Virgin in Safe Hands with Art & Graft

If you've flown Virgin Atlantic in the last 10 years then you'll have doubtless seen the animated safety film [pictured below] which is a cut above any other airline's safety film. Using animation to convey messages that most people aren't interested in or have heard a hundred time before, it was a bold new approach, and it worked.

But it's been a while since an update, and so from today, when you travel Virgin Atlantic, what you'll be seeing instead is the above film. Produced and directed by London-based Art & Graft the film continues the animation theme but takes it forward with a host of styles and twists while, of course, keeping the safety information at its core.

“We approached several well-established animation studios and agencies," says Leon Trigg, production manager at Virgin Atlantic, "but Art & Graft carefully considered the brief and understood our brand, who we are, and what our passengers expect from us. They pitched an exciting concept with a style that managed to convey warmth and familiarity, whilst feeling fresh, edgy and contemporary.”

Below, Mike Moloney, founder of Art & Graft, talks us through the process of creating the six-minute film, from pitch to delivery.

Pitch perfect

We were invited by Virgin Atlantic to pitch for a new safety film in July 2013. The current safety message was produced in 2001 [it was directed by Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes, then under the moniker Vehicle] and despite remaining memorable and popular with passengers it had become dated and a number of safety elements required updating.

They required a film that was not only in line with the safety regulations from the Civil Aviation Authority, but one which would also be innovative, entertaining and align with the brand marketing and advertising. Alongside this it also needed appeal to a wide audience to suit the demographic of Virgin Atlantic travellers. 

The previous film had such an extended run we were keen to develop a stylistic approach that was equipped to stand the test of time by combining labour intensive (though ultimately rewarding) traditional character animation with more contemporary 3D techniques.

Just as the Virgin passengers are about to set off we wanted to take them on a little journey of our own. Mirroring the usual apathy toward safety messages we created a surprising and playful series of genre-based film scenes to convey all the necessary information. This approach felt inclusive and a nice way to pique the interest of all ages onboard.

Virgin Atlantic was keen to have a clean, fluid style and animation provided the perfect medium as it allows for longevity and versatility. As the final video will be shown thousands of times weekly, it was also essential that it had a cheeky Virgin Atlantic edge “flying in the face of ordinary”.

Quite early on we focused on representing the various Virgin Atlantic customers with a range of characters. Through beginning to develop this and various other  scenes we quickly came to the realisation that movie genres would provide a perfect setting. Film is a universal language and travelling with Virgin Atlantic can be like watching a good film; for those few hours on board you are transported into another world.

From script to screen

As with any project the film went through various iterations of script, storyboards, designs, content and treatment. We developed our ideas for two-to-three months, working through many animatic rounds before reaching a stage where we were happy to begin production of the final animation.

To bring our ideas to life, the Art & Graft team combined an illustrative approach with exciting 3D and 2D animation techniques. All the character animation was produced using a traditional frame-by-frame technique – very labour intensive, especially when creating a six-minute film - but the results look beautiful and are extremely rewarding.

Elements throughout the film were modelled in 3D; allowing us to ’wrap’ our illustrations around these models to keep the illustrative feel yet giving the scenes fantastic depth and space.

This allowed all the camera angles to be planned out and ensure the 2D characters could then be animated in each scene with the addition of further textures and casted shadows. This approach also allowed the camera to travel around and through the scenes, giving a rich and filmic feel to the animation.

Character reference

The original pitch had included a broad range of characters; The Frequent Flyer, The Family Holiday-ers, The (older) Round the World-ers and The Funseekers. Each suited a range of movie genres and provided the scenes for each of the safety briefings.

The initial concept also involved switching from the real world characters on the plane to a movie genre world at each step of the video. However, with only five minutes in which to communicate all the information, we realised that this approach needed to be simplified.

Eschewing the original characters, the concept was reduced to a central character and single transition into the movie genre world.

The use of a central character provides an easier viewer journey and a unifying thread to what could have been quite disparate scenes. Further inspired by movie genres, this character acts as a central ‘hero’.

He is a bit like our Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap.

Musical mates

And we commissioned our frequent collaborators Brains & Hunch to create musical compositions for use throughout the film. The music contributes to the seamless transitions from scene to scene and echoes classic soundtracks, providing an immersive experience.

And Morgana Robinson provides wealth of different character voices to the scenes, bringing a much needed irreverent and humorous voiceover that successfully draws all the elements together.