Italy
IED Milano
The names of the European students are Kizito Schimera and Lorenzo Barbolini.
My colleague and I took part in this project thanks to the collaboration between our Institute and the director Matteo Valenti. We were chosen to realise the first minute of the project, which was the part assigned to Europe.
What was clear to us right from the start was that we were faced with a great opportunity, both professionally and on a human level, so we immediately felt a huge responsibility.
The aim of the project is to raise awareness on the issue of the extinction of some animal species.
However, to do this we had to undertake a journey into our own personal experiences because, like the song says in the first minute, the drama of the Bees and the Fox with the cubs is our drama too, or rather the drama of man faced with death and, in this case, an unfair and cruel death.
Therefore, we took an introspective journey with our characters who are trying to escape the cruelty of humans, who are chased and hopeless. We empathised with our characters to give life to their movements, their looks and their tragedies. The characters seek to protect themselves from ruthless men who are inconsiderate of the value of their lives in terms of the environment, the world and therefore humanity itself.
Despite the brutal theme, we decided to use non-violent language in the scenes.
In terms of production, our scenes were created using the 2D paperless animation technique. We used Storyboard pro for the pre-production stage of our animatic; Harmony toon boom and Photoshop for the animations; Adobe’s After effect for the post production of the video.
We thought that humanising the characters through their movements was a way to involve the audience’s feelings and encourage people to see the world from these animals’ point of view and to empathise with them. This is the only way for humans to start behaving in ways that help to preserve these species and ultimately themselves.
If we start considering these animals as part of the great circle of life, where the existence of every single creature is related to the destiny of the others, this is the only opportunity for humans to save the world from self-destruction. This is what we truly hope and expect from the future.
Kizito Schimera from IED Milano.
