Charlie's Wish Journey
Made for: Make-A-Wish New Zealand
Year: 2023
A character forward, animated explainer about how the folks at Make-A-Wish New Zealand bring a child's wish into reality.
Working with a brand like Make-A-Wish is the kind of opportunity that animation studios like us reach out with both hands to seize.
Why?
They're usually a lot of fun!
This project was no exception. Tugboat had previously worked with Suddenly on a project for Make-A-Wish Australia, another project that we are quite proud of. It followed the Wish Journey of Charlie; a young kid who loves animals getting a special trip to the zoo.
Imagine our joy when our cousins across the Tasman Sea liked the work enough to get in touch to ask for the same treatment!
If you aren’t familiar, Make-A-Wish is a global charity that works to give critically sick kids in hospital something to look forward to while they’re fighting through their illness. The warmth found in the front end of Make-A-Wish’s operation is seen in the back end as well.
Our point of contact; Laurie, was a dream to work with, incredibly sweet, and it became clear right away that we were already on the same page about what we wanted to achieve with this project.
The project itself was a lot of fun, as expected! Working with Laurie, we re-wrote the script to better reflect Make-A-Wish New Zealand’s offerings. This primarily meant swapping out general references to be more specific to New Zealand. Changing landmarks was one thing, but we really looked forward to the new day at the zoo! What MaW NZ offers, is a day behind the scenes at the zoo, were the kids get to help the zoo keepers with the animals, and really get to know the animals behind the fence.
We used this opportunity to show case some native animals to New Zealand and have Charlie get involved in their care. The Aukland Zoo website gave us some great reference, pointing us towards animating some kororā (Little Penguins), exploring the kiwi hatchery, and the giraffes at Aukland Zoo.
To round the project out, we needed the right voice to walk us through Charlie’s journey. Pio Terei’s performance added a - and we’ve gotten a lot of use out of this word today - warmth that matches perfectly with the animation. On the note of sound, we had to replace the giraffe calls with a camel’s. If you’ve ever heard a giraffe call, I think you’ll understand.
I can’t overstate how much fun this project was! It’s definitely one of those jobs that reminds us why we formed Tugboat at all. Thanks again to Laurie and the crew at Make-A-Wish New Zealand!
