2D Animation – Cass Productions

Beyond the Screen: How Frame-by-Frame Animation is Saving Lives for WHO’s PPH Toolkit

Gary — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:42:54 +0000

The Critical Challenge: A Universal, Life-Saving Message

Postpartum Haemorrhage (PPH) remains the single leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide. While effective emergency toolkits exist, the greatest challenge is global accessibility. The World Health Organisation (WHO), in partnership with EMOTIVE, needed a video that could transcend language, cultural and literacy barriers.

They approached us needing a film that was both strategic and sensitive. Our creative team proposed the concept “Walk of Life”, a fully inclusive silent film that is universally accessible, eliminating the need for voiceovers, subtitles or translation. This approach ensured the film was agnostic of any single institution and could cover the wider, collective story of research into life-saving measures in a beautiful and impactful way.

The Creative Blueprint: Designing with Compassion and Precision

Inspired by Elizabeth Stanton’s stark observation, “Alone she goes to the gates of death to give life to every man that is born into the world,” we created the ‘walk of life’ narrative where the central figure walks a continuous road. As the road progresses, the woman walking changes, showing multiple ethnicities and cultures. This visually represents the danger of childbirth faced by “one woman, all women”; they tread the same precarious path.

When creating the animation, we prioritised making every moment feel deeply human and emotionally charged. This required combining detailed research with technical efficiency:

Technical Planning & Cultural Nuance

To achieve this ambitious vision under a tight deadline, the walk cycle design was crucial:

We started by perfecting a single main walk cycle, ensuring the weight and balance were suitable for all women, even with changes in clothing or when carrying objects.
To facilitate a fast turnaround, the legs and arms cycles are the same across all three women, only changing in colour.
The crucial elements that convey culture and background, the dresses, faces, and other details, were drawn individually for each woman. This allowed us to balance production efficiency with genuine cultural representation.

Hand-Drawn Detail & Emotional Context

We ensured the animation spoke directly to the communities affected by PPH:

We spent a great deal of time researching and gathering references from the countries most affected by PPH. This guided our visual choices: warm yellows and soft pinks for Tanzania, rich greens for Sri Lanka and sandy browns for Afghanistan.
The textures on the dresses were drawn by hand and stamped across each frame to provide more depth and detail to the shots.
The last step was to add subtle shading to bring depth to the shots and make it fit in with the rest of the film. We also ensured the side aspect throughout avoided showing graphic angles.

Finding Meaning in the Movement

One of the most emotional shots in the piece is the moment where the father stands over his partner’s grave, holding the baby she gave birth to before she passed away. It’s a quiet, intimate scene that carries immense emotional weight.

As he holds the newborn close to his chest, he also clutches a single flower. A petal loosens and drifts downwards, eventually settling on the grave. We animated this moment by hand, drawing each frame to give the petal a sense of delicate fluidity and life. The soft, organic movement of the falling petal became a powerful symbol of loss, love and the fragile beauty of memory, a depth of feeling only possible with a dedicated frame-by-frame approach.

Conclusion

The EMOTIVE PPH animation demonstrates the power of animation to transcend language and cultural barriers while still handling a sensitive subject with deep respect and impact. By combining careful, sensitive research with meticulous frame-by-frame execution, we helped the WHO produce a vital training resource that will support healthcare workers and ultimately save lives.

Ready to Discuss Your Complex Project?

Do you have a sensitive or highly technical subject that needs to be simplified and communicated globally?

Contact Cass Productions today to discuss how our bespoke animation and production services can transform your complex message into a clear, emotionally resonant, and life-changing visual story.

Click here to see the full video.

The post Beyond the Screen: How Frame-by-Frame Animation is Saving Lives for WHO’s PPH Toolkit appeared first on Cass Productions.

How using 2D animation can benefit your organisation

Gary — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 14:36:32 +0000

2D Animation for UKRI: Technology Missions Fund Explainer

The use of 2D animation in a business or organisation can be extremely beneficial. Animated visuals are particularly effective at capturing attention, enhancing engagement and compellingly reinforcing your message. Put simply, animated videos simplify complex ideas in a way that is easy for your audience to understand. Whether the goal is education, storytelling or brand communication, 2D animation offers a level of clarity and creativity that other formats often struggle to achieve.

If you’re interested in how we apply motion design across other projects, you can also explore our University Video Production case study.

THE PROJECT: 2D ANIMATION FOR UKRI

Our client for this project was UKRI (UK Research and Innovation).

This 2D animation aimed to explain the Technology Missions Fund, designed to accelerate technological development across four major sectors:

Artificial Intelligence
Engineering Biology
Future Telecommunications
Quantum Technologies

Through the animated video, UKRI wanted to illustrate how they support the emergence and development of technologies that have the potential to positively impact society and the economy. This made 2D animation the perfect medium, clear, engaging, informative and accessible.

CONCEPT & PLANNING FOR THE 2D ANIMATION

The primary objective was to produce an explainer 2D animation that presented the Technology Missions Fund in an engaging, creative and visually clear way. Once the script was finalised, our first step was storyboarding.

Storyboarding allowed us to break down complex technical content into digestible, well-paced visuals. Because the video represented multiple sectors, each one needed to have a distinct identity yet felt part of a unified overall narrative. During this phase, we also planned the motion transitions, ensuring the flow from one sequence to the next felt smooth and intuitive.

To create the storyboard, we used Storyboarder, a free tool by Wonder Unit that has become a core part of our animation workflow. Its seamless integration with Photoshop lets us work within a familiar environment while giving us the speed and flexibility needed for efficient iteration. With drag-and-drop scene organisation and quick annotation tools, Storyboarder helps us adapt and refine the story as ideas evolve, making it ideal for fast-moving 2D animation projects.

The conceptual phase forms the backbone of any successful animated film. It allows us to establish tone, pacing and visual hierarchy, ensuring the final 2D animation communicates complex ideas with confidence and clarity.

DESIGN & STYLE: CREATING A DISTINCT 2D ANIMATION LOOK

Building on the crisp vector style of a previous UKRI commission, we expanded and refined the visual style for this project.

We added depth by layering scenes, developing more detailed assets and using subtle shading to create visual interest without overcomplicating the design. The clean illustration style and technical colour palette gave the animation a trustworthy, modern aesthetic, perfect for a fund focused on innovation.

For asset creation, we used Adobe Illustrator, allowing us to work entirely in vector format. This ensured that every graphic element remained sharp and scalable, regardless of screen size. Once designed, these assets were brought into Adobe After Effects, where the full 2D animation took shape.

In some scenes, we converted Illustrator layers into shape layers directly in After Effects. This technique unlocked more advanced manipulation, bending paths, adjusting anchor points, adding dynamic line movement, and giving us greater creative freedom during the animation phase.

This workflow not only maintains visual fidelity but also improves efficiency, allowing us to produce polished 2D animations with smooth motion and consistent style from beginning to end.

FINAL OUTPUT

This project demonstrates the power of 2D animation as a communication tool. By combining clear visual storytelling with technical precision, we created a film that helps audiences understand the purpose and impact of UKRI’s Technology Missions Fund.

See the full 2D animation here.

The post How using 2D animation can benefit your organisation appeared first on Cass Productions.