TED-Ed’s When is Water Save to Drink

Client: TED-Ed

Objective: Create an explainer animation based on Mia Nacamulli’s lesson “When is Water Safe to Drink?

LocationHong Kong, US

AffiliationRooftop Animation

RoleDirector

Year: 2017

In 2017, TED-Ed commissioned Rooftop Animation to animate Mia Nacamulli’s lesson “When is Water Safe to Drink?” – a project I was excited to take on, knowing the diversity in their videos’ styles, each reflecting the individual artist’s voice. The lesson covers water contamination and treatment, unpacking why clean water is so scarce and how to tell whether what you’re drinking is actually safe.

The water theme felt like an obvious invitation to work with a watercolour style. I experimented with Expresii, a digital watercolour software, figuring out how to fold it into an animation pipeline. It paved the way for later projects like Red Squirrel Mai and Find Find.

As director, I worked with a producer, storyboard artist, and a few assistants, while handling most of the production myself from initial concept through final delivery.

Some style frames and backgrounds

Screen recordings of painting in Expresii were used as footage for compositing.

Water dispersion in the background was a technique later applied more thoroughly in Find Find’s production.