Brief:
Building a commonwealth of freedom.
Title:
Barriers (working title)
Concept:
A woman is trapped in a brick cell. She finds that only with the help of others
can she, and they, all achieve freedom. A stark, high contrast animation.
Synopsis: A dialogue-free film. A woman is trapped within the four walls of a brick built cell, little bigger than she is. The walls stretch up high above her with only a little light trickling in from above. She strains to push down the brick walls, but to no avail. She even tries getting her hands under the walls to lift them, but this is clearly a futile task.
From the other side of the wall she can faintly hear the sound of someone scrabbling and struggling. High above someone peeks over the top, a young boy. The woman looks up and the boy looks down at her. Then he too tries to prise apart the walls. Getting no success he jumps back down outside.
The woman slumps down into the corner of her prison. The top-light faintly illuminating her hair. A scraping sound from behind startles her and she stands. Slowly, one brick is removed and through the small hole a shaft of sunlight pours in. As the beam of brilliant light hits her she finds herself staring back at the eyes of an old man. Nothing is said. Then behind her another brick is removed, then another and another. Streaks of sunlight now criss-cross the once gloomy brick chamber. A multitude of people can be seen walking away in every direction, each carrying a single brick. All of humanity is there; race, colour, age, ability. The wall continues to dissipate until the woman is standing in a wide-open white space. Hundreds of people, each with a brick, mill about.
Title: Only those that are free can fight for freedom.
The woman slowly wanders off. But her freedom would seem to be an illusion. She walks into a white wall. She, and all the other people are in a giant white room, the sides of which stretch high up into the air.
Title: And the fight for freedom is forever ongoing.
Slowly the people converge in a corner. The bricks have been used to build a giant tower. People prepare to climb.
Title: But the lack of freedom for one means that none of us can ever be free.
The woman is standing on top of the tower supported by many behind her. Without her help they would never have reached the top of the white wall. She stretches out into the air and a hand comes down to reach out to her.
End
on Commonwealth Day message and logos.
Style: An animated piece in stark black and white. The moving image would be created by the animating of a series of pen and ink drawings. These hand drawn sketches would be scanned into a computer and brought to life using post-production tools such as After Effects.
Rationale: The message of the piece should be as stark and as black and white as the eye-catching images that it is built from. If you unfairly have your freedom taken away from you then it is difficult for you to re-capture it. But if we all chip away at the walls of oppression the task is much easier to accomplish. Who should help us with this task? All of our brothers and sisters, after all we have to live together, we are all residents of the "white room". If part of us "imprisoned" how can we hope to scale the wall? The piece also includes the important message that this struggle for freedom is ongoing.
The narrative comes from the work of groups such as Amnesty International where action and responsibility falls to individuals. The work of the Commonwealth, where nations stand side by side to generate a shared common vision and understanding of what freedom means, was also an inspiration.
The films eye-catching and minimalist visuals mean that the piece has immediate impact and an underlying strength. The imprisoned woman represents the loss of freedom in any of its forms ? freedom of movement, freedom of rights, freedom of information, lack of equality, freedom from war or hunger.
The combination of computer manipulation and traditional drawings ensures that while the project has a clean look and can be achieved within the timescale it never loses the human touch.
The animation method also creates a truly international film that demonstrates
that while languages may divide us our goals and aspirations are common.
This film favours no particular country or race. Nor does it re-enforce
any stereotypes or the status quo ? for example that some countries or peoples
are less guilty than others in curtailing freedom. After all, the key message
is that we must all try harder and work together if we are to truly achieve
freedom.