We Asked MadMicrobe’s Creative Director What Makes a Great Medical Animation. Here’s What He Said…
Every project begins with a written brief, but transforming that into a captivating, scientifically accurate animation takes a carefully honed process. The goal is to create an immersive visual journey that pulls viewers deep inside the human body.
So, how does that happen? While clients don’t need to know about every technical step that our animation team will tackle, it helps to start with a conversation—understanding their objectives, clarifying key messages, and sharing our approach to ensure alignment from the start.
For instance:
- Define the Story Early – A strong narrative keeps complex science engaging and digestible.
- Balance Accuracy with Visual Impact – Scientific precision matters, but clarity and aesthetics make it memorable.
- Keep Communication Open – Frequent collaboration ensures the final animation meets both creative and scientific goals
Joel Dubin is one of the best-placed people in the medical animation industry to answer these questions. As cofounder and creative director of MadMicrobe, Philadelpha based Medical animation studio, he has over 20 years of experience delivering cinematic medical animation services.
We chatted to him about his growing a medical animation studio, the technical tools the and his colleagues use, his approach to medical accuracy, and his passion for creating medical animation that is a megapixel or three above the competition in terms of impact.
Joel, tell us how MadMicrobe got started.
I’ve always had a love of scientific visualization. After 20 years working in the industry doing this kind of work, I was ready to branch out and start a studio that reflected the creativity and visual excitement I was seeing in the motion design and VFX industries. I wanted to push the boundaries of medical animation into a more dynamic and cinematic approach – something a bit more fresh and unique than what I had been seeing out there. My partner and executive producer, Mitch Wishart, who I had worked with for over a decade up to that point, had the same vision and was also ready for a change. Mike McIntyre, who was already a successful entrepreneur was also looking for a new creative challenge, joined us as partner and CFO. We opened MadMicrobe in 2015, and offering our unique brand of medical animation services has been a fulfilling experience so far both creatively and professionally for us all.
Who are your clients?
Primarily healthcare marketing agencies, pharmaceutical companies, surgical device,and biotech companies. We have also worked for television and film, as well as producing holographic and 360-degree interactive and immersive experiences for trade shows and live events. We have also recently begun working with clients In the aerospace and agricultural industries, moving into other avenues of scientific animation pursuits.
“There’s just something special about shrinking a movie camera down to the size of a cell or molecule and bringing the audience down there right into the action.”
Give us a flavor of your day-to-day work on a typical MadMicrobe medical animation project.
Well, there’s probably no such thing as ‘typical’. Each project will have custom requirements, and it’s taking that tailored and fresh approach that helps each client stand out.
However, some of our recurring technical visualization challenges involve things like portraying cell motility via rigging cellular models to roll across an irregular surface and squeeze between other cells in an organic, soft-body way, or to depict the mechanics of DNA transcription accurately and clearly. Apoptosis, or cell death, is something that comes up quite often as does mitosis, or cell division. We have a few tried-and-true techniques for these sorts of effects, but Mitch and I will always throw it out to the team to explore new and more effective methods, using the many tools we have available.
Below is a challenge reel we created showing our team’s various technical explorations, focusing on working out some of these cellular processes in creative ways. ↓
Another important aspect in nearly all of our medical animation projects involves hunting down and assembling accurate molecular models. If it’s a drug mechanism of action (MOA) project, a particular molecule is usually the ‘hero’ of the story. This means that this hero molecule and other molecules it interacts with need to be depicted with scrupulous accuracy, at least at the starting point of a project.
The Protein Data Bank (https://www.rcsb.org) is an online resource containing 3D data on thousands of molecules, all of which can be imported into most 3D packages via plugins like ePMV (C4D) or software like UCSF Chimera. Building molecules is often one of the first steps in our R&D process.
On that subject of software, talk us through the tools you use to create your work.
We use Cinema 4D and Houdini for the bulk of our healthcare animations and Redshift is our render engine. We have ZBrush artists on staff who specialize in sculpting particular anatomical, cellular, or medical device assets that we may need for a project. A few of our guys have been integrating Substance into their texturing workflow as well. For organic animation rigs and particle effects, we will use X-Particles and Houdini. We also do quite a bit of realtime work for AR, VR, and interactive, and use both Unity and Unreal depending on the job. We use quite a few tools.
MadMicrobe has developed a reputation for ground-breaking medical animation. But how do you ensure those striking visuals are scientifically accurate?
Having each been in this field for over 20 years, Mitch and I will usually catch some things right away in terms of what’s accurate and what’s not.
We will also rely on our staff, many who have advanced degrees in science, biology and biochemistry, including programs like the Biomedical Communications programs at Johns Hopkins, University of Illinois, and University of Toronto, who will dive into the material and do whatever research is necessary to ensure accuracy. Before the real work begins, they will work out the mechanics of what needs to be visualized in a script with the animation team.
This scientific accuracy always needs to be the foundation of everything we do. Once we’ve established that, we can bring our creativity to the table. It’s how the material is presented that really makes a difference between ending up with a dull animation nobody really wants to sit through, versus one that captures the attention and imagination of the audience. With all of our medical animation services, we do our best to find ways to push the visuals into a cinematic realm in terms of textures, lighting, and motion. We try to make shapes and surfaces interesting and organic. For instance, there are very few, if any, straight lines or flat surfaces in nature and we try to keep our eye on that in our work.
Why do you think computer graphic (CG) animation is becoming increasingly popular in medicine?
In my opinion, especially in this day and age, medical animations is the perfect medium for educating people. This educational aspect covers the average consumer doing a Google search on a disease, a doctor who wishes to showcase a surgical technique, and scientists who need to visually communicate a molecular process to their peers. There’s just something special about shrinking a movie camera down to the size of a cell or molecule and bringing the audience down there right into the action – so they see things they would never be able to see otherwise – that can help make science more exciting to the average person and easier to comprehend—and ultimately retain. It can become a form of entertainment that fascinates the viewer while having the by-product of being educational – regardless of the complexity of the concept.
And how do you think CG animation will change medicine in the coming years?
Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality will surely become more widespread. It will allow doctors and medical students to conduct simulated surgical procedures, for instance, or manipulate a CG human body and explore the various systems within.
