- explain.film
- Sample films
- What Caused World War 1?
What Caused World War 1?
Make your own explainer
Try it for free.
Archival documentary explainer · 53 seconds · English
A 53-second archival-documentary explainer: a driver’s wrong turn in Sarajevo fired the shot, but promises between countries and war plans built for speed turned one murder into a world war in 37 days.
- The brief
- “What caused World War 1?”
- Style
- Archival documentary
- Length and frame
- 53 seconds · 16:9
- Made for
- Lessons and courses
How it was made.
The whole brief was the question, worded the way people search for it. The director picked the style itself. It told the 37 days in order, from the stalled car to five great powers at war.
It ends on one line: one bullet lit the fuse, promises and plans did the rest. It cost $4.89 of model spend to make.
Every film on explain.film is made the same way: one sentence in, a storyboard you approve, then the director paints, voices, scores and animates it, and a critic model grades the cut before you see it.
Transcript
- On the 28th of June, 1914, a driver in Sarajevo took a wrong turn.
- His car stalled beside a nineteen-year-old with a pistol, who shot the heir to Austria-Hungary.
- But one bullet doesn't explain a world war.
- Promises and plans do.
- Austria blamed Serbia, and Germany promised to back Austria, whatever came.
- Russia promised to protect Serbia, so it called up its army, and Germany's plan to fight Russia started by invading France, through neutral Belgium.
- Britain had sworn in 1839 to defend Belgium.
- Thirty-seven days after the shot, five great powers were at war.
- One bullet lit the fuse.
- Promises, and plans that left no time to stop, did the rest.
More films made with explain.film.
Why can’t we just print more money?
A 56-second economics explainer in an editorial collage style. From a 200-billion-mark loaf of bread in 1923 Berlin to a town with a hundred loaves, it shows why printing money does not make anyone richer.
Kuršių nerija
A 69-second explainer in Lithuanian about the Curonian Spit, the 98-kilometre strip of sand between the Baltic Sea and the Curonian Lagoon: the legend of the giantess Neringa, the dunes that buried whole villages, and the forest people planted to hold them.
Why Did the US Enter World War 1?
A 53-second archival-documentary explainer: in 1917 Germany chose unrestricted U-boat war knowing it would bring America in, betting it could starve Britain out first, and lost.
What Happens When a Player Gets a Red Card?
A 55-second Risograph explainer: a red card is less a punishment than a price set by the match clock. A team down to ten concedes more, and a ban sends a second bill.
What is the rarest blood type?
What are the blood types?
Got a topic of your own?
One sentence is enough. Approve the storyboard and get a narrated, animated film like this one in about 15 minutes.
Make a film like this