Dave’s Desk – Stop-motion animation & visual trickery

This became a stop-motion animated piece, but to begin with we were simply asked to create an imaginative video to communicate an anti-phishing message to staff, defining what suspicious links are and why they shouldn’t be clicked on.

The finished video had to convey the message simply enough for non-technical users to understand, as well as having enough technical detail so that advanced users didn’t feel patronised.

Most importantly, it had to be memorable, and recognisable – educational videos are so often dull, and the client emphatically didn’t want that.

We decided to create a stop motion animation, rather than something computer-animated, to soften the message and make it feel less, well, computery. It would also, hopefully, be more memorable and recognisable that way. Inspired by Richard Wiseman’s famous card trick, the “hook” is that while you’re watching stuff happen on the screen on Dave’s desk, six of the things around the screen change: the message is, keep your wits about you and concentrate on everything, or you might get tripped up. We shot the stop motion over two days in our studio in Berkshire, using custom-designed assets and models created by Katy Davis at Gobblynne.

We also made a behind-the-scenes video of the process, which you can watch here.