The Brief
World Environment Day is a yearly celebration of the environment, which originally began back in 1972. The event is celebrated by thousands of communities worldwide with the aim of encouraging global action to protect the planet and take ownership of their environment.
The theme of World Environment Day is chosen each year by its’ host country, with this year’s host India choosing Plastic Pollution as the pressing issue to tackle.
To promote World Environment Day on June 5th, LoveLove Films collaborate with the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) to produce an animated short film using characters from our children’s series Bottle Island, which follows a group of quirky friends as they work together to save their home, Bottle Island, from the rubbish that washes up on the shore. Through their eco-adventures, the characters discover the wonders and perils of the world around them.
The Process
Using characters from the Bottle Island series, LoveLove Films set to work producing a short, educational animation highlighting the importance of combating plastic pollution for children, and the everyday ways in which they can stop plastic pollution around the world.
To set the animation apart, LoveLove Films came up with the idea of a short using characters and backgrounds from the 11” pilot – with a video camera washing up on the Bottle Island shore, being found by Socket, and then being used to film the unveiling of one of Prof Z’s new contraptions.
To create the new 3D contraption, LoveLove Films’ animation department created concept images, which captured all angles of the contraption, before setting it up in 3D space and using box modelling techniques to build the contraptions main structure and shape.
The main trunk was created using bone structure, as it was to be animated. Once we were happy with the design and the rig, we began texturing. The goal for the textures was to make them look realistic as the contraption was to be part of a much larger scene.
The Result
UN Environment were thrilled with the final animation, which has been uploaded to their YouTube page and now has over 50,000 hits and has been shared on Twitter by Hollywood stars such as Forest Whitaker.
Head of UN Environment, Erik Solheim said of Bottle Island:
“It is crucial that the next generations understand the enormous responsibility and power that they have. They need to know that they can truly transform this world to make it better and that they don’t need to make our same mistakes. We can’t reach out to them with scientific reports. Bottle Island is a great way to help them understand environmental challenges, to realise that solutions are in our hands and to have fun with a bunch of rather crazy characters on a peculiar little island!”
LoveLove Films’ Producer Georgina Hurcombe said of working with the UN:
“The whole of the LoveLove Films team are absolutely delighted to be collaborating with the United Nations Environment on Bottle Island. The World Environment Day short film has been a fantastic start to what we hope will be a long and successful collaboration with the UN. Our way of thinking with Bottle Island is very much in line with the UN ethos and Socket and the gang are particularly glad to be highlighting the importance of combating plastic pollution for children with them!”
For more information on Bottle Island click here.