Benjamin ArthurIllustrator, animation director & author

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The screening room

The Invisible Universe of the Human Microbiome

NPR, with Rob Stein · 2013

National Academies Award

Trillions of microbes live on and in each of us. The film imagines them as a whole civilization, from mounted armies to a newborn's first settlers, for Rob Stein's series on the microbiome. Netflix later adapted it for Hack Your Health.

How it was madeThe story on NPR

Made for
NPR
With
Rob Stein
Year
2013
Ben’s part
Director and animator
Running time
5:30
Honors
2014 National Academies Communication Award, Keck Futures Initiative

“A unique, almost Seussian world of microbes.”

Kalliopi Monoyios, Good Microbes Make Good Pets, Scientific American, 2013

Process

From napkin to screen

How the microbes of The Invisible Universe of the Human Microbiome came to life for NPR, from a doodle on a napkin to the finished film.

  1. Blue ballpoint doodles of microbe characters on a crumpled paper napkin, one labeled Crustation.
    1. The napkinThe first doodles, in ballpoint on a paper napkin.
  2. A sketchbook page with three pencil microbes: one with tentacles and a single eye, a spiky ball, and a gaping blob.
    2. SketchbookThree microbes take shape in pencil.
  3. Color sketches on toned paper: a warrior microbe riding a yellow creature, a spiky sun-like germ, and round black-and-white cell characters.
    3. First colorThe hero and his mount appear, with the first penguin-like cells.
  4. Two ink drawings of a bearded warrior in a horned helmet raising a saber while riding a big snail-like mount.
    4. The heroInked studies for the cavalry charge.
  5. A sketchbook page of pencil storyboard thumbnails with handwritten notes about microbes fighting infection.
    5. ThumbnailsThe story worked out small, with notes for the narration.
  6. Storyboard page 5: microbes fall into a newborn's world, the world begins to bloom, dolphin-like microbes leap through breast milk, and a microbe wilderness grows, with script notes beside each panel.
    6. StoryboardTwenty-two pages of boards against the script. Here, microbes from the mother seed a newborn's world.
  7. Storyboard page 14: antibiotics blast a bad microbe, a tall walker fires, a microbe blows a horn, and a shovel feeds a furnace, with script notes beside each panel.
    7. StoryboardA blast of antibiotics, the immune system revving up and damping down, and a horn blower signaling.
  8. A page of painted microbe characters: spindly-legged bugs, a mossy many-legged beast, a tentacled pod and small round creatures with single eyes.
    8. The castCharacter designs, cleaned up and painted.
  9. A sketchbook page of watercolor microbe plants: red blossoms, a spiny green cactus, a blue twisting stem and a furry red frond.
    9. FloraWatercolor plants for the microbes' world.
  10. A painted background: a winding yellow path past grey boulders and a mossy green slope under an orange sky.
    10. BackgroundsPainted landscapes for the inside of the body.
  11. 11. Animation testA three-legged microbe learns to jump.
  12. 12. In colorThe hero, animated and colored.
  13. A frame from the film: microbe soldiers in bubble helmets ride green creatures into battle, spears raised.
    13. The filmThe battle, from the finished film.
  14. A frame from the film: blue dolphin-like microbes leap through a shimmering sea of breast milk under a rainbow sky.
    14. The filmThe breast milk dolphins from page 5, finished.

From the cutting-room floor

  • Line test

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