Our Queen at War
The Brief
In celebration of Queen Elizabeth's 94th birthday ITV commissioned BBC Studios to make a 60 minute documentary that reveals Princess Elizabeth's extraordinary teenage life during the Second World War. Working with animator Andy A'court, Chris Mitchell was briefed to created a series of vintage poster style vector illustrations suitable for Andy to add texture effects and animate. The documentary 'Our Queen at War' showed rare film footage montaged with the short animations, providing a seamless theme introduction to the key topics of interest. Animation provides many opportunities to enhance the illustrative story telling experience. With a restricted development time and budget, both Andy and Chris communicated closely and effectively in a streamline development process, marrying their individual specialist craft skills in order to maintain style direction and focus.
Animation by Andy A'Court
The number of illustrative themes were limited to key frames in order not to compromise on craft quality overall. The animation in all cases was kept relatively subtle, focusing on key points of interest, whilst still allowing the eye to not be too distracted from taking in the whole illustration, given the very short viewing time. The added texture and colour adjustment to Chris's illustrations in the animation process enhanced the vintage feel, which was very much in keeping with the period.
I have always been a great admirer of the orginal screen printed vintage posters. This project provided a great opportunity for me to indulge in the crafting of the solid flat line style. With the added benefit of working in digital vector line it provides a seamless and flexible media for animation.
