003. Bringing Harvey Milk to Life
Every so often, a project comes along that feels like a perfect fit – a chance to create something meaningful while flexing our animation muscles. That was exactly the case when we teamed up with Flocabulary to bring the story of Harvey Milk to life through animation.
Harvey Milk was a pioneering figure in LGBTQ+ rights – the first openly gay man elected to public office in the US.
As a city supervisor in San Francisco during the 1970s, he championed equality and social change, inspiring generations to come. Though his life was tragically cut short, his legacy lives on.
Flocabulary is a brilliant educational platform that turns subjects like history, science, and maths into catchy hip-hop tracks and animated videos. It’s learning with rhythm – and it works. So, when they approached us to animate their track about Harvey Milk, we were all in.
Research, Design, and a Boiling Brush
With a four-minute track as our foundation, we dived into research, mapping out Harvey’s life and breaking key moments into a storyboard and animatic. Flocabulary provided archive assets, like photographs of Harvey, and we seamlessly integrated what we could – illustrating everything from scratch.
Director Steve Smith had long admired designer Esther Lalanne’s work, and her bold, layered style was the perfect match for this project. She crafted a strong visual identity with a limited but striking colour palette, alongside a set of custom digital brushes that gave the animation a beautifully ‘boiling’ hand-drawn feel.
Marrying Budget with Spectacle
Animation is always a balancing act between ambition and resources, and this project was no different. We combined a mix of techniques – motion graphics (text, shapes, transitions, camera moves, effects) alongside bespoke character animation. The focus was largely on Harvey himself, evolving through his lifetime.
We painted textured, shifting backgrounds in Photoshop, animated in After Effects, and used DUIK – a sophisticated rigging tool – to bring Harvey’s movements to life. DUIK allowed us to create natural, expressive cut-out animation with inverse kinematics, meaning we could animate poses intuitively, moving hands and feet to define the body’s flow.
This kind of storytelling is exactly why we love animation for NGOs and educational organisations. It’s a powerful way to inform and inspire audiences, making important topics accessible and engaging.
The final edit was all about rhythm – keeping in step with the beat, highlighting key lyrics, and driving the narrative forward. The result? A striking, engaging, and much-loved addition to Flocabulary’s library. Take a look here!
“The Harvey Milk video is a huge favorite of everyone here.”
We love bringing important stories to life through animation – whether it’s animation for NGOs, charities, or educational platforms.
If you have a message that needs to be seen and heard, let’s talk! Get in touch, and let’s see how we can bring your story to the screen.
