Story-Driven Animation - Network For Animals

A story-driven animation educating both young children through to teenagers in schools on the importance of treating animals humanely for the charity Network for Animals.

The Brief

Network for Animals (NFA) is a leading force against animal cruelty. As such, they represent nearly one million supporters and activists around the world. We were asked to create a story-driven animation that shows how important it is to care for the wellbeing of animals. The video is being shown to school children in South Africa. It will support the charity in its goal to educate the younger generation. Improving awareness of animal cruelty towards dogs that goes on in their community. We created a visually stunning, character-led story that highlights the importance of kindness & changes perceptions about how to treat them.

Our Response

Working closely with NFA, we helped fine-tune their detailed script for the project scope. It needed to be relatable for a South African youth target audience. This was a key objective throughout the process. In addition, NFA allowed us a large amount of creative freedom whilst still maintaining their culturally accurate story.

Firstly, when designing the look of the final animation, reference is very important. We collected an extensive amount of cultural reference to support this. Our team expanded their knowledge and expertise by working in close collaboration with the charity on this. In addition, it is important to accurately portray the emotion in the script and capture the story beats. These are all thought about extensively when translating the message to a visual medium.

Above all, making sure the design process is culturally accurate & relatable was something we were concious of. This is to ensure our work reflects the SA youth subcultures of Pantsula correctly, an audience our client is focused on interacting with. Furthermore, we balanced these design elements with designing characters that were simple enough to appeal to the audience

The Result

NFA is helping to educate the new generation. The Animation Guys are honoured to be involved in such an important cause. Together we were able to create a wonderful piece of animation that will help make this world a better place for both animals, and humans that share it.

What our client Said

“Working with The Animation Guys has been an absolute delight. We were really excited to be working on this project with them. From start to finish they made the process enjoyable and informative. NFA couldn’t be happier with the final product and we very much look forward to working with them again soon.”

Luke Barritt

Network For Animals