How do you explain baptism to a 6 year old?
While slightly older than 6 year olds, the parents in baptism preparation classes can all benefit from having the sacrament explained simply. The dialectic approach of this video takes a would-be impromptu explanation and explodes into the colorful, whimsical world of a child’s imagination. I was privileged to work alongside the wonderful creative team at Dynamic Catholic to craft this second in a series of three video pillars that define the experience of the non-profit’s original baptismal preparation program, Starting Point.
My Role
Process
01. Script
From the start we knew that this video need to be two things: funny and understandable.
The data (and personal experience) that we had on the typical baptism prep class gave us the insight that anyone who had an engaging baptism prep class where they felt like they learned a lot was the anomaly. There was tremendous potential to awaken parents to the possibilities that lay before them in the life of faith that they were choosing for their child. Invisible realities can be hard to grasp, though, so when detailing the nuts and bolts of what exactly happens during the dunk we knew it had to be straightforward.
A narrowed in on a dialogue as a great way to have an explanatory back and forth that addressed larger questions without feeling pedantic. We chose a mother and child to incorporate fun, youthful energy and a handful of gags to keep it light and interesting.
02. Design
My first step in beginning any design is to take a full inventory of where the design needs to go. What all needs to be depicted? Does it need a handful of artfully done keyframes or does it need a simpler language that can provide mileage for a longer video?
To begin that inventory, I break the script into topical sections.
Once I have an idea of the major chunks, I’ll begin to form a mental model of how the information fits together. This is primarily helpful for me but can sometimes inform the storytelling imagery.
For Soul Bath, my mental model was like that of a five act play. There was an intro and outro that bookended the imagery and five important topics with corresponding images (the outward signs of the sacrament).
After I’ve solidified the mental model, I move into pencil storyboarding through which I’ll normally go for 2-3 rounds.
One of the elements I spent a while testing was how to depict the characters. I knew that since I was going to be doing all the animation myself it was simply out of the question for them to be full character rigs.
I really enjoyed one particular direction that had the characters as Kirby-like balls with arms but even that represented too much of a time investment and was eventually scrapped in favor of simple spheres.
After the pencil round I’ll bring the semi-finalized frames into Illustrator and Photoshop where I’ll choose a handful to bring to full polish in order to establish the style. Nailing the style for this project was difficult because the graphical elements were designed to pair with the physical workbook which was being developed seperately and went through several iterations.
Some of the styles I explored were drastically different.
03. Voiceover
Directing the voiceover was the area where I felt most out of my element. I was lucky enough to have some excellent talent come to the casting room who made my job in the recording booth much easier. The difficulty I knew we would face in the recording was encouraging spontaneity, laughter, and joking while getting the script read as it was written. I knew the story needed to feel like a natural conversation or it would lose some of its charm but we also couldn’t deviate too far from the specifics of the script since nuance was key to capturing the message accurately.
04. Animation
Animation was done entirely by me and that meant two things: I never had any questions about intent or direction because I was intimately familiar with the material but I was severely limited in my ability to execute simply due to time constraints. We explored some options for collaboration but ultimately didn’t have the budget to bring any other talent on.
