2d Animation

2D Animator — 90-Second Audio-Driven Short (Limited Animation, Pilot + Ongoing Series) We're a restaurant brand launching a short-form interview series. Each episode contains one 60–90 second animated segment built entirely around a piece of documentary audio from a recorded interview. Think of the animated shorts that pair archival interview audio with sparse, stylized 2D — that's the lane. This post is for the pilot episode. If it goes well, this becomes a recurring engagement (one episode every 2–4 weeks). THE PILOT The story: a 1990s restaurant kitchen. A hard-driving chef sees a perfect plate come down the line, yells "who made this," the whole kitchen flinches — and then he tells the cook who made it to change his apron and carry it out to the table himself. It's a story about the moment a leader stops leading by fear. Runtime: 1:29 of locked audio. WHAT YOU'LL RECEIVE BEFORE YOU START - Final locked audio cut (1:29). Animation is cut to the audio; the audio will not change. - An approved six-beat storyboard with the shot list, beat timings, and the intended emotional arc. The story is already broken down. You are not designing the narrative. - Brand palette and reference boards. STYLE DIRECTION - Limited animation. One moving element per shot. If the plate is the subject, the plate is still and only the steam moves. If the kitchen reacts, the room holds and only the shoulders drop. Restraint is the aesthetic, not a budget compromise. - Silhouettes, hands, and body language — not detailed facial animation. The entire emotional read comes from posture: shoulders dropping in unison, one hand rising, a full reversal of stance at the end. - Desaturated palette for the first two-thirds. One object (the plate) is the only full-color element until the final beat, where the palette warms. - Clean, graphic, hand-feel. Not corporate explainer. Not motion-graphics templates. Not stock character rigs. DELIVERABLES - 1:29 animated segment, 1920x1080, ProRes or high-bitrate H.264, no audio baked in (we mix separately) plus a reference render with scratch audio - Vertical-safe framing: keep key action inside a 9:16 center crop so we can cut a vertical version without re-animating - A 3-second title card and a 3-second end frame featuring a single hero object (an apron), animated minimally - All source project files and assets, organized and named - A short style kit: palette hex values, line/shape rules, texture treatment, and title card template, so future episodes are consistent TIMELINE - Paid test beat: 3–5 days after award - Full segment: 10–14 days after test approval - Two rounds of revisions included HOW WE'RE HIRING We're starting with a small paid test: animate one beat (roughly 8 seconds) from the approved storyboard, with the real audio. Paid at your rate regardless of whether we move forward. If it works, we award the full pilot and discuss an ongoing per-episode rate. TO APPLY, PLEASE INCLUDE 1. Reel or 2–3 links to work where character emotion is carried by body language rather than facial expression. This matters more to us than range or volume of work. 2. One sentence on how you'd handle the beat where the kitchen flinches — what moves and what holds. 3. Your software (After Effects, Toon Boom, Blender Grease Pencil, TVPaint — no preference, we just need the source files). 4. Your rate for the test beat, the full pilot, and a per-episode rate for ongoing work. Please don't send generic explainer-video reels or template-based work — we'll be filtering those out. Budget listed is for the pilot including the style kit. Ongoing episodes will be scoped separately and should be meaningfully lower since the system will already exist.