WASH: Habits That Stick

WASH education lives or dies on repetition — the films had to survive being watched twenty times. That pushed the whole project toward character comedy: a cast children like, doing steps children copy.

Each explainer owns exactly one habit — handwashing moments, safe water storage, toilet use, waste. Brainstorming was gag-writing: the habit's steps became physical comedy beats, so the 'lesson' is literally the funniest part of the film.

The cast was drawn as modular puppets in Illustrator — separated limbs, swappable hands, mouth sets — with texture passes in Photoshop. Design rules: silhouettes readable at classroom distance, expressions that survive small screens, and a water-drop mascot who can appear anywhere.

Adobe Animate carried the animation: bone-rigged puppets for dialogue scenes, and full frame-by-frame for the gag peaks — the moments children rewind. Walk cycles, smears and squash-and-stretch got classical-animation attention because that's what makes a six-year-old laugh.

Lip-sync mapped to the recorded voice tracks; the mascot's motion vocabulary (bounce, splash, wobble) stayed consistent series-wide.

Premiere assembly tuned each film to classroom rhythm: cold-open gag before the title, recap chant at the end, and a loopable 40-second cut for morning assembly screens. Sound effects were mixed loud and simple for tinny speakers.

Program review checked accuracy of the steps; the informal test was children watching — where they laughed, the film stayed; where they drifted, it got cut. Field feedback reshaped two endings.

Delivered as classroom files plus the character set matched to printable posters, so the wall art and the films reinforce each other. Player slot below reserved for released links.