BBC World Service recently joined forces with UWE‘s Bristol School of Animation for a series of animated visualisations set to ‘choice audio nuggets’ from the service’s output. UWE students were tasked with creating unique animations set to ten one-minute life stories that today have gone online via BBC World News.

From a corrosive Soviet town to a wine-loving bear to the harrowing tale of a child soldier in Sudan, the tales mainly reflect personal experiences told in the protagonists’ own words. The series, which uses audio from programmes such as Outlook, Witness and The Conversation, also includes an incredible Chinese tongue-twister poem in which every syllable has the sound shi. Visualisation helps bring a new dimension to rich and complex stories, as characters become alive on the screen.

-BBC World Service

The intention of the video series is for the animated audio segments to serve a means of engaging worldwide viewers who might not otherwise be among the BBC World Service audience while showcasing the richness and variety offered by the station.

These animations are a wonderful example of a partnership which draws upon the editorial excellence of the BBC World Service and UWE, a centre of creative visual imagination.
I’m thrilled to share these jewels of innovative content with our worldwide audience online, on social media and on BBC World News. I hope that people around the world will appreciate the thought and inventiveness that has gone into these richly-layered treats and feel tempted to find out more about the stories.

-Emily Kasriel, Head of Editorial Partnerships and Special Projects, BBC World Service Group

Working with the BBC World Service on this exciting project has been a real highlight for the postgraduate animation students. The opportunity to work on such a wide variety of topics was a chance to explore and expand their practice and, given the deadline, a genuine creative challenge.
The stories drawn from around the world, not dissimilar to the students that created the films, were charming, funny and at times even harrowing. They resulted in a range of highly original and creative responses – exciting, funny, very dynamic and never quite what one would expect. I hope that this will lead to many more such collaborations.

-Chris Webster, Programme leader for BA and MA Animation at Bristol School of Animation

Click on the links below to watch the animated segments:

For more info on the project visit bbc.com/take10