Stigmatisation

A hand-drawn animation we created in Sierra Leone to help reduce the stigma of HIV and AIDS in West Africa, in association with Christian Aid. It tells the story of a young HIV positive woman who is unfairly rejected by her family and friends, cast out onto the street until a community health officer finds her and leads her home.

We travelled to Sierra Leone for six weeks to work with a community group who performed theatre productions about these issues.  Taking their suggestions for a new drama, we worked them into a new script, then storyboarded the new drama for them to act out in front of the camera.   The video footage was rotoscoped in Flash and integrated into hand-drawn backgrounds.

Part of the objective was to make it as collaborative as possible, and introduce working with new technology, so Luke gave some lessons on Flash and Photoshop, and members of the group ended up being able to contribute animation to the final production.

In addition to the animation, a community music project was worked on by the good people who now help run the charity In Tune for Life.  Some of this music is used in this animation, and was so successful that it was played on national and international radio.

The animation and music were distributed throughout Africa in a special DVD / CD package, which we had a great time designing.

This project remains really special to us. It was the start of a long-standing creative partnership between State of Play and In Tune for Life which has resulted in a number of other projects in DRC and Malawi, and which continues to this day.