How animation opens minds

Animation can take complex ideas and present them in ways everyone can understand. It allows us to disconnect from the constraints of reality and communicate things visually, with virtually limitless possibilities.

“Animation projects help our clients by leading to greater ad recall, engagement and emotional connection,” says Denise Maitan, Argyle’s Senior Designer and Animator. She should know, given the plaudits she’s received for her work at Argyle.

Argyle has used animation to help clients communicate about very serious issues, such as disease, debt and the impact of legal separation on children, to name just a few topics. If you wouldn’t associate these topics with animation, that’s precisely the point: animation eases the intensity, opening up the hearts and minds to achieve awareness, understanding, action and behavioural change.

There are other benefits. We can use visuals that are respectful and reflective of diverse cultures and imagery that is understandable in any language. Pictures really can be worth a thousand words.

From conception to animation

Just how does it all happen? Although live-action might seem like a more complex process, given the logistics of having to obtain the right talent, locations, props and equipment, animation is also a complex process requiring highly trained, skilled professionals.

• Concept, script and style: All videos—live and animated—start with a creative concept and a script. Animators take the script and develop style frames to provide a client with the overall look recommended for the video.
• Storyboards: Next come the storyboards—the visuals that will be used for each frame for the script. Sometimes these are done with pencil and paper, sometimes digitally, but the intent is the same—to provide a client with a fairly detailed overview of the whole video before it’s animated.
• The magic: Once the script, look and storyboards are approved, the magic of animation happens, bringing the storyboard static images to life, adding voice-over and music—and timing all of this to make sure the voice-over coincides with the visual in each frame.

“I love the freedom of being able to create anything imaginable and within animation, there are lots of different techniques and styles to choose from depending on what best suits the message we want to communicate” Denise says. “It can be 2D, 3D, stop motion, motion graphics, or traditional. There are so many possibilities, and creating an appropriate look and feel to each project is very rewarding.”

How will Denise celebrate International Animation Day? Sharing ideas and learning from fellow animators and industry folks at the Adobe MAX online conference. And maybe starting on her dream of animating a full-length film.

Celebrate the day with us by watching Argyle’s animation demo reel.

Check out more about International Animation Day from the people who launched it, Association Internationale du Film d’Animation International Animated Film Association in recognition of Emile Reynaud’s public performance of projected moving images in Paris, October 28, 1892.