Minimum: Animation and Title Design

Project: Minimum animation and title design
Series: Minimum
Client / Platform: RNZ / Notable Pictures
Director: Kathleen Winter
Release: 2018
Role: Animation, visual development, title sequences, prototype animation, episode animation, promotional assets
Media: Documentary animation, title sequences, animated story segments, promotional stills
Tools / Methods: Digital animation, illustration, visual development, colour palette development, documentary storytelling, motion graphics
Featured contribution: Two animated stories for the prototype episode; title sequences for the full series; additional animation for Lavinia’s episode

Animation, visual development, title sequences, and promotional assets for RNZ’s documentary series on women working minimum wage in Aotearoa New Zealand. I animated two of the three stories in the prototype episode, which helped secure funding for the full series, then created the title sequences and additional animation for the final release.

Minimum was a short documentary series directed by Kathleen Winter and produced for RNZ by Notable Pictures, with support from Loading Docs and funding from NZ On Air. The series focused on women working on minimum wage in New Zealand, using documentary interviews to give human form to the financial, emotional, and social pressures behind low-paid work. RNZ described the project as showing “real people talking about their lives earning the minimum wage,” while The Spinoff reviewed the series as a bridge between statistics and lived human reality.

I was brought onto the project at an early stage to help develop the animation approach for an initial prototype episode. Working with Kathleen Winter and a small group of animators, I helped explore how animation could sit alongside documentary interviews, illustrating moments from the stories without overwhelming the intimacy of the spoken testimony. The prototype episode helped secure funding for the full series.

For the prototype, I animated two of the three stories and contributed to the visual language that shaped the final approach. The series used animation to punctuate interviews, adding humour, emotion, rhythm, and metaphor to stories that were often difficult or confronting. I worked with the director on colour palette, movement style, and the hand-drawn, squiggled animation language that connected with my own creative practice.

For the full series, I created the title sequences and animated an additional episode focused on Lavinia. I also produced supporting assets for promotion and marketing, including imagery drawn from my animation work. One of the main promotional images used for the series came from a still from one of my animation sequences.

This was one of my first paid animation projects, and it remains an important example of my work at the intersection of documentary, social storytelling, illustration, and motion. The project required sensitivity to real people’s experiences, a light touch with difficult subject matter, and the ability to use animation as a form of interpretation rather than decoration.

Minimum helped establish a thread that has continued through my later work: using visual experimentation, animation, and digital media to make stories more accessible, expressive, and emotionally resonant.