Shipbuilding Animation - Lloyd's Register Foundation

The Brief

The Lloyd’s Register Foundation is an organisation set up in 2012, aiming to protect people from harm at sea, ensure the infrastructure that we depend on for day-to-day living is safe for society both now and in the future, and ensure the world has the right skills required to keep people safe through education and engagement.  They’ve come a long way from their founding as ‘A Society for the Registry of Shipping’ in 1760, which consisted mostly of retired sea captains to inspect and classify vessels in the UK. In 2020, the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Lloyd’s Register Group established the Maritime Decarbonisation Hub, which aims to accelerate the safe, sustainable and cost-effective decarbonisation of world shipping through industrial collaboration. They’ve worked on many projects over the years, showcasing their past work and the history of shipping in the UK and globally.

At the heart of this most recent project is the Lloyd’s Register Foundation archive. This is a unique research resource offering unparalleled reserves of data and knowledge regarding the evolution of maritime safety and the complex factors that drive this process. This collection has been cared for and curated by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Heritage Centre; the archives are open to all and are an important aspect of LRF’s work. They reached out to us at TAG to create a video that would bring the history of both the Foundation and the archives to life and highlight them as an important aspect of LRF.

Our Response

We were ecstatic to jump on this project, and began the process with some extensive collaborative research to go through the archives and select what would be best to show in this project. LRF were brilliant to work with, giving us access to 3D models, blueprints and every other possible document available for our artists. We were given plenty of resources to work with in putting the film together, and began with selecting two ships: the Thermopylae and Cutty Sark. We gathered resources around those ships and decided we’d depict them as they were good examples of how materials and techniques used in shipbuilding had developed. They would be able to be used to demonstrate a timeline of the processes involved.

Once we developed the models of both ships, we solidified a storyboard with LRF along with the script. A large amount of research and development time went into this project to ensure that we were accurately depicting the history of the Foundation along with the technical history of the engineering. Everything down to the clothes of the workers depicted had to be considered. We worked closely with LRF to quality check every stage of production, and involved them throughout the creative process. Their opinions throughout were crucial, especially in how we combined 2D and 3D animated elements in the animation. The final animation is something both we and our clients are very proud of, and are even more excited to see it in their Heritage Centre once its refurbishment is complete. Head to their website to follow updates on their upcoming events.

Client References

black and white photo of a man working on the construction of a ship

midship section of the composite tea clipper Cutty Sark

Storyboard Development

Style Development

Animation Snapshots

Final Animation

What our client Said

“Producing our first ever animated video was a scary proposition and uncharted territory for us as an agency. Working with The Animation Guys they put us at ease, listened to our ideas and made the process come to life. They’re genuinely decent, honest and hard-working people that ultimately produce first-class animation videos. We couldn’t be happier with our final product and no doubt will return to them for a follow up video at some point! Fully recommend.”

Beth Hellowell

Managing Partner @ Signify Digital