Animated Missionary Video

In an effort to be of assistance to missionaries and mission teams in the mission field around the world, I created an animated video of the life of Jesus without dialogue. A known barrier that many face in the mission field when trying to communicate with the local people is language. I utilized a survey that I created to determine if an animated video of this kind would be appreciated in the field. The consensus was that it would. I imported royalty-free images into Photoshop and altered them to remove specific skin color and, on many, the background as well. I also stylized the images to create more of an outline in hopes of being inclusive in the areas of ethnicity and culture. If the local people where the mission team is located elect to hear about the Gospel, my video can be utilized and narrated by mission team members in their own language and translated by an interpreter or through the use of Google Translate or another online translating app. Although not entirely accurate or effective, online translation should get the basic point across. My animated video is available through YouTube or my Wordpress site. The animated video can be viewed from these sites or downloaded to a compatible device if the mission team is in a part of the world without any internet capability.

Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere Pro.

I used Photoshop to alter the images that I downloaded from the internet, primarily Pinterest.

I used After Effects to animate many of the images.

I then compiled all of the After Effects files in Premiere Pro to create the full animation, which was exported as an mp4 file.

I applied the Paper Prototyping method from IDEO's method cards to help inform my project. This method helped me identify the importance of keeping the file size of the animated video fairly small to improve usability.

I utilized the survey I created mentioned previously to gather information from individuals who have traveled on mission trips to various locations around the world. The information I gathered through this method helped in the development of my project by raising my awareness of current methods used in the mission field to communicate with locals and obstacles the missionaries and mission teams face.