This film is part of a project with real kids. It opens with our question to each of the kids “Arla Cream Cheese Asked Kids: What is Xanthan?” We begin to hear the kid’s narration, as he beings to imagine that Xanthan is a space alien. We then enter the animated world of Xanthan, a space alien who likes to conquer planets. We follow his journey and then leave the animated world for the real world. We see the kid continuing the narration and see that he is drawing his version of Xanthan. His mother brings him breakfast complete with Arla. A voiceover tells us that Xanthan Gum isn’t actually a space alien, but rather a weird additive found in some cream cheese, but not in Arla Cream Cheese.

The kid’s story of Xanthan, the space alien who loves to conquer planets lent itself to stop motion animation. Since the kid was our director and we followed his drawing, we wanted to be true to every detail he included. Since he isn’t an artist, his drawings had very unique aspects – imperfect shapes, objects that don’t exist and logic that wasn’t really logical. But that’s what made it so fun. We fabricated each detail “perfectly” to his specifications. A three-day stop motion shoot with three sets shooting simultaneously gave us all the elements needed to bring the story to life with charm and character. Our kid director even helped animate a few shots.