Arden University - Silence Your Critic

It’s never too late to chase your dreams, so shown in this hilarious and heartening spot for Arden University.

As one of the UK’s forefront providers of distance and blended learning qualifications, Arden University has a track record of empowering its students to shut down self-doubt, a concept we helped bring to life in the form of the posturing critic starring in this spot, who fails in keeping the lead character ‘in her place’.

We designed and animated the character, alongside the team at RocketMill, and director Steve Copeland. We used Photoshop to lock in the look of the critic from clothing to facial features, liaising with the client throughout to pinpoint the greyness of his hair and exuberance of his stance. Next, it was time to animate him using ToonBoom. Lead animator Christine Peters and her team conveyed much of the flamboyance and arrogance of the character in his physicality. She said: “What I enjoyed the most in this project was figuring out the posing and acting of each shot. The poses were so satisfying to do as they set the tone for the shot, for example in the running machine scene. When he’s lying down on top of the screen, we wanted him to be ridiculing her physically as well as verbally. We really played with the way he inhabits her space; he is small in stature but that doesn't stop him from encroaching on her life."

CREDITS

Client - Arden University

Agency - RocketMill

Production Company - Dark Energy Films

Animation - Blind Pig 

Lead Animator - Christine Peters 

Character Design - Christine Peters, Ditte Wad, William Smith 

Compositor - Ric Comline 

Animator - Andrew Clarke 

Colour Assist - William Smith, Lawrence Scanlon 

Executive Producer - Thierry Levy 

Producer - Ana Hoxha, Roberta Fox 

Production Assistant - Susie Joseph 

Post Production - Absolute 

Post Set Supervisor - Dave Smith 

2D - Becanti Wijnberg, Tommy Coulter-Liston 

Grade - Matt Turner 

Flame/Online - Jasmine Cooper 

Online Assist - Christy Brooks 

Executive Producer - Belinda Grew 

Producer - Roberta Fox, Dannica Green