PragerU wanted to produce a children’s animation based on the characters they had created in their PragerU Kids magazine of the same name. Using the assets that their illustrator had created, along with additional imagery, the project was initially to write a script, narrate and create the animation based on each character in the series.
The response online was really positive, with the animation getting the highest viewing numbers of any previous PragerU Kids content. There are several videos on the series which we will post here as they go live.
Around the World
Sofia Survives the Border
There was a whole load of vegetation required to make these jungle scenes. Let’s just say I look forward to AI rotoscoping plants for me.
Alistair Understands Brexit
Coming from the west side of London, for me, this was a fun one to work on. It’s hard to not feel nostalgic from time to time as an Expat. Brexit also personally affected me as my passport changed and freedom of movement became somewhat limited. Brexit, for better or worse…
Wei Wants to Stay Free
In this episode our sequences were improved with custom graphics like a fighter jet scene and ticker board in an airport. Just having fun is all!
Idris Takes Initiative
Here’s our episode on the Sudan. This is the first time it felt like a good all-rounder came out of the production process. It checked a lot of boxes from music, sfx, style, consistency.
Florian Feeds the World
In terms of all round quality, this episode managed to include some fairly detailed character work with a wider array of SFX and general closer attention to the smaller things.
Carlos Climbs the Ladder
With the combination of AI artwork and graphical artist characters, we felt that animating was becoming “comfortable”. We need to step it up a gear!
Ania’s Energy Crisis
Poland was a bit of a challenge, with the mix of old and new the scenery became somewhat complicated. Hopefully it expressed the complicated environment or ‘climate’ effectively. ;)
Priya Overcomes Adversity
So this is the divide. The point when AI technology crossed over into our world of animation. We began extensively using Midjourney for the background visuals of our animation from this point onwards. To be honest, it felt like AI was meant for the vibrant colours and atmosphere of India as we made this episode.
Marcel Makes a Sacrifice
Being Canadians this one was a lot of fun to work on. Working with illustrators we were able to use multiple angles of the same space to try and make the scenery more immersive.
Mateo Backs the Blue
With this episode we began to play around with more volumetric lighting and also Joysticks n Sliders for more 3D vector based animation. We also got to spend a lot more time thinking up scene transitions.
Bishop Chooses Bravery
The fourth in the series of episodes was based in Egypt and allowed for some creative license with sand and dust while presenting it’s own challenges in creating visuals for a part of the world that has such a rich cultural history.
Niyah Needs Energy
This is the third episode that was created for PragerU. The combination of 2D artwork and depth added in z space was a fun way of creating a more intriguing visual environment for the characters and locations.
Keo Fights for Freedom
Creating busy street scenes which develop and change over time was the main challenge with this episode. The more detail added to scenes makes for a more compelling graphic and adds to the overall feel of the story.
Vivi’s Life Under Socialism
The Venezuela animation is the first in the series and was built up in stages, growing from a five minute video to an eight minute video as the project evolved. A fair amount of artwork needed to be hand drawn for this project, despite having the original assets from the illustrator.