HIA: Who is ANIMAX?
Bellavia: ANIMAX is a character design
and animation studio based in Los Angeles focused on creating
fun stuff. . With particular expertise in Flash, we produce
interactive and traditional animation. Our work for our
clients like Disney, ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros., National Geographic,
JWT and others includes commercials and interstitials, videos,
websites, webisodes, online games, mobile content, interactive
ad units, marketing tools, DVD content, elearning applications
and original shorts. In addition to our creative design
and animation team, the ANIMAX Technology division develops
solutions to allow our work to live across multiple platforms
including broadcast, broadband, DVD, the Web, wireless and
emerging media.
HIA: What is your approach
to developing interactive media solutions?
Bellavia: Comedy + Story = Success. Because
our Executive Creative Director is Dave Thomas, the Emmy
award winning Producer, Writer, Actor and one of the seminal
forces behind the landmark shows SCTV, our approach to every
project, be it interactive or traditional, entertainment
or branded entertainment, is to focus on story and to focus
on the funny. We help clients recognize that fancy creative
or technology is pointless if not considered within the
larger context of the journey that an audience member needs
to be taken on in order to best communicate the message.
Instead of just doing this in a vacuum, we look to involve
the target audience in the actual development process as
much as possible and to create experiences that they can
help shape.
HIA: What is the Coping
with Chemo website and how did it come to be?
Bellavia: “Coping with Chemo” is a website we
produced for the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation
to help teens who have cancer better understand the physical,
emotional and social impact of chemotherapy. Through a series
of animated webisodes, we tell the story of Marcus and Isabel
Working with Starlight Starbright, the script for the
HIA: Why was it necessary
to develop the Coping with Chemo website?
Bellavia: Starlight Starbright aims to brighten the lives
of seriously ill children and their families. In particular
the Foundation wanted to help kids from diverse backgrounds
better cope with a cancer diagnosis and to help prepare
them for the road ahead.
HIA: Who all was involved
with getting the Coping with Chemo website project started
and what were their roles?
Bellavia: The first point of contact came a year before
the Coping with Chemo project actually began. Michael Bellavia,
ANIMAX’s General Manager, came across the Foundation
and knew that ANIMAX’s expertise in animation and
technology could be readily put to good use on behalf of
the Foundation. After numerous sessions with Tal Gilad and
the other team members at Starlight Starbright, we began
work on producing the webisodes and the website. The script
was largely written by teens who have cancer who’ve
been through chemotherapy. The opportunity to work on Coping
with Chemo with, ANIMAX’s General Manager was the
Executive Producer on the project
HIA: What technologies
were involved with making the website?
Bellavia: The webisodes were produced using Adobe Illustrator
and Macromedia Flash.
HIA: What were the biggest
challenges to making the website and how did you overcome
them?
Bellavia: The main challenges were making the characters,
dialogue, animation and overall experience relevant directly
to the target audience. Kids are fickle. Also since the
material is pretty heavy, we had to make sure that our staff
was properly supported, emotionally even, to be able to
work on the project on a daily basis.
HIA: Did the website
achieve its goals?
Bellavia: The website did achieve its goals and continues
to achieve them. Actress and singer Mandy Moore introduced
them on MTV helping to get the word out. Kids and teens
with cancer and their family and friends have provided lots
of positive feedback and the other awards that we’ve
won for the site in addition to the Horizon Awards have
been further validation of a job well done.
HIA: Where do you / your
team turn for creative inspiration?
Bellavia: Everything from the Web, film and other media
to a blank piece of paper. We have voracious appetites for
laughter. We try to find inspiration in the best and worst
of what other people do to entertain people.
HIA: What trends do you see in interactive media
production today?
Bellavia: We see a stronger focus on storytelling with an
emphasis on incorporating entertainment into a variety of
experiences. We also see that ways in which the audience
can incentivized to actually contribute to the creation
and ongoing development of content can only help to provide
for a richer experience.
WINNER'S
CONTACT INFORMATION:
ANIMAX
3617 Hayden Avenue
Culver City, CA 90232
www.animaxent.com
Thanks to Michael Bellavia for taking time to answer our
questions. I congratulate the entire ANIMAX team on a job
well done. They truly demonstrated an excellence in interactive
media production.
