Project overview
After the construction of the Wall in 1961, until the end of the GDR, escape to the West was possible only at the risk of one's life. Nevertheless, many dared to do so and several hundred lost their lives in the attempt. Nevertheless, the numbers of fugitives increased, especially in the summer of 1989, shortly before the fall of the Wall, many took the chance to flee the SED dictatorship via Hungary. One of them was my mother. At that time she was a young student who, like many others, saw no future for herself in the GDR and was ready to leave everything behind. In my bachelor thesis „Leaving (means leaving forever)“ I conducted an interview with her about her escape and converted this into an animated short film.
Services
Illustration
Animation
Client
Bachelor Thesis
Year
2023
Challenge
While it often is represented otherwise, history is mostly not a factual based, linear, one side only story you can tell and understand easily. There is often only one side told, reduced to same facts that make it hard to understand the human experience in this time. And I think this is were animated documentaries come in, famously successful in telling deeply personal historical stories since "Waltz with Bashir". While it seems counterintuitive to tell history trough animations, for me it really just focuses on the personal experience of one person at the time and with that making it so much easier to understand this period in time on an emotional level.
Outcome
I started the process by interviewing my mother about her experience growing up in the GDR, a totalitarian regime controlling every aspect of peoples lives. And while the interview spanned many interesting topics, what stood out as the most poignant part was her fleeing the country. And that not even for the physical journey she took, really more the emotional one, getting to a point were you are okay with leaving everything behind, knowing you might not see your childhood home, parents, pets or friends ever again, cause at this time, it didn't seem like a return would be possible. And then, in a crazy twist of fate, the wall falling one day later, making it seem almost pointless in the end, but showing just how unexpected this really was. After shortening the interview to around 5 min of audio, I started with very rough sketches, trying to find a visual language simple enough to really emphasize the emotions. After I settled on a boardmatic/ rough animatic, I jumped into illustration, at first concentrating in a color scheme really showing again this journey from one world into another. With the finished illustrations, to keep the hand drawn character, I animated in Procreate as well as in After Effects and was really lucky to have in the end an amazing sound designer add a beautiful last layer of sound design to it.
View more work.