An Animation Exploring the 2012 West Nile Virus Outbreak in Dallas
In 2012, Dallas experienced a major West Nile Virus outbreak - the largest outbreak in any urban area in the US since West Nile first emerged here in 1999. What may have driven this unexpected outbreak in Dallas? And what lessons does this teach us about managing infectious diseases in our rapidly changing world?
This animation was created to untangle the complex answer to that question.
Special thanks to Dr. Seema Yasmin and Caroline Muraida for their advising, support, and encouragement throughout the development of this animation.
Final Animation
Animations drawn and recorded on Procreate using iPad Pro, then voice overlay and minor editing done on MacOS iMovie
Overall, this animation was a great challenge in trying to figure out how to combine complex scientific information with simple engaging visuals and narration.
Final animation layout
This is the final scene of the animation, where all the elements have been drawn. This final scene is also meant to serve as a visual summary of the video itself.
Some early mockups of the animation layout
These are some test mockups I did before recording the final version. Here I was just trying to figure out how the final animation video would look and playing around with orders and layouts. This is always one of my favorite parts of developing animation videos like this.