Life Cycle of the Pacific Salmon animation
Hood Canal Salmon Center - February 2020 - Field Research Trip
Pacific Salmon Life Cycle animation production credits:
Animation Team:
Project Director - Emmi Stonier
Lead Storyboarder - Mei Mei Leonard
Lead Colorist - Emily Portinga
Lead Background Artist - Naveen Alkhatib
Lead Compositor - Hsin-Tze Wang
Sound and Additional Color:
Narration - Faye Jaime
Sound Design - Jeff Cravath
Additional Colorist - Lizzie Hull
Project Supervisors:
NOAA Fisheries Project Lead - Alicia Keefe
PNCA Faculty Project Lead - Lori Damiano
PNCA Head of Animated Arts: Rose Bond
Over the past year, I had the honor of supervising and supporting an incredible team of student animators in the Animated Arts program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art where I teach. This 5+ minute 2D drawn animation to celebrate and portray the incredible life cycle of the Pacific salmon, premiered on World Fish Migration Day , October 24, 2020. World Fish Migration Day is a one day global celebration to create awareness on the importance of free flowing rivers and migratory fish. This film's animation and sound design was created entirely by students in the Animated Arts program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art with scientific guidance from NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region. The only non-PNCA talent featured was in the narration of the film, which was done by voice actor Faye Jaime. Support for this project was provided by a grant from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.
I am so in awe of, and proud of these students for what they were able to accomplish to help educate the general public about salmon and to promote salmon stewardship. They managed to produce this wonderful film amidst also trying to finish their thesis projects, and then when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and everything shut down, they no longer had access to the equipment and resources they had been using on campus and they had to re-calibrate and find new solutions for finishing this project. Even amidst climate wildfires, graduating from college, and in the middle of a global pandemic, these students were positive, resilient, and absolute professionals. Wow, did they deliver! Please check out their film and pass it along to everyone you know who might like to share it, especially educators, parents and kids! There are also lots of links to salmon educational resources from NOAA Fisheries in the video’s description.
While we were doing field research with our tour guide Lucas Marin at the Hood Canal Salmon Center, the animation team also did some volunteer tree planting to help restore habitat at the estuary.