Social Media Campaign
Client: WW100
Creative, Design & Illustration, Motion
100 years ago, censorship restrictions during the First World War saw newspaper headlines portray disastrous battles as decisive victories. At home and abroad, everything from mail and telegrams, to plays and photographs, were subject to inspection and censorship.
Though censorship may seem like an archaic subject, fake news is nothing new. With this in mind, New Zealand's First World War Centenary (WW100) programme came to us to put wartime censorship under the spotlight. With censorship as the theme, we created an entire campaign comprised of an animated explainer video, teaser animations, social media content and digital posters. We crafted everything from script to screen and gave the audience the tools they needed to analyse a range of perspectives on censorship – both 100 years ago and what it means today.
Credits
Producer: Melissa Buisán
Script: Ella Fischer, Melissa Buisán, Mark Easterbrook, Hamish Palmer, Nico Speziali
Creative Direction: Phyo Thu
Art Direction: Nico Speziali, Hamish Palmer
Illustration: Hamish Palmer
Graphic Design: Nico Speziali
Photography: Carlie Viemann
2D Animation: Hamish Palmer, Adam Glucksman, Niklas Augener
3D Animation: Nicolas Martin, Callum Mudgway, Peter Hillier
Compositing: Hamish Palmer, Nico Speziali
Music: Magnus Ringblom
Voice: Tina Cleary
Sound FX: Adam Glucksman
Processing Design
After experimenting with a few different looks, we realised that colour theory was going to play a big part throughout the entire campaign. We focused on a main darker colour combined with two highlighting colours to complement it. We initially drew inspiration from the Great Gatsby era, and then realised we needed to go back in time a little more and explored styles influenced by the Art Deco and Constructivism movements. Because this was a historical and educational project, every component from the script and typography to the visual style needed to be accurate. Another key part of the design process was ensuring that the design not only fit for the explainer animation, but also for the entire campaign as a whole. From the animation to the social media content to the digital posters, we worked together to create a cohesive design that would work for every piece of the censorship campaign.
Initial Styleframes
Type Exploration
Type In Action
Unravelling the Story
We envisioned the censorship animation to be fast-paced yet detail-packed, meaning we had to be very meticulous when planning the flow of the animation; we had to find the right balance between keeping up the pace while strategically condensing a lot of heavy information without overwhelming the viewer.
Storyboard Section
Animation Process
To create the desired mood and bring viewers back to the era of censorship, we determined that a 2D mixed media style animation would be the best fit; it would allow us to combine illustration with existing historic images and textures. We utilised frame by frame animation for certain parts of the hand animations as well as a mix of 2.5D animation techniques to give more depth to the flat animation. But why stop there? We also added 3D animation elements to a few scenes, which were then rendered in either a 2D or photography style to add extra dimensions and layers to the animation.
Results
Working on this project was special to us for many reasons, but especially because the WW100 Censorship Campaign was the first full fledged, multi-dimensional campaign that we've completed as a studio. This project gave us the opportunity to tackle everything from script writing, initial concepts, social media posts, digital posters, looping content, in addition to an explainer animation.
