CASE STUDY
Department of Communities and Justice: After Court Support animation
An animation that needed to connect to young people at risk.
ANIMATION / CREATIVE STRATEGY / SCRIPTING
In the youth justice system, children as young as 10 years old can be given court orders or bail conditions that they simply don’t understand. The statistic for reoffending is high, oftentimes caused by a lack of understanding and/or support.
The Department of Communities and Justice was funded to pilot a text-based program that supports children after court. The ultimate goal was to reduce repeat offending by giving these kids a feeling of empowerment and ongoing communication.
Lead agency, Nani Creative, brought on Clare Reid and Davide Boscolo for the animation portion of the project.
This animation needed to connect with young people. These kids are overwhelmed and disengaged; they want to get out of court as soon as possible. With high stress and low attention spans, they are seeking familiarity and comfort, a voice that they can relate to (and that relates to them).
The creative insights that guided the scripting process.
Through consultation we learned that the children were engaged with YouTube channels like Into the Hood and NRL stars like Latrell Mitchel, and completely disengaged by authoritarian voices coming from school/government.
So, the animation needed a relatable narrator and characters—trusted peers who feel like they have walked in the same world—and a trauma-informed visual design.
The script and the voice over talent were designed to have an accent, word choices, and a POV that came from a world these kids recognised. It was a straight-talking, confident, and authentic tone that completely avoided any government language or style.
We also used emojis—careful to be relatable and not cringe—to align with the text-based program.
The 2D animation, developed by Davide Boscolo, set the character style for the ongoing collateral and the copy tone for the texts.
Credits:
Creative agency: Nani Creative
Concepting: Kevin Wilson and Clare Reid
Design direction: Leigh Wood
Scripting: Clare Reid
Creative direction: Kevin Wilson
Animation: Davide Boscolo
Post-production lead (now Motion Meets Still): Gavin Carroll
Production agency: Lush