ASU MacArthur Grant Submission Videos
In 2016, the brilliant Safwat Saleem recruited me to help with ASU’s submissions to the coveted MacArthur grant.
The idea was simple: create animated treatments to explain the simple (and not-so-simple) pitches by the ASU brains behind them. This was a very short-term project with a tight timeline, but incredibly fun to work on. Safwat assembled a really great team of animators, and had me set the tone and concepts for the series.
1: Negative Emissions
The really cool idea pitched by Dr. Klaus Lackner really turns the idea of carbon emissions upside down. Hence, my first thought was, how about we literally show that? I built out a storyboard and a skeleton animation, then handed it off to the very talented Tony Silva, who helped bring the vision to life. Super smart guy Chris Rushing produced the illustrations.
This was definitely a visually fun project to work on, and involved all sorts of tricks, from lighting, to 3D, to particle generators. Part of the thing about far-out conceptual ideas, to me, always needs some sort of grounding, that reminds us that we’re looking at a concept, not a finished product. A sort of quirky, paper-y feeling was used to reinforce this.
2. Rapidly Deployable Education for Refugees
Dr. Phil Regier is a brilliant guy who’s mind is constantly teeming with the next big thing in educational technology. He should know, being the CEO of EdPlus at ASU and everything. His idea was to make education accessible to some of the world’s most vulnerable populations: refugees. It was then, and sadly now, still a painfully relevant issue.
Part of the refugee’s plight is the unrelenting change and movement in this turbulent moment of their lives. To show this, I wanted the entire video to move the entire time, from left to right. As they started to find a solution, the refugees would finally break out of their situation, and, aided by educational technology, take their lives in an intentional, meaningful direction, and into their own hands.
I developed the visual concept, storyboarded the video, built the basic animations, and then oversaw the dazzling talent of Star Tucker for her amazing illustration, and Blake Johnson for the gorgeously smooth animation.
3. PlanetWorks
Dr. Ariel Anbar’s global pitch here was about, well, a lot of things at once. This ambitious idea was mostly visually translated by Safwat, though we did get to kick ideas around together a bit during the conceptual and storyboarding phase. I jumped in on this project towards the end to polish and sharpen the overall video. Star Tucker was involved with this video, and the main animator was Kyle Martinez.