Untold: Controlled
motion graphics for Channel 4 documentary
TITLE: Untold: Controlled - Can I Trust My Partner?
ROLE: Motion Graphic Design and Animation
BRIEF:
It’s been a while since I worked with Rosemary, a lovely and talented director of documentaries like Georgia Harrison: Porn, Power, Profit, and The Truth About Spiking, and of course, I Want to Get Better with Jameela Jamil, where we first worked together. Rose contacted me about creating graphics for her new documentary with TrueVision. It was a tight turnaround and quite a few graphics to achieve in a variety of different formats. Rose had two main concepts, one invovling string and the other ink. Obviously I was keen to use ink again as I wasn’t 100% sure how to incorporate the sting into the graphics.
PROCESS:
The decision was left to the Exec, and she chose string. So my challenge became:
a) How do I create 40+ graphics using a red string in some meaningful way? and
b) how do I make them flexible enough to change easily—because, let’s be honest, documentaries are moving beasts, and things always change.
I started by running a few tests to see how the typography might behave if it were tangled up in red string. From there, I built a set of animations I could apply to any text, no matter what the wording ended up being. Then I added a line of string that connected to different parts of different words, all driven by the movement of the text it was attached to. Voilà!
PROD COMPANY: TRUEVISION
CLIENT: CHANNEL 4
ANIMATION:
Alongside the infographics, I was also asked to visualise a series of statements. The language in these moments was already very descriptive, so finding the right tone for the graphics came naturally. In fact, this is really where the style was born. I knew I wanted the design to feel raw and hand-drawn. These visuals needed to feel personal, while still communicating the emotion and the control at the heart of the story.
I chose to strip out colour because that is essentially what the controlling partners were doing to the relationships and supposedly to the person they claimed to love. They were removing their colour. I used animated textures to add depth to each illustration, and worked in twos, which means a movement every two frames instead of one. This created a subtle stop motion feel and made the animation feel more handcrafted.
The subject matter was incredibly tough, and hats off to Rosemary, Adam, Paddy and the whole team at Truevision for handling the film with so much care and sensitivity. I have daughters, and I cannot begin to understand the mindset of how people justify these actions.
