Animated Interviews

Animating any type of real or found audio is tough. You don't want to mimic the actions described in the audio too much, but you still want to be entertaining and lively. Creature Comforts seems to do a decent job of translating the audio to absurd animals and locations, but now its a steadfast formula. The recent StoryCorps videos animated by the Rauch Brothers succeed greatly, I think, even with somewhat limited animation:

The Icing on the Cake from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Its important to note that they're really dramas, being depicted in cartoony form -- and they still come across not as maudlin, but sincere and moving. Perhaps the cartoon form distances us enough from the emotion that if it were live action it might come across as manipulative. Would Up work as a live-action feature?:

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Bill Wray, creator of Hellboy Jr. and artist, worked on the beautiful backgrounds for both shorts. his paintings are beautiful:



One of his backgrounds for Samurai Jack: