Animation comes from the Latin ‘anima’, which means ‘soul’. (WDKA, 2016) In fact, your static image ‘animates’. For me, animation is one of the many ways of storytelling, where you as an animator determine the order in which the viewer receives the elements of the story – there is no freedom of choice (other than to watch or not to watch).
I was also asked to make an animation for the NCA together with a colleague. The goal was twofold: on the one hand, we wanted to find out what potential an animation has (especially because we did not find our current animations that exciting) and on the other hand, we also wanted to experience the animation process so that we can share our experience with research teams in the future. Nothing beats experiencing it yourself. The animation was published at the beginning of October and is a by-product of the report presented to the House of Representatives on June 30.
We received tailor-made training from a professional animator to create the animation. In a few trainings we learned the basics of After Effects (supplemented with tutorials from Lynda.com), and learned tips and tricks to successfully finish the project. We also discussed ’transforming’ the audit story into the story for the animation (with the animator and the company’s creative director).
There were plenty of lessons from these projects. For example, we noticed that it is quite difficult to convert a written text into spoken text – you really have to do that by reading the texts out loud. The transitions in the animation are also a challenge: how do you go from one element of the story to another? In general, I think animations are a good form for the NCA because they allow you to anonymize the story and explain fairly complicated topics well. Paul Wells also endorses this characteristic in his book ‘Understanding animations’: “Animation can defy the laws of gravity, challenge our perceived view of space and time, and endow lifeless things with dynamic and vibrant properties.” (Wells, 1998).
For a first animation I am happy with the end result, but in retrospect I would have made certain different choices. But what I was mainly concerned with was the development of my new role as a transformer – this knowledge was necessary to better fulfill that role. On November 17, my colleague and I gave a workshop to 26 colleagues to introduce them to the visual storyboard that is needed to create an animation. And I hope that we will soon supervise our first animation.
References:
WDKA. (2016). Animatie. www.wdka.nl/hbo-bachelor/animatie/ op 10 november 2016.
Wells, Paul. (1998). Understanding animation. London: Routledge. Uit: reader Animatie in context, samenstelling Sarah Lugthart & René Bosma.
