There’s a classic scene in the movie The Graduate when a self-anointed wise old man gives fresh faced college grad Benjamin (played by Dustin Hoffman) some sage one-word career advice: “Plastics.”
Yet while that punchline was funny in the movie, it’s anything but in this PSA for The Surfrider Foundation entitled “Rise Above Plastics.”
The spot centers on a gray whale swimming through a ocean polluted by plastics. The mammal desperately seeks an open patch of water in order to surface but to no avail. The whale becomes helplessly coated in a seemingly never ending floating bed of discarded, dirty plastic bottles, bags and six-pack rings. He leaps out from the debris but lands only to be literally beached while in the sea.
The camera pulls back to reveal the mind-numbing extent of the pollution which appears as an enormous floating island of plastic. A super informs us that plastics kill some 1.5 million marine animals each year.
Aaron Sorenson of LAIKA/house, Portland, Ore., served as director/animator on the PSA for agency Borders Perrin Norrander, Portland.
Creative impetus The creative inspiration for the storyline came to Jeremy S. Boland, creative director at Borders Perrin Norrander, during a rainy Portland day. Boland saw trash flowing down a street sewer grate near a local playground.
“I saw the plastic, man-made waste filtering through a street drain and thought about how most people never think about its final resting place, our oceans,” related Boland. “The Freudian thing about trash for most people is that if it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. The juxtaposition of our future leaders playing in the school’s playground and plethora of plastic waste spurred me to think about how I could raise awareness of its negative effects on marine life. I knew the spot should have a stylistic appeal and a humanism that is easily communicated through animation.”
Boland gravitated to LAIKA/house, having earlier collaborated with the studio on a animated campaign for the Oregon Lottery. “Once again I brought my ideas to Aaron [Sorenson] and he and I just started jammin’,” said Boland.
Mixed media First briefly seen swimming unencumbered, the whale was hand drawn and animated, while the plastic debris was CG.
“We used natural elements created in the hand-drawn 2D animation style and matched them with unnatural objects made in CG,” said Sorenson. “The result is an illustrative style that visually defines and separates the pollution from the living characters like the whale and the ocean.” LAIKA/house has the varied disciplines, including CG, 2D and stop motion, in-house.
Jan Johnson, LAIKA/house co-executive producer, added, “The beauty and message of this 30-second call to action heartened the entire animation team. In fact, LAIKA/house no longer uses beverages sold in plastic bottles. I hope this spot also inspires others to change their habits and save our oceans.”
The Surfrider Foundation is a grassroots environmental organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world’s oceans, waves and beaches. Now in its 25th year, The Surfrider Foundation has grown from a small group of surfers in Malibu, Calif., to a global movement that’s more than 500,000 members strong with 90 chapters worldwide.
The Surfrider Foundation reports such sobering environmental facts as:
• Each year one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die from ingestion of or entanglement in plastics.
• In certain parts of oceans, plastic particles outnumber plankton by a ratio of 46 to one.
• And virtually every piece of plastic ever created still exists in some shape or form.
A special website, www.riseaboveplastics.org, chronicles the plight of the oceans due to the onslaught of plastics. Riseaboveplastics.org provides a running count of plastic bottles that have been thrown away in landfills since the site’s launch last year. The number is staggering and increases by the second.
The site also offers easy tips for people to follow in order to reduce their plastics footprint. They include no longer using bottled water, opting for reusable grocery bags, ceasing to use plastic sandwich bags, using silverware instead of plastic eating utensils, and buying in bulk so to avoid single serving packaging.
Scott Fox produced “Rise Above Plastics” for Borders Perrin Norrander. Annie Pomeranz produced for LAIKA/house.
