I recently finished this animated summer reading promo for my library. Many children lose some progress during the long summer break, and reading for fun has been shown to counteract this decline. The purpose of this video is to generate excitement for the summer reading program. It should encourage kids (and their parents) to register for the program and start reading.
"Sharkie" the shark is a new character that I developed for this program. He’s funny and lives in the moment, and he’s pretty excited about the prizes he can win by reading whatever he likes. He has a lisp because his three rows of teeth interfere with speaking. Sharkie's voice actor was terrific, and bringing the character to life was a lot of fun!
Here's an early test of Sharkie speaking. The poem is "Fire and Ice," by Robert Frost. I do not know who is narrating, but his voice is wonderful.
The scenes in the video are all real places. The action begins at Maplewood Pool in Stow, Ohio:
The video ends with Sharkie finding his turtle friend (Spike) at the Stow-Munroe Falls Library. Spike is the library's real pet turtle and mascot. She has a friendly nature, and she's very popular with visitors of all ages.
The video is comprised of vector drawings I created in Illustrator and then animated with After Effects. I was on a tight deadline, so this was all achieved with simple transformations and puppet warps.
For anyone interested in early process work, here is the script and story board for the project. I hope you enjoy the video!
