Animation Reel | Mary Delaney

explainer videos: ministry of justice in saxony

I animated four explainer videos for Saxony's Ministry of Justice website.

For this project, I animated four explainer videos on the topic of citizen participation in democratic processes for the Ministry of Justice in Saxony - guidelines for funding, Citizens' Council, Citizen Participation, and general guidelines.

citizen participation funding guidelines

All of the explainer videos involved extensive character animation with the stick figures. This meant that I had the opportunity to convey emotion and life using body language since facial expressions were limited. The biggest challenge in this video was animating a skateboard trick at the end!

‍This video explains how public funding works in Saxony and how, when, and for what citizens can request funding. In this video, we used the example of "Herr Schaffer" ("Mr. Doer") who secures funding for a new skatepark for the youth center where he volunteers.

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light orange background with dark red stick figure people with white and yellow details. Two young people sit in chairs on the left side of the frame, an adult stick figure person stands in the middle holding a skateboard, and another young person stands on the right with an easel and poster showing a design for a skateboarding halfpipe

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light orange background with dark red stick figure people with white and yellow details. An adult woman stick figure sits with her back to the viewer at a table on the left side. Three young people and one adult man sit in chairs on the right side. One young person has an orange outlined speech bubble with a stick figure drawing of a skateboarder in it

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light orange background with dark red stick figure people with white and yellow details. A drawing of a skateboarding halfpipe with one young person sitting on the left side, one young person doing a skateboarding trick, and one person standing on the right side.

Avenues of Participation for Citizens

This video consists of three mini chapters on different ways that citizens can get involved (direct action like demonstrating, voting, participating in a referendum, attending town hall meetings, or serving on a citizens' advisory board).

The concepts in this video were complicated and somewhat technical, but thanks to our brilliant illustrator, the symbols were very clear. I just needed to make sure the animation and voiceover were synced up in the best way to make the concepts clear to the viewers.

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light blue background with dark blue stick figure people with orange details. A stick figure woman with orange hair and a backpack on the left, a woman wearing an orange sash in the middle, and a man wearing an orange hat and an orange work vest on the right. The stick figures are all holding hands.

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light blue background with dark blue stick figure people with orange details. Five stick figure people of diverse ages, genders, and professions are shown from the waist up sitting behind a table. Two of the people have speech bubbles showing a house and a symbol of a tree falling over, with a line crossed out through it. The person in the center of the group has a laptop open

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light blue background with dark blue stick figure people with orange details. On the left a man with an orange hat and orange work jumpsuit holds a laptop. There is a traffic light next to him. On the right is a traffic light with a sign showing children at play. Three stick figure children run off the right side of the image.

Citizens' Councils

This video covers the topic of a Citizens' Council, how one is convened and how citizens can participate.

This video involved a lot of character animation, especially full body character animation, which I often did frame-by-frame. I also made use of Joysticks n' Sliders, which is an incredibly useful Aftereffects plugin, to animate things like the position of the characters' heads.

Guidelines for Citizen Participation

This video outlines ways that municipalities can establish "rules of play" for citizens' participation, which detail the processes by which citizens can come together and send their recommendations to elected officials.

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light green background with dark green stick figure people with white and yellow details. A stick figure middle-aged woman is shown from the waist up sitting behind a table with a little flag on it. On the left is a line drawing of a public park with a ping pong table, a drawing of a yellow city hall, behind her are drawings of green trees, and on the right are drawings of little bees and two lamp posts with glowing lights.

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light green background with dark green stick figure people with white and yellow details. Three stick figure people are sitting in a line with yellow boxes next to them. the text EBBS is in the top left corner and a symbol of a shield is in the top right. The person on the left is an older man, the person in the middle is a middle-aged woman, and the person on the right is a young man.

A storyboard frame for an animated video, light green background with dark green stick figure people with white and yellow details. On the right is a stick figure of an old man drawn in green, in the middle is a young woman stick figure in green, reaching up into a speech bubble. In the middle is a white book. On the right is a stick figure middle-aged woman with a yellow sash.

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