“An Animation created for United Nations where director Vellu Valla and us wanted to bring ugliness and brutal violence of wildlife crime in the spotlight”

Director Vellu Valla of Also Starring partnered with Piñata to create this film about wildlife crime for UN.

Vellu Valla wanted to get the rawness, ugliness and brutal violence of wildlife crime in the spotlight and show how it linked back to the timber trade and crime organizations running the business world wide.

Therefore a stylized animation technique was selected. The painterly style helped us emphasize the story and merge the multiple aspects of organized crime together in a powerful way. It also demonstrated well the effects of these crime syndicates we see in real world, effects that might get very abstract to comprehend.

Artists at Piñata worked on the look of the film and experimented with ways to make it happen in animated format. “We wanted every frame to feel like a painting, to have control over everything and make use of painterly effects. To tell a powerful story.”, animation director Henri describes.

In the end, we used a lot of 3D modelled and animated characters and assets with hand painted textures and lighting for each scene. After the animation process and depending on the shot, some parts were meticulously hand painted frame-by-frame or re-painted in post processing to get the lively effect.

The painting style also added another layer to the story: It was something concrete and hand made. Something created and crafted by a human hand. And something, we all have the power to change. The bottom line is, it’s not only the high level government officials and politicians or military leaders that can make the difference. We all can paint a different picture.