Sophia Westrop portfolio - Project page

Social housing is very prone to infestations of various kinds, and CCOC raised the concern to me that it is hard for many people to understand the process, their role, and the Corporations role in dealing with this issue. Many tenants have language barriers or other limitations, so they wanted something highly visual and easy to understand for people of all abilities. I drew everything in a simplistic cartoon style because I felt like that would appeal to the broadest audience. Of course, these videos also needed to keep people's attention and be somewhat enjoyable to make sure I got the point across. I also wanted to include a diverse cast of characters, as people of all backgrounds live in social housing, and in terms of non-tenant characters, it just feels nice to be represented.

I requested that the pest specialist (who I also knew from that same job at LMCH) write the scripts, as he would know the necessary information better than I would. I then voiced them, drew the content for the videos, and put them together and animated them. I provided the client with the first draft and then made changes based on their feedback until they were satisfied with the finished product. Accessibility was a key part of this project, so I had to learn how to create a subtitle/closed caption file to provide them and I also implemented closed captions into my YouTube upload.

At the time of this project, I was working full-time as a medical receptionist, so I had a slight challenge in terms of devoting all my time away from my desk at work, to being at my desk at home working more. But there was no way I was going to turn down this opportunity. The hardest part really was that I didn't have access to Adobe Creative Suite and had to rely on free software such as Audacity and Davinci Resolve, and I drew in CLIP STUDIO Paint which is my preferred illustration program. I wasn't very experienced with Davinci Resolve and had only used it one time before for a personal project. I also didn't have a super professional audio recording set up. I had a decent mic but I had to invest in some acoustic foam and a pop filter, and I also put a blanket over myself and the mic while recording anyway.

Also, working on this project had me thinking way too much about bed bugs. My skin was crawling every night for a while!

I am happy with how these turned out based on the experience I had at the time. More than anything, it was an extremely valuable experience working with a large client such as CCOC for the first time. It was touching that my former manager remembered me and my little video pitch and I am still grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this.