch and asked us to make a film for their “Imaginary Friends Society” project for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.
The project was aimed at children and their families facing a brain tumour diagnosis. In total twenty films were made, each one explaining a different aspect of cancer treatment and what could be expected. Our film “Radiation” explains how radiation treatment works.

We threw ourselves head first into this and completed this film in seven weeks flat. There were a lot of late nights and long weekends but we are really pleased with the end result.

When we were planning the film we decided to try out several different animation techniques….it seemed like a decent idea until we realised there were sets to be built, cars to be sculpted, balls to be wrangled and a few THOUSAND frames of artwork to be individually cut out.
There was also music to be composed, 2d animation to be drawn, props to be sourced, two voice records, a three day shoot that turned into a seven day shoot, a tonne of compositing…. let’s just say it was hard.

Once again we got to work with the excellent Julian Rhind-Tutt who provides the voice of Walter and we were thrilled to work with Jane Horrocks who, it turns out, does an excellent pig.

So many people and businesses kindly donated their time and energy into this project, we couldn’t have done it without them.

We felt honoured to be asked to participate in this project for such a great cause and alongside some of our favourite animation companies from all across the world including Psyop, Hornet, The Mill, Not To Scale, Lobo, Gentleman Scholar, Giant Ant, Strange Beast… among many others. Check out the other films here

Tags | 2d animation, charity, Daniel Pemberton, Jane Horrocks, Jock Mooney, Julian Rhind Tutt, Layla Atkinson, radiation, Richard Barnett, Rok Predin, rpa, stop-motion, the imaginary friend society