Sometimes you get to work on truly meaningful and inspiring projects and this was one of them. We had an impossible deadline but managed to go from script to final video in 2 short weeks. Our team worked tirelessly to find an art direction that felt fairy tale-esque that could still be designed, painted and animated in the time we had. And because the directive was to have the video feel like a book brought to life, the limited animation style we used helped achieve that goal.
And we pulled out a lot of our tricks — incorporating 2.5d sets, art directed stock footage (for our smoke fx) and a true 3d camera to get lots of subtle parallax and 3d effects. We designed in Photoshop, animated in Toon Boom and did some subtle compositing work in After Effects. This style is one of our go to techniques and it’s super flexible in terms of art direction.
And sometimes the stars align and all the hard work combines with the right subject matter at the right time and videos go viral. This is one of those times. Released just 8 days before the 2020 Presidential election, the video was viewed over 2 million times in its first 24 hours (over 3.5 million times total) and was written about in places like Newsweek.
Give us a holler if you need something brought to life. We’re here, 24/7! info@pipsqueakanimation.com
