Using Blender to Make a Short Film for Charity

In a recent interview with Blender, Blue Zoo Animation Studio reported that they are currently producing a short film made to promote PAPYRUS UK, a charity organization. The film got the name "Sinking Feeling", and Blender was used as the main tool in it.

Blue Zoo is a BAFTA award-winning animation production company based in London. Wishing to support young talent, they created an experimental films program – Blue Zoo Shorts.

Grace Hebditch, a Marketing Manager at Blue Zoo, clarified how the idea of producing "Sinking Feeling" was chosen. She explained that they give a brief to the studio, getting people to pitch their ideas. PAPYRUS UK – a charity for the prevention of young suicide – was a provider of this year's brief. "We’re interested in working for the social good," Hebditch says, "And this was a great opportunity to do pro bono work. So there was a big pitch session and our director Mark Spokes’ film idea was picked. It’s called Sinking Feeling.”

This is the studio's first full-scale experience working in Blender. They had used it before in creating advertising projects, however, this was the first opportunity to try the software with a larger crew.

“PAPYRUS is dedicated to preventing suicide in the under thirties,” said Mark Spokes, the director of the short film, “It shows a man slowly sinking into the floor, as though it’s mud. We really wanted to include these 2D effects, like the ripples spreading out around him, and him interacting with this mud floor. But we also wanted the film to be in 3D, like the actual characters and animation.”

That is why the studio has chosen Blender – to achieve the results they desired in a program capable of doing that, being a tool that makes animators' work easier. 

You can learn more about the project in an interview with Blender here. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.