OLD style animation, as used in Wallace and Gromit, is being commissioned by a college to attract its next generation of learners.
Darlington College has welcomed ‘DC’ to the fold, an inches-high felt puppet used in a stop-motion animation designed to highlight the many benefits of further education.
DC takes prospective students on a world tour of where the last cohort of students visited thanks to grants from the Turing Programme. These included work experience placements in Thailand, India, Tanzania, Cambodia, Malta, Belgium and Brazil.
A month in the making, the meticulous video has been produced by Darlington-based Hubspoke Media.
It involved making tiny felt props, including DC himself, a cute sunglasses-wearing gender-neutral figure, complete with branded backpack, who is persuaded to become a Darlington College student.
The animation also features fabric students reflecting the college’s diverse curriculum with ‘learners’ filming in the background, or designing games, another playing football, as well as felt palm trees, a phone, branded parasol, a crab, an airplane, a sign for Sue Gherkins Pickles and a ‘Fony’ TV set.
Each of the tiny pieces was made by content creator Adam Coleman before being input into a digital set and used to build up the animation frame by frame, with DC filmed using stop-motion against a green screen.
The narrator is Dan Pye, a North East voiceover artiste who provides the speech for comedian Lost Voice Guy, Lee Ridley.
The promotional campaign is designed to advertise the start of Darlington College’s enrolment on August 21 and the fact it has secured more funding from the Turing project to send students abroad next year.
Hubspoke director Adam Walker said: “This is the fourth project we have done for the college for on-screen campaigns with the first being in the cinema and on TV. For the last advert we used thousands of photographs and stop-motion to create the assets.
“This time we wanted to capture the breadth of travel accessible through Darlington College using felt props, capturing the Wallace and Gromit charm of models and stop-motion. This gives it a handcrafted feel, something which is fun, attention grabbing and enjoyable to watch.
“At the end, real students and staff beckon through the TV for DC to join them. DC has gone down really well prompting ideas to produce merchandise and a poster campaign around the character.
“Adam’s work has been incredible, his craftsmanship and attention to detail is second to none.”
Darlington College’s head of marketing and engagement Claire Hankey said: “We are excited to see the reaction to our animated campaign that captures the vibrancy of learning beyond the classroom. We wanted something to stand out from all of the other adverts seen on TV and online and we feel this creativity brings our message to life in a fresh and engaging way. Hubspoke Media has been fantastic in working seamlessly with us, sharing our vision and delivering another really engaging campaign.”
For more information on opportunities at Darlington College visit www.darlington.ac.uk.