Balcas – Our Story

Sometimes I get to work on something a bit different and this is one of those projects. The client, Balcas, wanted a sketch style to tell the story of wood, from the forest to product.

The animation starts off in the sustainably managed local forest.

The animation shows how every part of the tree is used to produce wood products and energy.

To understand I took a visit to the Balcas production site in Fermanagh where we saw it all in action.  I was very impressed with how advanced production is, especially with regards to use of every part of waste being used to generate either energy or energy products.

The animation is mainly used on site to show visitors and designed to appeal to both adults and children.
View the animation here.

The animation uses a combination of sketches with moving parts such as conveyors and saws moving wood through the production cycle.

Real hands are used to ‘draw’ parts of the sketches and also used to move elements on screen.  The animation shows how what was once waste in production (bark and woodchip), is now used to create either energy or fuel in the form of wood pellets.

The animation zooms in to the Combined Heat and power plant and we see how bark and low grade woodchip is used to generate green electricity and thermal energy to be used on site.

The animation then moves to the pellet plant where we see sawdust and high grade wood chip being transformed into pellets.

The animation moves on to show how wood leaves Balcas to be used in construction and at the same time the pellets leave the plant.

At the end of the animation we return to the forest, to the start of the life cycle of each tree planted in the sustainably managed forest.