SYNOPSIS
The story is about an inmate named Fletch and his escape from a correctional institution that uses its prisoners as slaves through brainwashes. They’re brainwashed digitally through a feed in a helmet they’re all forced to wear, but Fletch manages to break free. No longer restrained, he attempts his escape.
The moral of the story is about overcoming discouragement through skepticism of the information given to you. Prisoners in this tale are programmed into slave labour through information fed into their helmets about guilt and validating their innocence through a point system. They gain points through the work they do. This is a reflection of our own validation through a social media system that is sometimes just as filtered as the information prisoners receive in the story. We make a lot of assumptions due to the ease of information granted to us, not knowing authorities exploit these developed traits and easily feed us bullshit to subconsciously influence us to stay content with the status quo.
For the inmates in the story, the Consensus exploits their desperation for freedom by telling them the only way past the guilt is through enough points accumulated from slave labour. The incentive makes them work with speed and efficiency like that of a machine. The animation will not follow traditional methods in narrative, instead the style in this short makes use of very graphical scene transitions, as well as an animated imagination. The story is structured to fit a short animated feature, being simple and straight forward. Its gestural language and music will make up for the lack of dialogue.
PROCESS
Similar to a storyboard, the image boards helped plan the course of the film by capturing the visual essence of each scene. The process of this animation involved deriving from these image boards in the order they are arranged and creating a detailed storyboard for each one. Each board was used as a conceptual reference. This helped in defining the overall style of the short film as well as in focusing on the importance of composition and colour.
INSPIRATION
MY GAMIFIED EXP
My childhood saw a transitional period for gaming: what began as a leisurely activity eventually became a technical and cultural tool that would affect more than how we pass the time. When I was younger, my parents and teachers would point to games as the source of my distraction. Since then, the world has become so fast-paced, people are easily distracted, their attention often divided between two or more screens. The solution today to secure a person’s attention is no longer to direct it elsewhere but to occupy the screen that already holds it.
I would say that the gaming experience has moved beyond our traditional understanding of electronic games – beyond adventure, puzzles, first-person shooter, and role-play. The principles of these video games (e.g., objectives, progress, rewards, etc.) are incorporated into everyday use apps. We use them to organize our time, to keep ourselves in line with our personal goals, and to validate our achievements. (Whether this development is positive or negative is up for debate.) Compared to how my parents and teachers once viewed video games, it is ironic that this gamified experience has morphed into projects of self-improvement.
THE P.I.C.
PIC, or prison-industrial complex, is a term used to describe the rapid growth of the US inmate population and the states’ attempt to save money by allowing private companies to outsource labour. Today in America, the motivation for prison labour comes from profit rather than punishment and rehabilitation including, as some would believe, the development of new skills. This desire has led to a growth of the number of incarcerations with mandatory minimum sentences ranging from six months to life without release (the majority for drug-related crimes). Originally a smaller part of a bigger idea, I have incorporated the concept of PIC by choosing to set my animation in a prison. I criticize PIC’s method of “rehabilitation” through a gamified experience not unlike the everyday life of a smart phone user.
