Mountwest Community and Technical College: Go Far. Close To Home. 

Mountwest Community & Technical College is committed to helping people realize their dreams. Cradled in the mountains of West Virginia, MCTC offers guidance toward new careers and inspiration to help along the way. Enroll today and “Go Far. Close to home.”

It was a privilege to be asked by our friend, Matt Crutchfield, to create an anthem video for Mountwest Community and Technical College and for education in West Virginia. This project began with Clara drawing on her experiences growing up in WV to write a script. The script captures the ideals of perseverance and hope. It laid a foundation for the beautiful illustrations created by Haewon Shin.

The storyboard begins with Haewon creating an anchor that would be integrated into the night sky as the camera pans up. She then used reference photos from beautiful landscapes around West Virginia to further tell the story of the script.

Here are some storyboards including Haewon's anchor:

These boards were initially created separately, but then got tied together for one continuous camera move. Latham Arnott animated while Arm Sattavorn helped cel animate fire, smoke, & the climber.

The story ends with a climber who is using the same anchor that started the video to summit the mountain with Mountwest in the distance.

Haewon provided this behind the scene's look at her process:  

Here are a few BTS videos showing the process. Thanks to Arm for sharing his process with us.

Client: Mountwest Community & Technical College
Client EP: Matt Crutchfield
Creative Direction by Clara Lehmann & Jonathan Lacocque
Written by Clara Lehmann
Design Direction by Ryan Butterworth
Associate Producing by Grace Lawson
Design & Illustration by Haewon Shin
Animation by Arm Sattavorn & Latham Arnott
Edit by Jonathan Lacocque
Sound Design & Mix by Jenna Coyle
Original Music by Matt Stanfield