Colour approached us to do a series of four 30 second TV spots extolling the virtues of NSCC (Nova Scotia Community College). The brief was short and to the point: Tell the stories of 4 successful NSCC students in their own words and animate the results. We were given complete freedom to develop the styles and content of each of the spots, something that rarely happens in advertising. Hats off to Colour’s Brian Hickling and Sue Love for that.

NSCC: Kassondra. Made entirely of  paper sculptures and model train set figures, this spot illustrates Kassondras’s experiences in NSCC’s business program. The different elements were constructed by hand over a 4 week period and animated using a stop-motion technique.

You can see how we did it in this short Making Of video.

NSCC: Stan. The story of Stan was animated from stills we took on location in Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia. We shot hours of footage of india ink running over a piece of glass and used the results to build the effect of a watercolour painting drawing itself. The ink lines were painstakingly animated by hand.

NSCC: Russell. Russell works at a with severely disabled patients at an residential center in a small town. When we visited his workplace to shoot some reference footage we were amazed at how physically and emotionally difficult his job was and blown away by the dedication and of the staff.

NSCC: Edie. Edie’s passion is maps, specifically how they can not only relay spatial information but also temporal changes. We illustrated this concept by showing the evolution of a map over time: from hand-drawn parchment to the utilitarian simplicity of GoogleMaps to the precision of a three dimensional architectual rendering.. Edie’s incredible book “Cartographica Extraordinaire” served as a basis for the iconography used in making the early maps.

Tags: animation, NSCC, papercraft, TV spot