Education Services Australia commissioned us to produce a 2D animated series of educational resources for early years students to build interoception awareness (feeling more connected with your body and your bodily signals) and practice self-regulation activities. We created five ‘Brain Break Bops’ animated music videos, each demonstrating an interoception activity, plus other fun dance moves and memorable song lyrics, for the viewer to follow along and practice as whole class groups, smaller groups or in one-to-one sessions.
Our multi-talented team developed engaging concepts and narratives, wrote lyrics and composed music, and produced the 2D animation and an instructional activity poster for each of the five interoception activities, ranging from calming, deep breathing exercises to energising muscle stretches.
Monkeystack partnered with State Opera South Australia for G&S FEST, a 10-day celebration of the founding fathers of British comedy opera, Gilbert & Sullivan, producing an animated TVC that encapsulated the flamboyant fun that G&S are so well known for.
The overarching creative compliments the ‘pop-up book’ set designs and the Victoria era visual language from classic G&S theatre posters, highlighting the productions, events and venues included in the festival program as well as icons within the City of Adelaide, set to the instantly recognisable music from two of the leading G&S productions, Pirates of Penzance and H.M.S. Pinafore.
We wanted the audience to see Adelaide through the eyes of Gilbert and Sullivan!
Recent studies suggest that body image is the no.1 issue effecting children, with more than 70% admitting to not liking their body and wanting to change it.
Embrace Kids is a social impact documentary by Taryn Brumfitt of Body Image Movement and SLA Films, exploring the world of body image through the eyes of children.
Monkeystack produced 2D animations for this important project, joining the documentary’s energetic mixture of live action, interviews and music, covering topics including social media, photoshopping, ‘fitspiration’, the influence of media and advertising on body image and role models.
The animations illustrate and support the key message of the documentary in a light-hearted yet impactful style, designed for younger and older audiences to understand in a meaningful way – acknowledging shared experience or empathising a scenario whether directly or subconsciously.
Monkeystack partnered with the Adelaide Film Festival to produce and present Tales in Light, a new project that turns Adelaide’s physical spaces into a canvas for immersive visual storytelling.
Monkeystack and AFF brought a diverse range of creatives and project partners together to develop this exciting South Australian project from an open call for story submissions, workshop sessions, creative production to physical install and launch.
The inaugural Tales in Light story ‘NUN HIT WONDER’, the story of Adelaide’s very own Sister Janet Mead’s extraordinary rise from a Mercy Sister to Grammy nominee, launched at the 2022 Adelaide Film Festival Opening Night Gala and ran each evening throughout the duration of the festival.
Monkeystack produced animation for Michael Cusack’s adult 2D animated series YOLO Crystal Fantasy (2020) and YOLO Silver Destiny (2022), commissioned by the WarnerMedia-owned network Adult Swim and produced by Princess Bento Studio.
YOLO Crystal Fantasy was the first time that Adult Swim has commissioned a series outside of the US and, as they put it, “one of the weirdest things we will ever air”.
Justin Wight (Monkeystack co-founder and CEO) Co-Produced the series and Monkeystack put together a team of 19 to produce the 8 x 10min episodes for the first season. We think that this was one of the largest 2D animated series ever produced in South Australia.
Monkeystack accepted the quest to produce a digital game for Rize Above, the multi-stream primary prevention relationship education program for young people, developed by Relationships Australia South Australia in partnership with the City of Salisbury.
Magic & Mayhem is an adventure quest game with a narrative focused on consent in relationships, demonstrated as the user chooses characters to take on their quest, with some displaying more enthusiastic responses than others, what outfit they should wear and to assign an item per character; from potions the character can use when needed to magical beans forced upon the character.
Players are faced with multiple choice options along their quest that define an end summary covering topics such as alcohol and drugs, enthusiastic consent and body language. The aim of Rize Above’s work is to assist young people to develop skills to have healthier more equal relationships, and to support caregivers and professionals to become allies with these goals.
You can play Magic & Mayhem in Rize Above’s Game Zone.
Monkeystack was commissioned by the University of South Australia Museum of Discovery (MOD.) to bring to life an exhibit conceptualised and scripted by Karl ‘Winda’ Telfer, a Kaurna cultural bearer, artist and community leader.
The exhibit at the entrance to MOD. is presented on the Street Gallery Touch Screens – a video wall of ten 55” HD touchscreens mounted side-by-side in portrait orientation to provide a seamless 10800×1920 pixel Windows desktop. The screens offer 32 simultaneous points of touch across the entire surface so multiple people can play, discover and learn at the same time.
It’s a truly stunning canvas to tell a magnificent story of the seasons from the perspective of Indigenous Australians – our first scientists and astronomers.
Monkeystack was commissioned to produce the animated pilot for Koala Man, a collaboration between Princess Pictures and Michael Cusack, with support from Screen Australia and the South Australian Film Corporation.
Monkeystack put together a team of exceptional animators to work on the project over several months to bring to life Koala Man – whose world is just like Batman, but much less rich and not as cool.
We were so very proud to see the Koala Man premiere was on Tuesday 20th November 2018 on ABC COMEDY as part of the Fresh Blood series. In late 2019, Koala Man was shortlisted for an AACTA Award for Best Online Video or Series.
The show is classified MA…so is our case study!
Flinders University College of Education, Psychology & Social Work commissioned Monkeystack to develop their anti-bullying P.E.A.C.E Pack intervention into a modern and engaging program as a part of the charity-first collaboration between Breakthrough Foundation and Little Heroes Foundation.
To give a little background on the beginnings of this project: The P.E.A.C.E. Pack, in its paper form, has been widely implemented and evaluated by teachers, students, principals, parents and school administrators from early childhood settings to secondary schools in Australia and internationally since it was pioneered in 2001.
The intervention is built from the P.E.A.C.E acronym: Preparation, Education, Action, Coping and Evaluation.
We produced a series of animations and a range of online content for the Little Breakthrough Heroes: Big Talks For Little People children’s mental health initiative, which supports children in the classroom and playground, as key resources within an educational program structured of eight weekly modules. Each module provides tools and resources to help with resilience, anti-bullying and opening up conversation on emotions, designed to be delivered by teachers or on a student self-help basis, highlighting the message that “Mental illness affects everyone… including children”.
In Australia, approximately 8 children per week are admitted to hospitals with farm-related injuries, with 1/3 of those being visitors to farms.
To combat this, George the Farmer formed a unique partnership with FarmSafe Australia, commissioning Monkeystack to produce an animated music video for ‘The Farm Safety Song’ as part of their curriculum-aligned educational guide teaching kids about being safe on farm.
Racking up over 8.5K views on George the Farmer’s YouTube channel in the first two weeks of being live, ‘The Farm Safety Song’ is a public service announcement formed of a catchy melody, engaging animated characters and a significant message of the “plenty of ways to stuff up on a farm”.