WHAT IS ORGAN DONATION? - CASE STUDY

We Are Donors is a national network of university student groups working to raise awareness of organ and blood donation. Their mission is to empower young people to make informed decisions about organ and blood donation.

We Are Donors runs an outreach programme in which university students give talks at local secondary schools and sixth form colleges. The talks tell people what transplants are and why they are needed. They help people to make an informed decision about whether to donate or not.

We Are Donors wanted to use an animated film at these talks to get across their key messages as effectively as possible. They also wanted a second, shorter film to go on social media to raise awareness of the need for more organ donors from black and Asian backgrounds. There are a growing number of patients from these backgrounds waiting for life-saving transplants.

We worked closely with the client and their education team throughout the development and writing. The first task was to prioritise the key messages. There were many things that could have been included so we had to narrow them down to the most important ones.

We Are Donors sent us some case studies to use as a basis for the story. We paid particular attention to the story structure when developing the script so that the story would hook the audience in, and make them emotionally invested in the outcome. The aim was to make the messaging memorable and help compel the audience to take action.

We came up with several story outlines. We also proposed different ways of telling them, such as having a third person narrator, or telling the story from the protagonist’s point of view. We also considered casting the organs themselves as the heroes of the story. This would require a more cartoonlike approach and a bit of anthropomorphism, but it could be effective, especially for younger people.

The client liked the style of the Princess Alice Hospice film so we brought in illustrator Thomas Pullin to create the characters.

Character designs

We created a pencil sketch storyboard. When that was approved, the storyboard frames were compiled into a rough edit of the film, known as an animatic. When everyone was happy with the pacing and flow of the story, Thomas created finished artwork. This was then brought to life by the animation team at Plastic Milk.

The film was narrated by Devon Anderson. The education team considered his voice natural and relatable, with a good balance of emotion.

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