Project background

CLCH and school nurse Lisa Canade approached us to create an animation for children that would explain what diabetes is, how it can affect you and if you have a friend with diabetes, how you can help to look out for them.

Creating the explainer animation

Scriptwriting

Lisa brought three remarkable young people with diabetes to the project: Keon, Lara and Talvin. They came to us with a first draft of the script, using their own words to explain their lived experience. Our experienced scriptwriter then worked with them to bring it together into a flowing narrative that would fit within the word count.

Storyboarding

Once we moved on to storyboarding, the artist Rosie Hunter transformed the children (and nurse Lisa!) into illustrated characters. They worked closely together, coming up with many of the visual concepts. Keon, Lara and Talvin even created some original artwork, which Rosie and the edit team digitally recreated and included in the final animation.

Recording the voiceover

Finally, we recorded the children reading the voiceover – in every way, this animation really does represent their authentic voice as young people with diabetes.

Post-production

Working with Lisa and the children on this project was an absolute joy for us, and it was such fun to see the children being invested in and getting a lot out of the animation process.

As a result of this project, Lisa was awarded the Queen’s Nurse Award and won Innovator of the Year in the CLCH Staff Awards 2022.

Visit saphna.co/news/childhood-diabetes/ for more information about childhood diabetes.