About the Project
I was approached by an expert in Indigenous mental health to produce a short, eye-catching animation from a recorded interview with young aboriginal man with mental disability and a long history of incarceration. The project was in support of Justice Reinvestment initiatives to keep young people out of the justice-system.
The animation had to make the subject anonymous. It needed to be done with sensitivity and seriousness while staying engaging and appealing. It had to be informative, illustrating the project’s agenda. And it had to be brief – something that could be shown at the start of a meeting, or consumed online.
I enlisted the help of a few contractors for this, including illustrator Sophie McPike, an illustrator with a background in animation. She was able to create six prototype sketches and to develop one into a form that would adapt to the animation pipe-line include mouth-shapes for audio syncing.
We had just over 15 minutes of dialogue and got it down to two minutes by including some break-out text sections to tie the narrative together and tell the story effectively.
A basic hip-hop beat helped tie the titular reference together (song and album, Good Kid MAAD System – Kendrick Lamar).
With one animator creating pose drafts and another lip-syncing I was able to bring life to the character referencing video of myself acting.
The video was used in a number of conference and helped illustrate the need for justice reform.
We intend to continue this method to produce a series that explores the stories of people with disability and disadvantage.
