Whack to the Future

DVD introduction to Sperm Banking for teenage male cancer patients

Teenage Cancer Trust saw a need for better explanation of the usefulness of sperm banking to male cancer patients in this age group.

It was decided that a cartoon DVD would be the best medium for this message - the patient would be able to take it away and view it alone, and the information could be presented in an style appealing to teenagers.

My brother Simon was already working with the TCT, and we have worked together on previous animations and games (Simon usually provides most of the voices) so I was chosen to write, produce and animate the DVD.

Patient volunteers at the St James Hospital Leeds TCT unit met with me for a workshop to help plan the project, and a volunteer group of medical professionals around the country were consulted (by email) at regular stages - writing and rewriting the script, voice casting, character design and animation, etc.

I decided that seeing the possible futures that lie ahead was the key to the story. Like many writers before me, I stole Dickens' idea from "A Christmas Carol" - Taking the main character on a trip through time to see his own future(s). In my story a wacky Professor would offer a cancer patient a ride on a time machine.

Simon once again grabbed the wackiest character for himself, making the Professor a mad scientist straight from central casting, perfect for the retro-style images. The patient had to be more believable, so that ruled out adults with pitch-shifted voices. I turned to the young people's branch of Newcastle's notable People's Theatre, and auditioned several talented lads before casting Ian Davidson. The voices were recorded in our spooky earth-floored cellar.

All the characters, props etc. were drawn in Coreldraw and imported to Flash. This produces the very stylised, unreal look I wanted.

For lip sync, I used Lost marble's excellent (and free) Papagayo program to create text files. The Papagayo work was mainly done by my friend Ema Lea, who also created the music. I processed the text files into Actionscript files using Word macros. Flash read the .AS files and used the data to control the lips of the characters.

Animation took a long time, but some of that was spent devising and building the system to drive lip sync and another to drive facial expressions from control sliders. I'd always rather devise a cool gadget than do it the hard way.

Finally, with various adventures along the way, Whack to the Future has been completed, and is now being distributed by medical professionals to young lads with cancer all around the country.