Charity Video,  Animation

Finding the cure

KCA approached us at Bold Content Video initially looking for a short video highlighting the amazing work that the charity has done over the years, featuring interviews from the world’s most predominant oncologists.

Over many discussions between our Managing Director Adam Neale and KCA’s Chief Advancement Officer Kendall Pace Monroe, the video project became more and more ambitious.

Something that really struck us during our conversations with the team at KCA was how much progress there has been for the kidney cancer community since the charity was founded in 1990. KCA has been instrumental in evolving kidney cancer from a disease with a few treatment options, to a future of hope and promise as a result of their hard work approving treatments, facilitating research and running clinical trials. We wanted their 30th anniversary video to go above and beyond, in their endeavours to build momentum and further raise awareness for the amazing work they do.

Our creative team got their heads together and we came up with an idea for a story that resonates on a deeply emotional level to anyone who has had a relative in hospital.

We pitched this idea to KCA as an animation that tells the story of a young person whose life is changed by kidney cancer. We explained that the animation would be full of pathos, and that the idea behind the story was to show how much progress has been made by their scientists, researchers and doctors to find the cure for kidney cancer.

In terms of the narrative, the story follows a young girl who loses her father in the 90s to kidney cancer, but she forges her own path through life, becoming a doctor and helping patients become cancer-free.

The client loved the fact that the story leads the viewer in a certain direction to the point where they predict what’s going to happen, but then it subverts the traditional narrative in favour of a fresh approach.  It also underlines one of their core messages about how they’ve helped to enable the treatment of Kidney Cancer over the last 30 years meaning it’s no longer a terminal condition.

Thankfully they were willing to take a creative leap with us and green-lit the production.

These kinds of stories have a deeply emotive connection with the viewer but we needed a unique visual style to bring this concept to life.

We searched and searched for the right illustrator who could create a painterly effect but quickly enough to make a hand drawn animation possible on a small budget.

Eventually on a late night session scouring Behance we happened across Kurt Chang’s work and were blown away by the sense of magical realism in his work.  We knew that this story would benefit from a slight abstraction of the normal world so we reached out and were delighted when he agreed to come on board.

This video has been a real passion project for the team at Bold Content, with everyone working on it outside of regular working hours. Our lead animator Agata Graczyk has been a real hero in making Kurt’s illustrations move.  When we first saw the movements we realised that she’s injected humanity into the characters and brought the backgrounds to life.

The client has been immensely patient, knowing that this is not a cookie cutter animation. We’ve been developing new techniques and trying new things as we go, which has taken time.  It’s been a real labour of love but after several months of work, we were able to release a video for their annual symposium.

We are big believers in telling stories that elicit an emotional response. A video has the power to evoke change. That’s why we also had an original score produced for the video, which really helps to elevate the production and increase its emotional impact.

We’re pleased to add that the video won Canopus (equivalent of a gold award) in the Vega Awards – Non-Profit category.