006. Feel Good Factor
We’ve been fortunate enough to work with some wonderful NGO’s. Our role: to create memorable animated films that raise awareness for their projects, ambitions, and profile. In fact, it’s become a bit of a niche for us, a speciality, that we can really get behind. The messaging enriches us, our work, and the ultimate goal - our client’s audience.
A good example would be the Plastics suite of films we made for Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Their ambition is to drive businesses to adopt a circular economy, through unarguable facts and positive messaging. We care hugely about our planet, as parents and people, so supporting EMF to make compelling animated videos is clearly a win-win!
The challenge for these videos was how to visually represent complex (and some might argue quite boring) industrial systems in a way that didn’t alienate the intended audience. The films were directed at a specific audience of business leaders in the waste trade, who would bring a high level of knowledge and wouldn’t want to be talked down to with over-simplified messaging and content. On the flip side, we had to find an economy of scale ourselves, to create 8-minutes of animation over 6 films that all held together with a strong visual identity, realisable in just a few months.
As is often the case, we were brought in when the concept was still being defined. EMF know their audience more than us, so it made sense the scripts were penned by them and we offered support from a visual comprehension and narrative storytelling perspective. As the scripts developed we started work on key visuals and storyboards, to best shape up the look and suggest layout ideas. Producer Steve Smith brought on-board animator Max Halley to direct.
One of the beauties about being a boutique studio is we get to enlist the perfect creative partners, so we never get stale and never run out of new ideas!
The films were defined by a graphic language created specifically for the Plastics project - Max employed iconography reminiscent of instruction manuals, with a pared-back but striking palette, overlayed with a textured boil that adds a handmade, recycled aesthetic. Everything happens within rounded lozenges, like app buttons, adding to the feeling you’re watching a polished UX.
The graphic assets themselves were made in Illustrator, and the animation in After Effects, rigging elements as needed. The most important thing for us was that everything moves with a polished ease - things slide nicely into place, and elements connect neatly. We also employed transitions, often with a little reverse jump (a nod to old world slide projectors!) to move between set-ups.
The last stage of production was sound and voice. We drew up a shortlist of actors from an agency search and EMF were drawn to Jessie Buckley’s warm Irish tone and the comedian Jason Lewis. We enlisted Euan James-Richards to provide a sound palette of tiny noises and ambient boil that washes over the film whilst pinpointing specific actions, grounding the animated movements in a tactile soundscape.
Supported by EMF we delivered an eye-catching set of films that were well received - over 141,000 views to date. What’s fundamental for us is that we were able to contribute to EMF’s mission to change old industrial methods into new, innovative and clean models that slot into the dream of a circular economy, where waste is designed out of the system.
This was our fourth project for EMF. Along with English Heritage, The Wellcome Trust, Flocabulary, Influence Film Club, and Médecins sans Frontières, we feel empowered by helping causes close to our hearts.
If you work for an NGO that is taking steps to improve our lives and our planet, see if an animated film might be the best way to convey your crucial message. If it worked for EMF it could work for you.
““We enjoyed working with Beakus to bring to life the vision of a circular economy for plastic. Not an easy feat, but the team worked with us point by point to infuse the scripts with creativity and fun.””