Cartoons about human evolution

WHO ARE WE AND WHAT DO WE DO?

Hello everyone! We are the team behind the Antropogenez.ru project. For 8 years now, we have been sharing what scientists know about human evolution. During this time, our community has grown into a large multi-format educational project. Below, we’ll tell you how we make it happen.

We run the ANTROPOGENEZ.RU portal, which we hope you’ve visited. There, we've assembled the world’s largest catalog of ancient hominid remains — human ancestors. We also publish the latest news in anthropology, archaeology, genetics, primatology, ancient history, and everything related to the origin and life of humans as a species on Earth. Our communities on social media are buzzing with activity every day: VK (78,000 followers) and Facebook (21,000 followers). But that’s not all: we also actively maintain our YouTube channel, where we publish original science videos — for example, our experiments with ancient technologies, travel documentaries, and talks from our “Scientists Against Myths” Forums. Speaking of which…

“Scientists Against Myths” Forums are held by us in Moscow and St. Petersburg with a single goal — to bring together renowned scientists and science communicators, give them a large audience, and thoroughly debunk pseudoscience (we’re joking… or are we?). The main goal of the Forums is education and fighting against pseudoscientific myths, which, if left unchecked, can seriously harm society. To make sure “everyone knows their heroes,” we annually present the special “Honorary Academician of Nonsense” Award for outstanding contributions to pseudoscience and misleading the public.

By the way, in 2017 the “Scientists Against Myths” Forums won the Russian Ministry of Education and Science’s “For Loyalty to Science” Award in the category “Best Science Popularization Project of the Year.”

In addition to all of the above, we also write popular science books that have made it into the shortlists for the Enlightener Prize. These books are also available as rewards in our campaigns. We organize unique exhibitions about anthropogenesis (including the traveling exhibition “17 Skulls and a Tooth” in collaboration with the State Biological Museum), go on lecture tours across the country, maintain a Science Events Calendar, and engage in many other fascinating activities.

However, most of our initiatives are focused on adult audiences — but we really want to do more for kids. Our subscribers have been asking us for this for a long time. We are now firmly committed to creating quality science content for children, and we truly hope for your support!

WHAT ARE WE PLANNING AND HOW CAN YOU HELP?

Over the past year, together with 3D animation expert Sergey Krivoplyasov, we’ve been developing the idea for a series of short, engaging animated videos for children under the concept “1 question – 1 answer.” In this era overrun by pseudoscience, we think it’s essential to introduce children to a scientifically accurate view of the world as early as possible. After all, unfortunately, we can’t be sure they’ll encounter it in kindergarten or school.

We’ve decided to take this mission into our own hands (if not us — then who?) and equip the next generation with essential knowledge in a way that’s both appealing and accessible. Namely, through bright and colorful animations available to all.

Of course, even a short cartoon costs money: on average, we need 500,000 euro per episode. To start, we want to produce 3 pilot episodes — meaning we need 1.5 million euro. It’s a significant amount, but that’s the minimum budget for high-quality animation. The funds will go toward paying artists, modelers, environment creators, animators, voice actors, as well as software licenses and computing time.

As for the topics, we chose the most common questions — ones that intrigue not only kids but many adults too:

- Why don’t monkeys turn into people?

- Where did the very first monkeys come from?

- Why did our ancestors start walking on two legs?

We’re not new to animation. In 2017, Sergey Krivoplyasov, together with ANTROPOGENEZ.RU, created the animated film “Evolution from Ape to Human,” which has already gathered over 3 million views on YouTube.

To ensure our animations are not only visually stunning but also scientifically accurate, we’re working with top Russian scientists. Renowned anthropologist and science communicator Stanislav Drobyshevsky, PhD, will take an active part in writing the scripts.

And of course, we can’t do it without your generous support, dear readers, viewers, subscribers, and sponsors. Let’s give children the gift of real science!

We’ve also prepared awesome gifts for you. Huge thanks to our friends and partners who helped with rewards and agreed to support us with promotion. We believe in this project — may the power of real science be with us!