For the broadcast of BBC Radio 4 PM series reporting on the rise of knife crime incidents across the UK, this animation focuses on one attack in February 2017, giving us an insight from a mother’s perspective, of the night her son was murdered.

Client: BBC Radio 4 / Radio 4 PM
Interview: Michelle McPhillips
Journalist: Andrew Bomford
Assistant editor: Jonathan Harvey
Sound design: Luke Holmes
Music: Curtis Coello
Directed, animated and edited by cribble

Florida Animation Festival, USA – 1st Place, Mixed Media/Experimental Short
British Animation Awards, UK – Public Choice nonimation
Worlds Smallest Animation Festival, Qubec
Harrogate Film Festival, UK
Dorset Indie Film Festival, UK

process

From the brief with BBC Radio 4, I was asked to cut audio from a 30+ minute interview with the victim’s mother and create an animation based upon the audio. The detail of the account from Michelle was heartbreaking, so I wanted to develop a style that would reflect this personal account, giving the viewer a first person perspective of the state of time and scenery.

I developed a dark style to suit the time of the incident, whilst also keeping the staging focused and minimal to keep pace with Michelle’s perspective.

Since the deadline was looming, the first pass of animation (normally a more stripped back animatic) was more fleshed out with a lot of animation complete and some timings and additional animated passes to be completed.

With this animatic approved by the family and BBC, I got the all clear to deliver the final pass. The project was traditionally, frame-by-frame animated with love in Adobe Animate, coloured and stylised in Photoshop, then composed and finalised in After Effects. Sound design was provided by the wonderful Luke Holmes, and the fantastic score composed by Curt Coello.

stills