puppet stop motion – Visual Communications for Development

“I propose the use of animation in relation to indigenous people as a means of just telling you that these people are human. Animation is not related to the indexical image. It is able to emulate the human emotion and experiences even if to a fantastical level…since the artist’s hand is very obviously involved in bringing these images to life, animation is not pretending to be alive as is the case with taxidermy. Unlike ethnography, it is not tied to a singular story or to any absolute truths. It allows multiple interpretations of the human experience”

“Animation can be used to emulate something that is intangible, something that is humanity. It is our soul, unlimited by the preconceptions and expectations of the ‘real’ image.“

A distinctive African feminist voice from Kenya. Highly skilled animator combining work in different physical media: cut-out puppets, drawing and charcoal, photography and video that are then composited and manipulated digitally. The fluid movement comes from the video. The other media are more static with puppet manipulation and boil effects.

Issues:

– Uses a lot of dialogue and text in English
– Many of the concerns are from urban areas. How far do these resonate with poor rural areas, or represent their voices?

Argues that animation can make real people alive. Has the full movie in the middle. Banyavanga Nyainyaina. Death, destruction, disease danger. Jim Chuchu’s film ‘African Stories’ is shot in black and white to separate African stories from the colour and romanticism of the ‘African story’.

Documentary animation technique

Real people do not like to talk on camera, so she animates them in their real words.

Textless NGO shorts

Short film made for Plan International in celebration of International Day of The Girl. Part of the Girls take Over Campaign.

Mobile phone animation. Wanjiku seeks a better future, far from home. Commissioned by HAART Kenya.

Commissioned political/development documentaries

Uses digital compositing of multiple media. But reliant on English text commentary.

This migrant business is particularly effective visually – the combination of very gritty drawings and manipulated video effects, overlaying newspaper clippings and use of ‘binocular framing. Though the commentary is very direct and not so clear on what can be done by the viewer.

A short digital puppet animation with commentary in poetic rhyme, based on a true story of human trafficking, commissioned by HAART Kenya. At the end video clips are added for realism.

Commissioned project for the Danish Refugee Council and RMMS in Nairobi. This Migrant Business, shows the systems that exist that enable and exploit African migrants seeking better lives in the Middle East and Europe. The system creates a cyclic force that ensures that demand and supply will continue to to feed into each other, indefinitely. This is a lucrative trade with vulnerable people as its currency. Really effective digital compositing of photography overlay, rotoscoping and puppet animation of drawing/painting.

Yellow Fever

Rotoscoped paint over.

https://vimeo.com/ngendo

Stencil effects

Ahwak Runaway This film was made at the Ölands folkhögskola last week, during a two-day animation workshop. The students chose Kanye West’s #Runaway film to work with. We selected a sequence and each student was given one second (25 frames) to reinterpret in any way they wanted. Most of them printed out the frames, some worked digitally. They began drawing, painting, gluing flowers, and even foil paper onto their frames, playing with masks and blending modes and layering in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects, and worked late into the night to create this beautiful piece. As we were putting the frames together the next afternoon, trying to beat the deadline, we were asking ourselves what to do with the sound. At the same moment, one of the girls began to play a song from #Syria on her phone; Jamal Slitine’s Hobbi Lak.

https://vimeo.com/ngendo

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