The brief
Telling stories to support students
University life can be incredibly rewarding. It’s a building block for the future and an opportunity to find what really excites you. However, it comes with its own challenges. The Widening Participation and Social Mobility team at University of Southampton offer financial support for students that encounter difficulties, but this relies on students knowing that the service is there. They asked us to create an animation that made sure this was the case for as many students as possible. They wanted us to create a film that sensitively dealt with the topic, recognising the seriousness of the situation without being an unnecessary reminder of the difficulties students might be facing.
What we did
We sat down with the team at the University of Southampton and began to map out a narrative that would best help their audience. We needed to find a way to tell a story that focused on emotional connection whilst also signposting to important services. We co-developed this story with the University of Southampton team. Whilst doing this, we also worked to create a unique visual identity for the film and the team’s wider marketing. This would be carried through characters, scenes and specific iconography which would help drive the story and provide assets for future use. To help make sure that we could communicate this with everyone at University of Southampton we created storyboards. These weren’t only helpful for collaboration purposes, but they gave us a really strong jumping off point for the animation itself. With all of this hard work done in pre-production, we were able to quickly and smoothly move into animating and delivering everything the team needed to reach students who needed their help.
The technical
Concepts
Story development
Scripting
Asset creation
Storyboarding
Voiceover
Animation
Music licensing
Social cuts
Asset delivery
The result
Signposting with storytelling
The film acts as an important resource for the Widening Participation and Social Mobility team when trying to reach students who might need financial support. It’s used around the university and at events to show people that if they’re struggling that there are ways to access help. We’re so proud to have told a story that will help people who are struggling at a time when they should be excited about their future.
