Getting Into Animation
Premise
Making short-form videos is not unfamiliar to me. I have often been a part of making video content in different capacities. From making short films during my time in high school to assisting on brand campaigns during my time as a brand strategist.
Though tedious and time-consuming, videos can communicate more information in less time. Videos give us a medium to convey a point using both visual and verbal communication; however, working with animated objects, which this project demands, is a totally different game.
As I start my third project, I am more intimidated than comfortable, as rather than shooting the content, I have to make the content using the design principles of colour, composition, layout and typography combined with new elements such as time and transitions to communicate a message.
Brief
Many times, as designers, we do not get the choice to work with topics and brands we are comfortable with, and this project is a reflection of that reality of the industry. For this project, we have been assigned to make a one-minute video on one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Unlike the poster project, we were assigned the topic at random through a random draw. My topic is Goal 2: Zero Hunger.
As simple as this topic sounds, the causes, impact and the scale of the issue make it a complicated one to talk about. In this context, 1 minute (60 secs) seems to be a rather short time period to get the message across.
Research
Starting at the very source of the topic. I explored the UN website and reviewed the targets and goals set to combat world hunger. Beyond the initial broad exploration, I looked at the specific targets and indicators the UN has set to measure the impact of eliminating world hunger by 2030.
From the list of targets I found on the UN website, I decided to focus on the following goals under the SDG goal 2:
2.1- By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
2.1.2 — Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)
2. 2.c- Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility.
3. 2.2.2-Prevalence of malnutrition (weight for height >+2 or <-2 standard deviation from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age, by type (wasting and overweight)
From these, I found target 2.1.2 to be broad enough yet specific enough to represent and discuss.
Non-Profit Organisations
While researching non-profit organisations that work in any of the areas that the above 3 targets function in was an essential component. The non-profit I have chosen is Action Against Hunger. Some of the other organisations that were strong contenders to fight world hunger were the World Food Programme, The Hunger Project and The Convoy Of Hope. I found Action Against Hunger the most impactful and aligned to target 2.1.2 within my SDG goal.
Phase 1 — Idea
As I usually do, after researching the topic quite a bit, I did what I always do when approaching a project: mind mapping. I blocked out 15 minutes to create a mind map before diving into the project. The mind map includes words, phrases and related connections that are cause, effects, or synonymous to world hunger and malnourishment.
After gathering a lot of research and making notes, I watched a couple of animated videos made by people to get an idea of how I want to approach such a sensitive topic while also keeping it simple and impactful. Many of the videos I saw online helped me break down components of an impactful video into the following aspects:
- Continuity
- Transitions
- Sync Points
- Voice
- Colour
My research work helped me script out more than one idea that I wanted to explore and helped me build a strong narrative.
Script Draft 1
Script 1:
Angle/hook: Today 2.3 Billion people face moderate or severe food insecurity
Anchor organisation: Action Against Hunger
Target audience: Prospective donors and social impact supporters
[ Grains of rice fall from the top of the screen and gets rearranged to represent the statistical number-2.3 Billion]
“Today 2.3 Billion people face moderate or severe food insecurity”
[ The rice gets swept off the screen and is filled inside a bowl (top view) which then gets divided to show the earth and create impact of the number]
“That is 28% of the world’s population.”
[ The bowl transitions into earth and then becomes a plate filled with various food elements that vanish one by one ]
“ The world has enough food to feed everyone, food insecurity is an issue of accessibility and obtaining nutritious food.”
[ The plate then transitions into icons and then a plate of food placed on the table with no- one able to touch it ]
“As the world faces conflict, disaster, rising prices it disrupts the access to food to communities that need it the most”
[A weighing scale with numbers going rapidly down ]
“causing malnourishment not only in children but also adults”
[A shot of a person sitting at the table putting a spoonfull of his meal into his mouth and smiling ]
“Lets work together, to build a future where there is enough access to nutritious food to lead a healthy life”
[ NGO Logo and UN Sustainable goal logo with the words donate now]
“Because access is something we can change.”
Script 2:
Angle/hook: 50 % of children mortality is caused as a result of malnutrition
Anchor organisation: Action Against Hunger
Target audience: Young adults who want to volunteer in programs
Malnutrition is the leading cause of death among children in today’s world
14M children under the age of 5 are reported to be severely malnourished.
Malnourishment occurs as a result of lack of necessary vitamins, minerals, calories and inaccessibility of food sources.
It leads to the under-developement of children with symptoms such as stunted growth and children being underweight.
Further on it leads to chronic health conditions.
Today, supporting the underserved communities with inaccessibility to nutrient rich food has become immensely important to stop world hunger.
Get involved and lets build a better future together.
Script 3:
Angle/hook: 50% of global farmland is moderately or severely degraded
Anchor organisation: Action Against Hunger
Target audience: General Adult population
Much of the produce from these farmlands lacks essential nutritious minerals and vitamins essential for growth.
This level of land degradation calls for the use of sustainable farming practices to not only protect the farmland but also combat climate change.
As today’s farmers face drought, extreme weather, flooding and a rise in price of fertilisers, it has become even more important to adopt resilient farming practices to protect our ecosystems and return health to our soils.
Good quality produce can be grown without increasing our carbon footprint on our planet.
McCloud Readings and Reflections
As we started developing our ideas, we were assigned readings which were super creatively communicated through a comic script. They were super helpful and aided me in creating my storyboard and picking and choosing the scenes I wanted to explicitly showcase and picking and choosing the visuals I wanted to create and work with.
My Initial thoughts:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading both chapters, especially as someone who loves reading comics; it was a very interesting read. What impacted me most was how the content was conveyed and the medium that the author used. Rather than just talking of the concepts as one would in an article, the author used more of a show-and-tell approach towards it.
It was fascinating to break down the concepts that I have seen previously in the comics I have read, such as “Tintin” and “Asterix and Obelix”, and study them as elements rather than some of their parts.
- McCloud argues iconic/abstracted images invite greater viewer identification. How might this apply to representing people in your video?
As McCloud said, I too believe that abstraction allows for a person’s identity and awareness to be pulled out, which creates a deeper meaning. The use of symbols and icons distils the content to the absolute essentials, keeping the visual simple and in balance and harmony alongside other elements of the video. For a complex topic such as zero hunger, symbolic representation can aid in keeping things simple yet getting the message across in the most palatable way.
2. Which of McCloud’s six panel transitions feels most useful for a 45–60 second video, and why?
I believe the subject-to-subject transition feels the most useful as a result of the various elements of the topic. Being a topic that has multiple causes and multiple complex overlaps with other issues such as climate change and agriculture, a subject-to-subject transition helps provide enough context within a short period of time without over-explaining the problem. It feels the most natural for a topic such as zero hunger.
3. Where could your storyboard rely on “closure” instead of showing everything explicitly — what does that gain you?
I think I can apply “closure” when I am talking about the causes of zero hunger, I believe they are topics that can be easily communicated with the result of symbols and icons, giving me more time for the solution and call to action for the video.
Practice
The sketching warm-up practice took me back to the warm-up that we did in Matt Zywica's workshop as part of the research methods class taken by Prof. Bruce Hanington. As someone who is not the biggest fan of drawing, as a result of drawing objects and people with poor form. I think the warm-up not only helped me warm up towards the storyboards but also towards the idea of drawing things. I felt much more at ease and less intimidated by a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. As I started to exercise my drawing muscles, it was actually quite fun.
To answer the question, what felt the hardest to draw….
Gesture sketches and basic form perspectives felt especially challenging to draw, as I was not able to get the 3D aspects of the shapes right. As I was drawing, I struggled to visualise the direction of the light to create a shadow of the object I was drawing. As someone who has had a basic understanding of drawing because of mandatory art classes back in my school days, I struggled with perspective drawing and that holds true even today. Throughout the year I do aim at getting better and more comfortable developing this skill and hope to get better through practice.
22nd September 2026
Today in class we discussed deeper about the scripts we had come up with. We had a look at a couple of videos of students from previous years and the process they had used to come up with their key frames. I especially liked the video that a student had made on climate change, representing a certain typography that was inspired by the melting of the polar ice caps. It was truly fascinating to see the match cut transitions that made the video impactful. This gave me a better idea of how I can use certain objects better to convey my message more visually. Apart from that, we had a working session of 2 hours in class; I worked on my storyboard for the script I had written on zero hunger. I was able to make a significant number of frames to convey my message, but I feel I will have to tweak and rewrite my script a little bit more, as it does not convey empathy and only facts and urgency. Overall, I think it is a good start to the video project; I feel confident with my idea.
24th September 2026
After working on the script and storyboards for the first half of the session and also addressing the script feedback on how it could be more impactful. We had Aru, Varshini and Melissa give us more feedback on how the story looks visually, how easily it is able to communicate the main idea, and what the pacing should look like. Each of them spent 3–4 minutes giving their feedback and understanding the context of the video being created,
Some positives that I received were that the match cut scenes that I have planned worked well and flowed better across transitions into different scenes throughout my storyboard. As I changed up and refined my script, I think the storyboard will take some more refining to do.
The three things that I took away from the hour-long interaction we had with the three representatives were as follows:
- Improve visual variations between scenes, as the circle that I use is consistent across the various frames; it brings through consistency but also variation and using visual formulation such as the rule of thirds to bring across some variation without breaking the visual consistency,
- Timing: Giving the most important aspects of my script the most important time. In my context, it would be 10% setting up the premise, 40% on the statistics and numbers, 10% on the causes of world hunger and 40%to the CTA and end scenes suggesting the solutions for the problem.
- Simple yet impactful: The most important thing was towards keeping the animation elements as simple and minimalistic as possible, to optimise not only the time taken to create that animation but also to use the concept of abstraction to get my point across.
Overall, I feel the feedback was insightful and informed my next steps in my process before getting into animating my screens. The round of feedback I received was much more specific. I used this feedback to go back to the drawing board and flesh out the script once more with the feedback incorporated.
Feedback on V1 script:
The feedback helped me realise that while my initial script communicated the idea of hunger visually, it did not yet create a strong enough emotional or narrative connection. This made me rethink the importance of introducing the subject of the video and their perspective earlier in the story rather than at the end.
The questions my professor presented helped me realise…reconsider whether my visual language was communicating malnutrition clearly while remaining respectful and not too literal about such a heavy topic.
Although my representation of the falling numbers on the weighing scale was intended to represent loss and deprivation, a scale can also be associated with dieting or weight loss. This pushed me to look for a visual metaphor that communicates inadequate nutrition more directly without allowing room for ambiguity.
After the round of feedback that I had on my first version of my storyboards and scripts, I was able to refine my script from before. In this version, I was able to focus on what I wanted to narrate and the scenes I wanted my scripted narrative to sync with.
V2 Script
[ Shot of a child sitting at home with a small bowl of plain rice]
“Imagine this bowl of rice is the only meal you have every day, you eat nothing more, just a plain bowl of white rice]
Get Ria Bhanushali’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
[ Zoom into the bowl of rice and it falling forward, Grains of rice fall from the top of the screen and gets rearranged to represent the statistical number-2.3 Billion]
“Today 2.3 Billion people face moderate or severe food insecurity”
[ The rice gets swept off the screen and is filled inside a bowl (top view) which then gets divided to show the earth and create impact of the number]
“That is 28% of the world’s population.”
[ The bowl transitions into earth and then becomes a plate filled with various food elements that vanish one by one ]
“ The world has enough food to feed everyone, food insecurity is an issue of accessibility and obtaining nutritious food.”
[ The plate then transitions into icons and then a plate of food placed on the table with no- one able to touch it ]
“As the world faces conflict, disaster, rising prices it disrupts the access to food to communities that need it the most”
As of 2025, we see a 17% increase in the number of people suffering from malnourishment as a result of these issues.
[We see a gradual decrease in the human structure of a person from healthy to ribs showing ]
At Actions against hunger, we execute community-based nutrition programs to help empower mothers and children to fight malnourishment.
[We see a group of workers measuring the arms of children and giving food rations to mothers ]
[ A shot of a person sitting at the table with a plate full of food putting a spoonful of his meal into his mouth and smiling ]
“Lets work together, to build a future where there is enough access to nutritious food to lead a healthy life”
[ NGO Logo and UN Sustainable goal logo with the words donate now]
“Because access is something we can change.”
Based on this script I received feedback as follows, which helped me refine my script to the final version.
V2 Script feedback:
1. Narrative Arc: Where does the child go? We meet the child at the start, but the video ends with someone else. What would it mean for the viewer if that child were the one with the full plate in the final shot?2. Dignity: How do you want viewers to see the people in your story? The UN and most major NGOs generally avoid showing bodies wasting away, out of respect for the dignity of the people pictured. Your scene of workers measuring children’s arms and giving food to mothers is also a visual of malnutrition. How is that different from the figure with ribs showing?
3. Citation: Where does the 17% come from? Cite it in the way that you’ve cited your other numbers.
Apart from refining my script I timed myself at the pace I planned to edit my video as per the pacing feedback I had received during the previous sessions.
As I timed myself, I went overboard on time by 5–10 seconds, which made me cut out and edit certain scenes that are reflected in my final script version below.
Script final version
[ Shot of a child sitting at home with a small bowl of plain rice]
“Imagine a bowl of rice is the only meal you have every day.”
[ Zoom into the bowl of rice and it falling forward, Grains of rice fall from the top of the screen and gets rearranged to represent the statistical number-2.3 Billion]
“That is the lived reality of 2.3 Billion people who face moderate or severe food insecurity”
[ The rice gets swept off the screen and is filled inside a bowl (top view) which then gets divided to show the earth and create impact of the number]
“That is 28% of the world’s population.”
[ The bowl transitions into earth and then becomes a plate filled with various food elements that vanish one by one ]
“The world has enough food to feed everyone, its availability is not the issue, access is.”
[Hands with empty bowl rising from the bottom of the screen ]
“As the world faces conflict, disaster, drought and rising prices, it disrupts the access to food to the communities that need it the most.”
[We see a pair of hands handing over a box of food to another pair of hands emerging from the opposite side of the screen]
At Actions against hunger, we execute community-based nutrition programs to help fight malnourishment.
[ A shot of the child sitting now with a full plate of food putting a spoonful of his meal into his mouth and smiling ]
“Lets work together, to build a future where there is enough access to nutritious food to lead a healthy life”
[ NGO Logo and UN Sustainable goal logo with the words donate now]
“Because access is something we can change.”
Phase 2 — It’s time to Storyboard
I carried out the storyboarding process 2 times, once with my V1 script and once with the final script.
For the first version of my storyboard, I developed the scenes based on what I felt would best represent the narrative. I felt that the storyboard was effective in defining the transitions between the keyframes. I struggled with developing the ending frames. I felt that I could improve the visual representation by making it more abstract and less literal. This was also reflected in the feedback I received from the three class representatives, who encouraged me to explore more abstract ways of communicating the narrative through my keyframes.
Storyboard V2:
For the second storyboard, I used the final script for my keyframes. I drew not only the key frames but also the transitional frames that I would use as part of my match-cut transitions. With this version of my storyboards, I had more clarity and confidence with my keyframes. I struggled with figuring out the transitions with some of my keyframes.
Phase 3 — Moodboard and Music
Feedback Cycle :
29th September 2026
Today was the first round of feedback for the animation project. We focused mostly on the overall aesthetics and emotion of out animation video. The session was mainly focused on presenting our mood boards and audio files and get the first round of feedback on the mood and tone of the videos before we go on to animate them.
My vision for my animation was to make my animation as easy as possible while keeping the integrity of my message strong and impactful. I used Behance, YouTube and Pinterest to find my inspiration. I figured out 3 styles and treatments for my keyframes as follows:
Finding the audio was one of the most challenging aspects of the whole process. I ended up gravitating towards 2 music pieces as I have attached below:
https://pixabay.com/music/solo-instruments-wisdom-of-the-mountains-13411/
Some feedback that I got from my peers and my professor were as follows:
1. The music selected conveyed mystery and was suited more for a dystopian world and lacked urgency.
2. The music was mismatched with the visuals as it came across as more elegant as compared to the visual style I had planned for the video.
3. From the two mood boards presented, I was encouraged to pursue the one with more natural shapes and textures as compared to a 2D flat lay icon style design.
Phase 4 — Keyframes
After storyboarding my idea it was time to give a concrete form to my keyframes and work on them for developing the video further. I went through more than 2 rounds of making keyframes, starting from basic sketches, to a mid- fidelity where I worked on the basic structure of the elements of the video to finally having the final fleshed out frames that I used to create my video.
Phase 4— Animatics
Before I got into making the animatic I made a rough guide to guide my visuals, time and pacing of the video to guide me further. This quick draft allowed me to catch disjointed scenes and animation visions early on into the creation.
During this stage, I began giving form to my outline, finalising the details of the figures and elements within my video. Going through the process helped me gain insights into the details of representation of the elements in question.
I also showcased the quick draft to my professor to catch any gaps in my narrative and any keyframes that needed to change to narrate a tight and impactful story which helped me catch transition that did not work before going ahead and spending more time of creating the keyframes.
After presenting the second animatic which I would like to call the mid-fidelity animatic, I was able to get some feedback on my work. Overall I think I received more clarity on how I can take the creation of my key frames further and create better visual continuity.
Some feedback that I took away from the discussions in class were as follows:
- Taking a look at the colour scheme of my videos in terms of colour saturation.
- Creating more distinction between the physical form of the person in the beginning and at the end of the video
- I got the advice of using a single frame to represent my icons.
- Re-recording my narration to make in more balanced in terms of the music and volume.
20th October 2026
Before we broke for fall break, I set up some with Melissa, one of the TAs for the class and spoke to her about the overall structure of my video and how I could improve it as I was struggling to implement and find a way forward from the earlier round of feedback that I had recieved from the class. Getting the feedback before fall break allowed for some clarity of thought and further experimentation on the visual style and colors of my keyframes. I felt I was running behind on getting into animating my video because of my keyframes as I was not quite satisfied with the overall output of my keyframes.
During the first class back from fall break I decided to speak with my professor to get better insights onto making my keyframes better and making them appear less flat. By now I was in a better space with my narration as I had used my phone’s studio audio settings to get a narration without any background noise. Things were coming together slowly but I ws running out of time to devote on animating my video. The keyframes were much better but still seemed to be very flat and not have the kind of impact that I wanted to have.
Experimentation:
After comtemplating onver the colour choices and the keybrame structures, still struggling with creating visual impact I decided to consult with Vicki my professor for the course who adviced me to play a little with texture to create visual interest. Rathet than spending some more hours texturising the images as per my crayon and hand drawn moodboard, I decided to use Adobe Firefly to generate texture on my keyframes. I quite liked the impact that was creating.
As I began importing the individual elements as layers into After Effects, I found it challenging to achieve smooth and cohesive animations. I reverted to having my vectorised keyframes and pivoted to creating visual interest by using motion rather than texturising the keyframes.
Despite the short detour, I learnt quite a lot about using tools such as Adobe firefly not to create my keyframes but rather improve visual interest by creating textures or other visual effects to enhance the storytelling. This helped me better understand how to use AI tools as a means of enriching my creative process rather than replacing it.
Phase 5— The Video
As I began animating the keyframes in After Effects, I referred back to the tutorials and techniques covered in our software class, which we had been learning alongside this project. I revisited my class notes and the recorded lectures to familiarise myself with the software and build more confidence in using it.
Initially, I found the animation process quite frustrating, especially when trying to get the movements and transitions to look exactly as I had envisioned. However, the more time I spent experimenting with the software, the more comfortable I became with its interface and tools. I also started exploring online tutorials to learn specific techniques that could help me achieve certain motions and transitions in my video. Gradually, what had initially felt challenging became an enjoyable process of experimentation and discovery.
Despite the struggles and the amount of trial and error involved, I am quite happy with the final outcome and what I was able to submit. Even towards the end, I made a few last-minute changes to the background music and the call to action.
The audio I ended up using was:
My Final Video:
Reflection:
I believe I learnt a lot more in this project about using time, motion and speed to convey a message. I found myself becoming much more open to experimentation, less apprehensive about exploring unfamiliar ideas, and less attached to my initial concepts. I also think I improved at interpreting feedback and using iteration to inform my design decisions. This time around, I was more objective in receiving feedback and challenged myself to achieve some of the animations and transitions I had originally envisioned. I was also better able to articulate the reasoning behind my design decisions compared to my first project.
More than animating the video which was definitely challenging and intemidating to work with , i found it mouc more difficult to create my keyframes than animating them. I cna confidently say that I am much more confortable animating now than that i was 5 weeks ago.
For my next animation project, there are a few things I want to keep in mind. I would like to consider the CTA and target audience from the beginning, allowing them to inform how I structure and narrate the story. I also want to push the visual impact further by embracing abstraction and leaving room for the audience to interpret, imagine, and fill in the gaps. Lastly, I want to be more intentional about using audio to complement the animation and strengthen its overall impact.
Beyond developing a newfound appreciation for motion graphic designers and the work that goes into their craft. I believe that with a little more time and experimentation, I could significantly improve the video and finally achieve the textured crayon effect I had initially envisioned.
