Back in 2021, Kim Lear, a researcher I met on a project, called me up to share an idea she had.
Kim focuses on generational trends. As soon as the world started to shut down, she began interviewing high school and college students via Zoom, collecting research in real-time about how this once-in-a-century experience was changing them.
Brilliant.
“CJ, I have this archive of audio interviews,” she told me. “Do you think you and your team could turn it into some kind of animation project?”
Yes…yes we can.
We began with the editorial process of pairing down hour-long conversations to find the most interesting story within them. We then began to imagine what was going on inside each student’s head as they were sharing and tried to capture those visuals through simple black & white sketches. We then made the stylistic choice to animate those sketches over classical strings in the hopes that one could watch this “time capsule” at any point in the future without it feeling dated.
The result was 6 animations you can watch here.
By the way, if you want to stay ahead of culture trends, I’d highly recommend subscribing to Kim’s Substack newsletter, Kids These Days.
On Next Week’s Fuseletter…
…an essay on why technology has never been “neutral” in the same way Switzerland wasn’t really neutral in WWII. Stay tuned!
