How do you make a sometimes strange and ritualistic event as accessible and fun as possible for kids? Through a talking pigeon, a tree named Wigmund, and Minecraft, of course. We made a short animated film that was sent to all UK primary schools and shown on outdoor screens on Coronation Day, including on the Mall.

In the leadup to the Coronation of King Charles III, the Department of Culture, Media & Sport wanted to give children the opportunity to understand more about what the event was and why it was happening. Their brief was for a 10 minute film to be distributed to every primary school in Britain in the week before the event, for use in assemblies or lessons by teachers.

The Coronation is a big event for the UK, but a lot of what makes it interesting (such as its history and rituals), can be hard to grasp for our audience of 5-11 year olds. Our approach was to make the delivery of the educational material as fun and accessible as possible, using animation and storytelling. We structured the video so that it could both be watched as a single narrative, and distributed as clips on social media.

Our hero Elysha and her friend Ms Chips (a talking pigeon) travel around the UK, meeting objects related to the Coronation which come to life. From a gargoyle on Westminster Abbey, to a Guardsman’s hat outside Buckingham Palace, each delivers a different thematic vignette: the history of the coronation; what the monarch actually does; the ceremony; and the coronation around the world. To keep our young viewers attention, each vignette had a different animation style - including recreating the Ceremony itself in Minecraft!

We built a team of writers, animators and sound designers with experience making entertaining work on CBBC shows like Horrible Histories, paired with a historical consultant to make sure we got our facts right. 

• The final film was created in English, Welsh and Scots Gaelic, with a full cast performing in each language. A BSL signed version was also available.
• Cutdowns of each vignette were uploaded to DCMS’s YouTube channel and social accounts, along with the full film.
• 1 master video and 4 cut downs, each dubbed and subtitled into Welsh and Scots Gaelic (and English subs)

• Distributed to 20k primary schools via coronation.gov.uk 
• Shown on large outdoors screens on Coronation Day, including on the Mall
• The YouTube upload has 41k views, and 82k views of social platforms