Shelter - No Wrong Door
A series of films to help Shelter and it's partner agencies explain the No Wrong Door principles.
No Wrong Door is a set of values, of principles, that the programme Inspiring Change Manchester (ICM) wanted us to communicate. Working with Shelter we helped them tell the stories of how they’ve been working on a programme over the last 8 years to deliver dynamic services to people experiencing multiple disadvantages. As this programme came to its end they felt it was important to explain the impact of this programme.
There were 5 films produced, with over 7 minutes of animation. The reel above is some of our favourite bits, and you can view the full films, with the voices, in their entirety below.
The first part of the project involved going deep into the impact and effect of No Wrong Door. Each film covers a different part that the programme covered, and were divided up into Access, Practice, Communication, Expertise. Alongside this we created a film which introduced the concept.
The Story
Very early in the project we realised that the key to these stories was authenticity. The programme is run by people with lived experience, so we wanted those voices to lead these films. We had key points we knew we had to communicate, but we didn’t want to write a script. Our plan was to create the narrative through interviews, and spending time recording conversations with, and between, the people involved.
Although this made it a longer process, and meant we had less control, it did mean we ended up with true voices to work with. The films benefit from this authenticity and first hand experience. One of the things we were keen to do was make sure the characters weren’t portrayed as victims at any point. We achieved this by keeping both the conversation and themes light, and also the style and imagery that our illustrators designed.
The Visual Look
Once we had the voices, and transcripts, we were ready to start with the visual side of things. This was where the illustrators we had on the team, started to sketch out concepts and ideas. Kicking off the creative were our illustrators Rowena and Dan. Due working with a hybrid model, Dan and Rowena were never in the same room. Thankfully by using tools like Mural they were able to collaborate and bounce ideas back and forward and develop a look that we could use across all the themes.
Naturally during this stage, some thumbnails started to emerge of how the story would flow, and from these the storyboards emerged. We had five films to produce which meant a team of 5 animators working across various films, or working together all on the same film. As a result, the storyboarding process was critical to keeping this project on track, and giving the team the ground work to begin.
The Sound
One of the trickier briefs we’ve given Nick at Ideosound, but as ever he came up trumps. We didn’t want a music bed for these, the voice is so important. Nick designed for us a sonic landscape that combined elements of ambient background music sounds, with sound effects, whilst never competing with the visuals or the voice. A perfect job that lifted the the films to another level.
