TED-Ed: The Unnatural World

Imagine aliens land on Earth a million years from now. What will these curious searchers find of us? They will find what geologists, scientists, and other experts are increasingly calling the Anthropocene, or new age of mankind.

Purpose

We worked with science curator and author at Scientific American, David Biello on this project. This explainer video is an introduction to David’s book, The Unnatural World. It lays out our humanity’s situation in the Anthropocene, installs a sense of urgency and awareness of what we have done to alter our planet, and inspires us to take action to ensure our planet’s habitability.

Services

Storyboarding

Illustration

Animation

Video Production

Client

TED-Ed

Visual Treatment

We took inspiration from Charley Harper's modernist and stylized wildlife illustrations as we developed this geometric style. It also compliments the orderly yet dynamic nature of our world. We incorporated many wide shots throughout the film to evoke the earth’s vastness and power. Click to enlarge each style frame:

Storyboard

It was a lot of fun doing research and learning about how a glyptodon looked like! We worked closely with David and the TED-Ed team through the story flow, and made sure the visuals were an accurate portrayal of the environment and animals in the prehistoric era. Horizontal and vertical pans were used as transitions throughout the video - as a playful way to make viewers feel like they are moving through a giant storybook.

Impact

This video is now part of TED-Ed’s “Our Changing Climate” video series and has helped answered 19,000+ questions from students worldwide through TED-Ed’s lesson page.