This award winning animation was entirely written and produced in-house with the initial intention of helping a school in the village where I live. They were doing workshops with all their children to teach them about autism. I offered to help and they took me up on the offer. Like most side projects it was created in my downtime, fueled with love and favours from many talented friends and colleagues. It took the best part of 2 years but it an entirely rewarding and enlightening experience.
By addressing this difficult topic at an early age we hope to help children understand the strengths, as well as the difficulties, associated with autism while preventing stigmas and erroneous stereotypes, which are usually borne out of misinformation.
Prof. Tony Attwood generously advised me on the animation’s script.
The animation has had an incredible reception. Since April up until the time of writing it has been viewed over 50 million times, dubbed into many languages (via community contributions), it has been shared over a million times and, most importantly, I have been inundated with messages from parents, teachers and children saying how it has helped them to explain and understand autism.
For those interested I have written a behind-the-scenes post explaining how the animation was made. To learn more or to see the animation in other languages visit the Amazing Things Happen website.
David Gant and myself at the screening of Amazing Things Happen at the BAFTA theatre
Direction: Studio Tinto
Narration: David Gant
Advisers: Prof. Tony Attwood & Emma Louise Burdett
Script: Alex Amelines
Sound recording / Mix: Mike Avgeros at Soho Sonic Studios
Score: Chris Harrington
This project was started in 2013 with a lot of visual research, more than I usually do and it started with some sketches of characters I proposed to a client for a completely unrelated project, this character was one of the rejected ones but it was one of my favourites, so I kept to myself and came up with a little simple story. Then a long came an indie movie where I helped with the visual effects so that was over 2 years delayed, then I worked on Amazing Things Happen, for another long 2 years, etc. Until finally during the pandemic of 2020 I managed to find the time to give it the last push and complete it!
Production: Studio Tinto
Animation: Alex Amelines
Additional voices: Nico & Rafi
Music: Nat Keefe with the Bow Ties
Title Design: Marcela Restrepo
Zombies are people too. Like everyone else they eat, they love, they fear, they hate, they can make mistakes and they also enjoy a good chainsaw. Don’t miss this fun packed short, it’s dead funny. This is another in-house project created with the purpose of stretching our 2D muscles. Also, zombies don’t get very good PR these days, so we thought it was time to change that.
