(Minneapolis, Minnesota--October 17, 2008) French animation director, designer and illustrator Caroline Attia, the newest addition to commercial animation studio Z Animation (www.zanimation.tv), has directed her first U.S. commercial.
“Sarah” is an emotionally charged 2-D animated public service spot for Citizens for a Safer Minnesota and agency Martin|Williams Advertising in Minneapolis.
“Sarah” was conceived and produced originally as a radio commercial, created by Martin/Williams copywriter Jake Lancaster. In 60 seconds, it tells the life story of a young girl, Sarah, and marked off the milestones of her growth in divisions of time. “Her baptism, 14 minutes and ten seconds;” “…her first bicycle trip around the block took 47 minutes.” Then comes the shocker. “While searching for some change in her parents’ bedroom, it took her 14 seconds to find…a loaded handgun…It took the bullet eight milliseconds to reach the end of the gun’s barrel…” then a reveal of the website, endgunviolence.com.
When the Martin/Williams team of Writer Lancaster, VP/Director of Production Stan Prinsen and VP/Group Creative Director Randy Tatum decided to adapt the radio spot for television, they were drawn to Attia, whose humorous, playful fashionista style would be a perfect counterpoint for the horrifying, surprise ending. “We didn’t want to lead anyone on, but at the same time, we wanted to present this girl’s journey as a happy story, and Caroline’s style lent itself to that,” Prinsen explains. “She is so talented and collaborative, and just hit it coming out of the gate.”
Attia designed and animated the entire spot in traditional 2D from her Paris studio (with color done in Photoshop CS3 and compositing/editing in After Effects CS3), using a largely limited palette, with a loose and very active line style for the animation. Final assembly, music mix and other post took place in Minneapolis and New York. “I had to take a very difficult subject, the loss of a young life, and bring it to life in an inventive and engaging way,” says Attia. “I felt that it was really important to get to know Sarah and become involved with all these moments in her short life. She is a child that could belong to anyone; and because of the flow we created in the images, you don’t expect her to die.” Attia also came up the idea of using clocks as a background motif throughout the spot. “I wanted the spot to show not just what she was doing; the clocks added a flow to the spot that pointed out just how important time really is.”
In the brief four years since she began her professional career in Paris as both an illustrator and an animator, Caroline Attia has designed and directed animation and motion design projects for commercials (Zespri, Topicrem, MTV Asia); corporate (Alcatel Lucent, Renault, Kit Recyclage) TV series titles (100 Percent People), web (Carter, Mission-Noel) and music videos (Over The Rhine). Her illustrations have appeared in Elle, Eurokapi, Citron, The New York Times and many others, and her work has been on exhibition in galleries from Paris to Singapore. At Z Animation, Attia is represented by Mark Mirsky on the East Coast, Dan O’Brien and Doug Stephen in the Midwest, and Gilles de Bonfihs on the West Coast.
Z Animation’s Executive Producer Peter Barg says, “As a young director, Caroline demonstrates a terrific ability to find the agency’s core concept and bring it to life. Her character design, the graphic simplicity of the backgrounds coupled with the warm color palette, brought the spot both to life as well as to its tragic conclusion. That takes a lot of sensitivity and artistic talent. We are so proud to have someone like her aboard at Z Animation.”
Other credits on “Sarah” include On-Line Editor Steve Medin of Volt, Minneapolis; Sound Design by Elijah Torn, Massive Music, New York, and sound mix engineered by Carl White of Brahmstead White Noise, Minneapolis.
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