UEA
Protecting Our Pollinators
Today, we highlight another one of our favourite ever animations. The University of East Anglia have been close friends of ours for some time – they are great. Our film and animation collaborations with the UEA always deserve a spotlight. Choosing us as their UK animation company, they ask the best from us and we push ourselves to do something more creative than before. Pollinators was a collaboration between our very own Sonic of animation, Martin, and freelance illustrator extraordinaire, Joe Mclean. We were asked to explore and educate the different types of pollinators.
Both exceptionally creative and extremely professional
UEA for Business
These pollinators can be bees, birds, mice and even reptiles – it’s a hefty list. This collection of creatures has co-evolved with flowering plants over hundreds of millions of years. Of which, resulted in a diversity of flower shapes, colours and sizes. Science is really crazy stuff, eh? The UEA analysed some data – in the short-term – where the pollinators were mammals, reptiles or birds. They found that on average, by only including insect pollinators and excluding vertebrate pollinators, fruit and/or seed production reduced by 63%. It was key that our animation shared this new understanding. We needed to know all the facts. Lots and lots of facts. Facts.
Hand-drawn Illustration
To bring this vital research to life, the team opted for a hand-drawn illustration style. This lends itself to the beauty and imperfections of the natural world and gives the animation a pop-up book quality. A neutral palette of greens with bright and bold colours was used to further enhance nature and make the animation pop!
The soundtrack adds depth to the visuals, sweeping us through the animation with crescendos and choral flourishes – god yeah, we know our music. With some sweet-sounding sound effects, this draws the viewer further into each scene, creating an engaging and thought-provoking soundscape.
Overall, this animation holds a special place in the Meantime archives. Choosing Meantime as their choice of animation company in the UK is always a pleasure. This is one of our favourites and best pieces of work to date. We love working with the UEA and the wider scientific community. It is always an opportunity for us, as individuals, to learn and become involved in a topic that we have never considered before. The natural world is an important issue for us. We always cherish the projects where we get to slightly add our voice to the conversation.