A Note

Since this animation is being used in primary rounds of a research study and still being actively developed and translated, I'm not able to share the entire video quite yet. Presented here are some early mockups and style frames.

Project Goal

A title card with the words 'ECMO supports' above a picture of the heart and lungss — ECMO is a life support system that oxygenates blood outside the body, allowing the heart and lungs to recover.

This project was in collaboration with the Comer Children's Hospital in Chicago. Working alongside a team pedriatic surgeons and nurses, I was tasked with creating an animation that would be used in a research study on the effects of media on the comprehension of the infant life support system known as ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation).

The main challenge here was to create something that would strike a balance between informing parents about the risks of the procedure, while also reassuring them of its effectiveness. The research study is being conducted throughout many schools and hospitals around Chicago through the platform REDCap. Preliminary results are also being presented at the annual ELSO (Extracorporeal Life Support Organization) conference.

The ECMO Bear

We decided that in order to bring an air of calm and soothing to the final product, live action footage of real children on ECMO should be combined with animated sequences for the more visually jarring/overwhelming portions of the video. We chose to go with a bear as the main character of these animated sections, as its an animal often used as a symbol of care and comfort.