From the creator:
As part of a social media campaign for the launch of its latest, Oregon-Trail-themed season of anthology series Miracle Workers, WarnerMedia’s tbs network asked Creative Mammals to produce a series of illustrated animations that would accompany interview footage of lead actor Daniel Radcliffe. In these spots, Radcliffe walks the audience through some bizarre facts and folklore from the journey along the Oregon Trail.
Miracle Workers is chock-full of comedic moments, so we needed to make sure that humor was a key component of each animation, both in the motion and in subtle bits of the illustrations. While the illustrations were to be reflective of the time period of the Oregon Trail, we wanted to be conscious about striking a balance between the older, historical look and a sense of humor that felt more modern and relatable. We also needed to make sure that the visceral style we went with for this look would feel seamless when combined with the interview footage of Radcliffe.
These comedy-filled animations not only work as the perfect backdrop for Radcliffe’s narration, but they add even more depth by painting a detailed picture of what life was *really* like on the Oregon Trail, with tons of hidden jokes sprinkled throughout. We followed each storyline at its core, but then took it a step further by embellishing the actions and fabricating several primitive environments for these storylines to exist within. Using Adobe Photoshop to create the backgrounds, and Illustrator to design the characters and all other animated elements, we brought everything together in After Effects to composite our 5 fully animated spots. The final result is a series of cohesive, off-the-cuff animations that bring Radcliffe’s storytelling, and the journey of the Oregon Trail, to life.