Anew
Design and Animation: Guy with Red Beard
Written & Produced: David laurence and Michelle O'Connor
Voiceover artist: clare dunne
Sound engineer: Art Skehan
Directors: Guy with Red Beard & David Laurence
With thanks to Tracy and Mark at mutiny.ie, speckyscribbler.com, Tara Street Productions
Anew provides free support services for pregnant women, new mothers and families.
Located in Dublin and Cork their services are based on Homelessness and Housing, Parenting Support and Maternal Wellbeing.
The video was included in Anew’s winning Charity Impact Award submission as well as been nominated for Best Animation at the Emerging Directors Awards 2020.
If you would like to see the process of making this video, it’s outlined below.
Script
Together with Michelle O’Connor and David Laurence, I worked on a script to help Anew tell their story. Our challenge was to distill Anew and their services to fit into a two minute video. We achieved this by working closely with Anew and focus on the aspects that resonated. We wanted to make it clear that Anew deals with women who become homeless because of pregnancy and not women who are already homeless and become pregnant.
Storyboard
I began the visual side of the project by sketching the rough ideas I had for the script. Some elements to include were clear to me from the beginning, such as the imposing church and a mother walking the streets alone. Other crucial pieces to include were the Anew building and their cottage, as these are important for the services Anew provide. The visual of the woman and baby in a heart came directly from Anew and were a great addition to the video
Early Texture Tests
Very early on in the project, I knew I wanted to create a style that would seem as if it were cut out of wood. I felt the animation had to appear a bit more “realistic” due to the topic. It could be very easy for the viewer to not connect with the subject if it felt cartoony or “just an animation”.
The above were tests I made to see how I could achieve this in 2D. The main takeaway was that I needed to create convincing fake lighting on the texture to sell it. This was paired with a lower frame rate of 15fps in the final animation to give it more of a stop motion effect. I also tested on how to quickly and effectively make a rain effect.
Development of the wooden texture style
The key to achieving this look was grouping elements together. For example, the church was broken into compositions of windows, roof, main building, steeple, steeple roof, cross, and side building. Each of these was then given their own texture and multiple shadow effects. The duplication of the drop shadow effect was key to creating convincing shadows.
I abandoned the brick texture on the church as it felt off kilter with the rest of the established style. Everything would need to look as if it was cut from wood to some degree and the bricks were counter to this.
Dust, grain, and imperfections were then layered over all elements. A lens blur was added to the top and bottom of the video to help create a sense of depth.
The final style as it appeared in the video.
