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Yorkshire Marine Nature Partnership
Celebrating the nature of the Yorkshire Coast
North York Moors
Name of project
Children’s Storytelling: Riley & the Musical River
Audience
Under 5s and their families
What we did
Research & concept development, visual development, scripting, sound mix & design, character animation, design & animation, project management
Deliverables
One 3-minute film, 11 character illustrations for print and digital
Play
Teaching under-5s about healthy rivers.
The problem
North York Moors National Park Authority held regular interactive sessions with children in Yorkshire, telling the story of a healthy musical river using puppets and interactive activities for the children to do. To reach a wider audience and last beyond the end of the project, the team asked us to adapt the story into an animation. The river and wildlife reflected the River Rye so it was familiar to children and their families.
Our solution
Our bold, playful animation focuses on storytelling elements from the interactive session to educate and entertain children about the importance of rivers. We collaborated with the team to adapt the simple narrative and develop a set of child-friendly animal characters based on the Rye wildlife. Each character is based on a specific species seen by the river, with technically accurate colours and patterns.
Delivering amazing results
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over 1600views
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6characters
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Educating children, with character.
We developed cute characters, personifying the animals they’re based on in a simple, colourful style, appealing to the under-5s audience. We follow the characters in a bright, welcoming river habitat to suit the narrative of the Musical River. This increased engagement for the young audience and helped them to focus on the key information within the narrative. The main character, Riley had a generic identity so that they were relatable to a wider audience. We created these as printable assets that could be used in wider marketing and educational material again and again.
The voiceover was warm and enthusiastic, tailored to the under 5s audience, with simplified language and repetitive motifs. We worked with the education team at North York Moors to turn the existing story into an entertaining animation, with educational content about how children can help protect rivers. The project was supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, North York Moors National Park Authority and other partners.
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Thank you all so much for your work on this. You’ve done a fab job! It looks and sounds brilliant. We really love the creativity and you’ve always been really helpful. We’re really excited about using it.— Emma Walker Education & Engagement Leader (Ryevitalise Project) North York Moors National Park Authority
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