A FILM company has made a moving animated appeal for awareness of conservation and wildlife.

Winton-based LoveLove Films made a short film, We Save Land, for the Summit Land Conservancy, based in Utah, USA.

The film illustrates the effects of over-development on a landscape and its wildlife.

LoveLove Films has already worked with local charities including the Fortune Riding Centre and Autism Wessex and is currently producing an animation for the Big Issue.

It has also made videos for recording artists including Joss Stone and Run DMC, as well as TV commercials and web content for local and worldwide businesses.

LoveLove mixed traditional animation with computer generated imagery to tell the story of a child whose adventures in the rolling open spaces of their home come to an abrupt halt because of over-development and urban sprawl.

Summit Land Conservancy hopes to use it to spread its message about the importance of preserving natural habitats for future generations.

Producer Georgina Hurcombe, the managing director of LoveLove Films, said: “When We Save Land first approached us to create an animation, we initially pitched a one minute project that was an extremely simple line drawing. However, as we started on the development artwork, the LoveLove team got really excited.

“It’s not often a client will give you ‘free rein’ to create, and the brief was simply: ‘We like what you do and we would love an animation to help raise awareness.’

“Having this creative freedom, and animating a subject matter that we all felt was so important, meant that the team really did put in 110 per cent. Personally, I’m super-proud of the whole team and the details in the artwork are both charming and extremely well realised.

“Just take a look at the bird’s nest. It is extremely intricate, and in addition we had a lot of fun creating the animation for the ‘boot tree – Bootguy is one of the charity mascots so we needed him in there. All the animators’ shoes are hung in tree.

“We also used lots of references to our favorite film moments, i.e. the red coat that the child character wears was a subtle reference to the fantastic 1970s horror film Don’t Look Now – as was the water ripple shot where the child’s perfect existence and the equilibrium is destroyed forever by the destruction at play. In addition, we wanted the diggers to be like Jurassic Park’s raptors preying on the landscape and the child’s innocent existence.”

Lead animator Sunny Clarke said: “One of our biggest challenges was being brave in regards to letting the story play out and to trust that the audience would ‘hang in there’, as we are well aware it’s a short rather than the more normal 30 second to one minute explainer videos our clients often require.

“As a piece that would live on YouTube, it’s always a gamble that an audience member will stick with longer form content.

“However, as storytellers we felt it was really important that we gave the audience time to enjoy the landscape and the gentle existence that the child character inhabits. We wanted it to be such a contrast to the destruction that follows.”

He added: “I do feel really proud of the piece and we were lucky to get such a good sound designer too that helped really bring the piece together.”