Hasta La Motion!

Pantosaurus, the latest instalment of the NSPCC’s ‘Pants’ campaign, is a two-minute short designed to encourage parents to talk to their children about sexual abuse. Created by Aardman, the film enlists the help of animated dinosaurs to explain to children how to stay safe from abuse. Aimed at four to eight-year-olds, Adelphoi Music wrote lyrics and music for Pantosaurus, who delivers his message through song. The NSPCC Pantosaurus campaign, hosted online at nspcc.org.uk, includes conversation resources for parents, children, foster carers and teachers. Children are able to take a short quiz engaging with the content of the NSPCC Pantosaurus video. The PANTS campaign, launched three years ago, explores the Underwear Rule: “Privates are private. Always remember your body belongs to you. No means no. Talk about secrets that upset you. Speak up, someone can help.”

Music for the NSPCC Pantosaurus commercial was written by one of Adelphoi’s in-house composing team, Ashley Bates, who produced, recorded and sang the song with his children at Adelphoi’s studios. The campaign tackles a potentially dark and difficult subject for a target audience that is younger than NSPCC’s traditional market. Bates explains: “Ultimately, the key goal was to make it fun, despite the importance of the message. The animation and song itself are intended to be inviting as well as a starting point for adults, parents and guardians to communicate with their children about the subject, so the focus wasn’t to convey the entire message, rather to draw in audiences and lead to them reading more about the guidelines on the NSPCC website. It isn’t an easy subject to address because it might be opening doors to something the children have never considered and they might be too young to be exposed to that concern, but it’s also important to address these in the interests of keeping them safe.”

Heather Wright, executive producer at Aardman, creators of Pantosaurus and much-loved characters like Morph, Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, comments: “Humour, animation and music are a great way of making it less awkward for parents and young children to talk about this very difficult subject. The song has definite ‘earworm’ potential and I’m sure children will find it funny and memorable which will in turn give them the language they need to use to protect themselves.”

Pantosaurus will be appearing in cinemas across the UK with OMD UK striking a deal with AOL to distribute the video, targeting parents on premium platforms.

NSPCC Pantosaurus Credits

The NSPCC Pantosaurus campaign was developed at Aardman by director/designer and Flash animator Lucy Izzard, producer Jason Fletcher-Bartholomew, production manager Danny Gallagher, storyboard artist/animatic Rob Richards, designer Magda Osinska, Flash animators Charlie Miller and Andrew Fossey, compositors Jon Biggins and Bram Ttwheam. Editor was Dan Hembery.

Music was produced at Adelphoi by composer Ashley Bates and producer Max De Lucia.