THE MAKING OF
AFSCME
The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is the country’s largest public sector labor union. Pixeldust was chosen to create their newest commercial, highlighting the union’s far-reaching influence on workers throughout American history.
THEN AND NOW
To effectively communicate AFSCME’s story, Pixeldust was tasked with expressing the union’s history through animation, while integrating the authoratative voice of its current President, Lee Saunders. The goal was to make a video that would introduce people to what AFSCME is in an engaging and entertaining way. The team opted to create an elegant composite of the subject within an abstract space, where archival photography of past events are visible all around him.
After a sketched storyboard planning out the scenes, Lee Saunders was filmed in a green screen environment. This allowed the team to cleanly swap out scenery around him, while also helping him stand out amongst the largely colorless photographs. While Pixeldust’s illustrators treated the many documents and photographs with a pen stroke filter, the animators began rotoscoping, separating Saunders from the green screen. Lastly, Pixeldust animators composited the union president into the scenes, and created creative transitions to take the viewer on a journey through time.
The completed 60 second piece, which is currently featured on the front page of AFSCME’s website.
EXECUTION
FINAL VIDEO
Pixeldust put together this short reel showing how the piece was put together.
