Explainer Videos

Tate is one of the UK’s most significant art institutions, spanning Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Tate Kids is their dedicated arm for bringing art to a younger audience, encouraging children to get hands-on and creative rather than just look at art from behind a rope.

Tate Kids wanted a series of four “How To” art films inspired by pieces in the Tate collection, designed to work across their website, YouTube and social channels. We had free rein to choose which artists to feature, with one condition: every project had to be achievable at home using everyday materials kids would already have lying around.

We chose a genuinely varied spread of artists to inspire each film,  including Phyllida Barlow for a sculpture-based activity and Nabil Nahas for a drawing-based project, among others, building projects around things like spaghetti, marshmallows, pens and rulers rather than anything kids would need to go out and buy.

The hands actually making each project on camera belonged to students from the art department at Kingsdale Foundation School, just around the corner from our studio. Their teachers helped us find the right students, and each one was credited in their own film and on the Tate’s website. Every student picked a project that played to their own strengths, whether that was drawing or sculpture.

Shot on RED Komodo cameras in 6K against a colorama backdrop, with hand-drawn animation added to bring the artworks to life, the films were framed to be reworked into three different aspect ratios for social media afterwards. It wasn’t all smooth sailing behind the scenes, though. The heating in our studio broke down right in the middle of January, so between takes we were warming everyone’s hands with cups of tea to keep the cold from creeping into the films!

All four films went out across Tate Kids’ YouTube and Instagram channels, watched by thousands of children and families.