Question: What’s the value proposition of using animation versus live action recordings for pediatric health videos?

Answer(s):

A little bit of explanation:

• Fun
  Really? Do I need to say more about that? Who doesn’t remember watching loads of cartoons as a child? Heck, even as adults many of us watch animation with relish. For instance, “The Simpsons” is the longest running scripted television series in history.

• Versatility
  Using the examples of The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, there are so many things that can happen in animation that are impossible to do with live action recordings. (OK, with CGI, you can do lots of impossible stuff with “live action”, but it’s very expensive and is still actually a form of animation.)

• Staying Power
  Animation lasts; live action starts to quickly look dated as styles of clothing, hair, furniture, and cars change quickly. Plus, with animation, all those elements can be fairly easily updated without a complete redo.

• Ease of adaptation
  If you want to change a live action video into other languages, the best you can do is either use overdubbing where the mouth movements don’t match up with the translated words or use subtitles. With animation, you can easily rerecord the voice parts and quickly change the mouth movements to match. Plus, you can change character elements and movements anytime to reflect cultural and ethnic variations. To do that with live action, you’d need a whole new cast (or lots of makeup!), new clothing, new script, and a complete video reshoot.

• Difficult topic sensitivity
  People of all cultures find it difficult or even completely unacceptable to deal with certain topics via live action video. Cancer, end-of-life issues, reproductive problems, sexually-related topics, emotional and mental health concerns, to name but a few – all of these can be dealt with far more sensitively via animation. For instance, we were involved in a study where Hispanic women would not even stay in the room to watch a well-made live action video about breast cancer. However, when the same information was conveyed via animation, the cultural barriers and concerns melted away.

• Fun!
  Oh, right…I mentioned that. But, seriously, health information can be so complicated and is usually presented in a very dry and boring fashion. With animation – and a little bit of storytelling and creativity – the world of health and medicine can provide tremendously engaging story lines as well as exciting opportunities to help people get or stay healthy while making them smile.

  
   

  Dr. Gregg
  Posted – June 12, 2012