School project S3 – Flash animation : La liberté

For this flash project we had carte blanche. The only restriction was a minimum length of 30 seconds. It took me a while to find an idea for this animation, but after seeing “Storming Juno” a “Band of Brothers” type TV movie focusing on the D-Day Canadian landing on Juno beach, I was inspired to write this poem (translated from French).

Freedom

It’s walking on the beach and forgeting your worries
It’s feeling the wind’s caress on your skin, carrying the smell of the sea
It’s hearing the sound of seagulls and waves crashing on the shore
It’s watching and listening to children laughing and playing.
Youth, innocence … ignorance
Free as birds they run without knowing the story … the story of this place.
A story of courage and sacrifice
The history of liberty
I hear the ghosts of the past
. . .
Children will learn this story
But us, do we take our freedom for granted?
Freedom has a price.
Thank you to all the soldiers who have walked these places
We will remember them.

I then decided to make that personal project my next flash animation. After the planning process, I recorded myself reading the poem and added music and sound effects, then, I took the elaborate task to animate the poem in flash. The picture quality I had of Juno beach was average at best, so I decided to give a painting effect to the whole production. Unfortunately, it didn’t came out as good as I wanted (sound and visual) but it did translate the poem adequately. Click on the image below to see the 2 min flash animation (in French).

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