By Robert Goldrich

Animation is clearly embraced as an art form but the art takes a refreshingly different form chronicling real-life stories through the hands, eyes and ears of the Rauch Brothers–Mike and Tim–of Rauch Brothers Animation in Brooklyn, N.Y.
    The Rauch Brothers’ brand of animated mini-documentary making is most recently evidenced in shorts they directed to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 for StoryCorps, the national nonprofit oral history organization. For the past five years, StoryCorps has worked to record one story to honor each life lost from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Thus far, survivors, families, friends and rescue workers have memorialized nearly 600 individual victims of the attacks through StoryCorps interviews.
    Three of those stories were made into short films by the Rauch Brothers, created with the assistance and consent of the families of the victims honored and remembered. The shorts are:
    • Always a Family. Monique Ferrer remembers her last conversation with her ex-husband, Michael Trinidad, who was killed in the World Trade Center.
    • She Was the One. Richard Pecorella remembers the love of his life, Karen Juday, a secretary for Cantor Fitzgerald, who was killed in the World Trade Center attacks.
    • John and Joe. John Vigiano Sr. lost both his sons on Sept. 11. John Jr. was a firefighter like his dad; Joe was a police detective.

The art of listening    All three shorts debuted on storycorps.org/animation, are being broadcast on public TV stations nationwide, and on Sept. 11th appeared on YouTube’s homepage.
    While the hand and eye are integral to animators and animation directors, the earlier alluded to ear takes on a heightened importance when it comes to the Rauch Brothers’ work for StoryCorps. Mike Rauch cited David Isay’s observation that “the voice is a window into the human soul.” Isay is the founder of the ambitious oral history project known as StoryCorps, established in 2005 to record and preserve the extraordinary stories of so-called “ordinary” Americans. These stories as told by the people themselves are broadcast on National Public Radio. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is StoryCorps’ primary funder.
    “The power of the person telling his or her own story, the power of the human voice is the springboard for our work for StoryCorps,” related Mike Rauch.
    “For the 9/11 shorts, we listen to the voices over and over again,” noted Tim Rauch. “That’s what distinct and unique about this work. Most animation deals with little clips of dialogue, moving from one character to the next. But for StoryCorps–and the 9/11 work–you will have one character, one voice going on for 30 seconds at least. You may have a scene where you don’t cut away for 30 seconds. As animators you keep that interesting in subtle ways, paying attention to the rhythms of the voice, the emotional beats, the different dips and dives that a person’s voice takes while telling a heartfelt story. Yes, it’s a constant stream of audio. But you can still hear where the paragraphs break, where the voice gets more emotional. We storyboard to the sound, the timing of the voice is that important. Once that’s done, we usually do some character design drawings. The work was originally hand drawn the old fashioned way; now it’s hand drawn digitally.”
    The character depictions are true to the real-life people. The Rauch Brothers meet them, go to their homes, soak in as much as possible about their lives, their mannerisms, about what makes them unique. In the case of the 9/11 victims whom the Rauch Brothers couldn’t meet, their characters in animation form reflect the reality of their personas as much as possible–photos of them, and the recollections of their loved ones form the basis for the animation. For example, in Always a Family, Monique Ferrer recalls her ex-husband Michael Trinidad who called her from the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower to say goodbye on that fateful September day 10 years ago. She describes his fun-loving personality, his love for their children–and all that is reflected in the animated character of Trinidad created by the Rauch Brothers. “We try to find the essence of the person–sometimes that means a very clear and direct connection to the way they look in real life,” said Mike Rauch. “Other times, it involves adding character design to convey a certain personality.”
    The StoryCorps fare is a prime ongoing gig for the Rauch Brothers. Its roots date back to 2007 when Mike Rauch was an intern with StoryCorps. “Ever since Tim and I were kids, we were interested in animation, studied it. We kind of got detoured along the way,” related Mike Rauch. “I studied graphic design and got into other things. Tim got into illustration and studied painting in college. But we came back to our first love, looking for ways to work together, to tell real stories. I was very much inspired by Aardman Animations’ Lip Sync Series where audio interviews would be recorded in a variety of places and then put in a new setting and context through animation. This work got us to thinking about the possibility of documentary audio as a tool for storytelling and animation.”
    So one day Mike Rauch approached Isay about the idea of creating some animation for a StoryCorps real-life story. “I was hesitant and nervous about asking but David was open minded and gave us a chance,” said Rauch whose brother was less than enthusiastic at the outset.
    “I thought the stories were too personal to animate, only one person was talking,” recalled Tim Rauch. “I always wanted to do documentary work but I just didn’t think the StoryCorps audio would translate well into animation.”
    However, Mike rounded up several radio pieces for Tim to consider, resulting in their first effort, the short titled Germans in the Woods, about a World War II veteran recollecting his having to shoot a Hitler Youth soldier. The memory of killing someone haunts the vet to this day.
    “I remember David Isay’s response when he first watched the short. He said this really added some new value to the story that’s not in the radio piece,” recalled Mike Rauch. “I knew then that we had something with special potential.”
    From that tragic monologue from an older man, the Rauch Brothers moved onto an audio tape in which 12-year-old Joshua Littman, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, interviews his mother. This second animated short, titled Q&A, is more humorous, bright and happy than the first film yet still carries poignancy, hinting at what the youngster has gone through as a result of being different from his classmates due to his affliction.
    Both initial short were quite well received, so much so that the CPB agreed to back a grant where the Rauch Brothers could produce seven shorts in 2010 with broadcast partner POV. The shorts aired as part of the POV documentary series on PBS and are being used as interstitial fare by PBS stations.
    This first flight of the POV/StoryCorps animated series earned a 2011 News & Documentary Emmy Award nomination in the Outstanding Arts & Culture Programming category.
    The Rauch Brothers received a grant for a second series of seven shorts this year, which include the trio of 9/11 films.
    While the StoryCorps projects are a prime driving creative force for the Rauch Brothers, they have diversified a bit in recent years, turning out some animation for a Mountain Dew commercial, and a promo for the Sesame Street Workshop revival of the 1970s series The Electric Company. Currently the Rauch Brothers are looking at a prospective animation assignment entailing cartoon interstitials for Cartoon Network. They are also developing a concept for a longer form piece that would tell the stories of Puerto Rican immigrants during the 1950s, as well as for an American folklore project in collaboration with a theater group centering on stories from Appalachia and the Bayou.
    “Character-based storytelling is what makes us jump out of bed in the morning,” affirmed Mike Rauch. “Our bread and butter is the classic cartoon style of the StoryCorps series, a style influenced by American comic books and American TV animation. StoryCorps is the ideal type of storytelling for us. They are very American stories–stories that through animation give you a better understanding of humanity and which help people hopefully understand themselves better and to connect with other people who may seem quite different from themselves. Still, even with those differences, we discover that we share common ground.”

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