AIM: To produce 50-60 second films inspired and informed by the testimonies of black women’s experience of breast cancer to raise awareness and encourage prevention through attending screening sessions and breast awareness.
BRIEF: The films will form part of an awareness campaign.
You will use the recorded testimonies (provided) to create the basis of the sound design. You may add additional voice recordings and audio to enhance/ complement the visual narrative.
They should be designed to be viewed on screens in public areas like for example medical centres waiting rooms and will also be shown online on various platforms. The films must engage with the theme in an empathic and sensitive way and must be suitable for screening to a wide and diverse audience who may find the subject matter potentially upsetting.
The set of films and associated visuals will then be distributed across Southwark through social media and healthcare channels, reaching women who are at risk from breast cancer and encouraging them to participate in screening programmes.
12/10/21 – CLIENT BRIEFING
Though I wasn’t able to attend the client briefing as I am studying remotely for the first term, I had access to the client’s presentation slides with all the information as well as the 50-minute recording with the different testimonies of black women.
The recording gave a lot of perspective into the issues within the medical industry as well as all the different aspects that discourage black women from getting tested and accepting help. The survivors spoke passionately, detailing their experiences and the messages that they want to send.
I wrote notes from listening to the recording:
Though I was inspired by all the testimonies in the recording, a particular quote that stuck to me was:
“Not everyone has to speak, but everyone has to hear.”
It was simple, yet packed with a lot of important messages. Survivors should speak up, though the pressure should not be on them to open up if others are not willing to listen and show their support despite the stigma surrounding the topic. Awareness should go beyond those that are prone to the disease and spread to everyone including families.
I created a concept art based on this idea, with a black family gathered in the living room to watch TV where the voices of the survivors would be coming from, speaking to them as they listen. The mother, seated in the middle, has a growing tumor that she is unaware of.
Based on my partner’s character design, I tried to sketch the daughter’s character to see if I could emulate the same style for cohesiveness when it came to the animating stage.
With the help of my black friend who lives in Birmingham, I also created a detailed environment design for the living room to incorporate cultural and religious aspects.
The rough storyboard:
We prepared our presentation slides together online
I also created a rough moving test of the morphing sequence as it is difficult to explain in the storyboard
26/10/21 – 1st Interim Presentation
Our recorded interim presentation can be viewed here:
Feedback from the client:
- Narrow the concept down to the black community (exclude trans individual)
- Scrap the noise for the cancer idea as this would perpetuate myths
- Unpleasant imagery of a family in the living room with cancer
- Environment design etc. is too stereotypical
- “Black community” not “people of colour”
- More family members should be included in the scene e.g. grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins. The extended family plays a big role within the black community
- The morphing sequence should be different black people of different ages e.g. a single mum, a young daughter in her 20s, a working class professional lady, a grand mother, a young woman raising young children, a young lady planning her wedding, a women of faith, a young/old black man – to show all this people despites their life’s can have cancer. Cancer does not discriminate
There are quite a few concerns regarding our current concept, so we came to a decision to revise it with the client’s feedback taken into consideration.
We began with discussing and brainstorming alternate ways to portray our concept of family, support, and community. One idea was to have the speaker present in the film but with their back turned to the audience while they speak directly to a black family, another was to change the setting from a living room to a church, which would include the religious aspect as well as the sense of community.
While discussing, I also created more rough sketches, including drawings of different black women that could be included in the sequence.
As there will be several new changes to the concept, we decided to create another PDF with our revised concept that we will send to the client to get their confirmation before going on to create more pre-production material.
The community scene where everyone will show the mother their support:
Refined art of different black women for the sequence
The light shining behind each woman signify their heroic strength in speaking up and the warmth of the community supporting them