GLOBAL MECHANIC

Global Mechanic creates first animated Heritage Minute and it already has over 500,000 Views! Historica Canada's latest Heritage Minute is out, and it sure looks different. That's because the 88th entry in the series, which highlights notable parts of Canada's culture and history, is the first to be animated. Historica Canada produced the minute with Global Mechanic, which completed work on the animation at its Vancouver studio. The Heritage Minutes are a collection of bilingual Canadian 60-second short films, each depicting a significant person, event or story in Canadian history. First released in 1991, they have been shown on television, in cinemas and online, and have become a part of Canadian culture.

PayPal came to Global Mechanic CD /founder Bruce Alcock with a script and an interest in collaboratively developing the visuals. "We started from scratch and every change, every iteration, just made the spot better and the communication stronger. Plus it's a great cause - enabling donations for non-profits. The technique was fun to work out too: how painterly, how collage-y, how photographic vs. illustrative to skew the imagery was ongoing development work as the story took shape. This was a rare treat to work on. The creative /producer team were super collaborative, and smart, and responsive, and super complimentary to us, which was nice. End result is photo collage and paint, cosmic zoom comping, and a nice timing exercise. I worked with my percussionist friend Bill Brennan on the music, it’s all real drums and gongs, triangles and sandpaper blocks - real organic stuff for the non-profits out there!" - Bruce Alcock