Benjamin ArthurIllustrator, animation director & author

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Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway You Can't See

NPR, with Robert Krulwich · 2010

WHNPA Award

Billions of insects migrate over our heads every summer, unnoticed. Honored by the White House News Photographers Association for multimedia innovation.

How it was madeThe story on NPR

Made for
NPR
With
Robert Krulwich
Year
2010
Ben’s part
Director and animator
Running time
3:30
Honors
White House News Photographers Association, Eyes of History award for multimedia innovation

Process

Sketches

Early drawings for Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway You Can't See.

  1. A page of pencil storyboard thumbnails, some washed with color: a kite in the sky, a boy looking up, insects, and a panel reading 4,000,000,000.
    1. StoryboardThumbnails: a kite, a boy, and four billion insects overhead.
  2. Pencil sketch of a spider hanging beneath a parachute among puffy clouds, with a small insect flying by.
    2. SketchA spider on a parachute, drifting past the clouds.
  3. Ink drawing in black and red of a boy in a sweater standing in the grass, specks in the air around him and a red-winged insect at his shoulder.
    3. CharacterThe boy, and a red-winged visitor.

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Write to me

For animation, title design and visual effects, through my studio ArthurAnimation, or just to say hello.