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The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is the largest public sector labor union in the country. Pixeldust was chosen to create their newest video, which highlights the union’s far reaching influence for workers throughout American history.

Creative Director: Ricardo Andrade
Art Director: Manuel Messerli
Editor, Producer: Rico Andrade

THEN AND NOW

To effectively communicate AFSCME’s story, Pixeldust was tasked with expressing the union’s history through animation, while integrating the authoratative voice of its current President, Lee Saunders. The goal was to make a video that would introduce people to what AFSCME is in an engaging and entertaining way. The team opted to create an elegant composite of the subject within an abstract space, where archival photography of past events are visible all around him. 

EXECUTION

After a sketched storyboard planning out the scenes, Lee Saunders was filmed in a green screen environment. This allowed the team to cleanly swap out scenery around him, while also helping him stand out amongst the largely colorless photographs. While Pixeldust’s illustrators treated the many documents and photographs with a pen stroke filter, the animators began rotoscoping, separating Saunders from the green screen. Lastly, Pixeldust animators composited the union president into the scenes, and created creative transitions to take the viewer on a journey through time.

 

Drag the button at the middle of the image to progress the green screen footage to the final composited animations.

FINAL VIDEO

The completed 60 second piece, which is currently featured on the front page of AFSCME’s website.

THE MAKING OF

Pixeldust put together this short reel showing how the piece was put together.