When Oscar-winning (An Inconvenient Truth) documentarian Davis Guggenheim turned his attention to He Named Me Malala–a film about Malala Yousafzai–he took an atypical detour to animation, meshing it with live action to tell us the story of the courageous teenager who stood up for girls’ education in her native Pakistan. Malala’s efforts got her targeted by the Taliban for assassination. At the age of 15, she was shot in the head, sustaining serious injuries which necessitated her being airlifted to the U.K. for medical care.
But the bullet that nearly ended Malala’s life thrust her into the limelight. She continues her campaign as an advocate for children everywhere–for refugees, kids in war zones, for all children who lack access to schools or an education. With her father Ziauddin and Shiza Shahid (her friend who was also shot in the Taliban attack), she co-founded The Malala Fund which advocates globally for girls’ education. She wrote a best selling book, I Am Malala (with Christina Lamb), gave a rousing speech at the United Nations and began traveling the world as an eloquent, inspiring voice for children’s rights.
In December of 2014, in the midst of the making of He Named Me Malala, Malala at the age of 18 became the youngest person in history to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She received the award jointly with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights advocate.
At first blush, Guggenheim’s decision to deploy animation in the documentary was regarded as curious at best. Animation is seemingly the antithesis of documentary filmmaking which captures reality on the fly, shooting real life as it unfolds. By contrast animation depicts an alternate view of reality, and can be a slow, painstaking art that’s quite a departure from the grab a camera and shoot orientation of the documentary.
Guggenheim explained, “So often, when we see a report here about Pakistan, it’s something harsh or scary. But when Malala and Ziauddin tell the story of their past, it’s something wonderful. The way they spoke, their memories felt like a storybook to me. So I chose to use animation to portray the part of the Yousafzais’ lives before the Taliban in a way they themselves remember it: as something beautiful and charming, like a fairy tale. Animation means time and money. But I had the instinct that it could help tell Malala’s story in a very profound and touching way.”
Guggenheim turned to animation supervisor/designer Jason Carpenter who assembled a team of 15 artists, animators and producers, building an in-house animation studio for the production from the ground up. Carpenter creatively led the ensemble which developed 11 unique animated sequences for He Named Me Malala, totaling more than 25 minutes of original animation for the nearly 90-minute documentary. The animation gives us insight into Malala and Ziauddin’s past, their wonderful father-daughter relationship and what she saw as a child, growing up in the beautiful, at times idyllic Swat Valley in Pakistan. One sequence takes us back to Ziauddin’s childhood when he was bullied for his stammer. He slowly finds his voice, depicted in artful animation as swirls and flames flicker and dance when he speaks. His determination to speak when it might have been easier to be silent shows a family trait passed on to Malala, named by her father after an Afghani Pashtun female warrior who was killed for speaking out in the 19th century. Ziauddin gave his daughter not only the name, but the love, sense of purpose and the courage to speak her mind and heart which have helped Malala’s voice to resonate worldwide.
Carpenter is partnered in Carpenter Bros. Creative. His credits include co-directing 80 minute of interactive “on-ride” character animation for the Spaceship Earth attraction at Disney’s EPCOT Center, and directing the acclaimed short film The Renter which garnered the Grand Prix at Cinanima and an Annie Award nomination in 2011 for Best Animated Short. Carpenter has overseen animation and design for commercials, TV shows, and a variety of interactive experiences for clients such as Disney, Universal, Asics, The Kids WB, and Sesame Street, as well as concept work for several museums and theme parks around the world. Carpenter has an MFA from CalArts in experimental animation.
SHOOT caught up with Carpenter who shed light on the role of animation in He Named Me Malala.
SHOOT: This is your first collaboration with Davis Guggenheim. How did you connect with him and get the opportunity to work on He Named Me Malala?
Carpenter: I got an email about the possibility of doing animation for a feature documentary about Malala. I wound up meeting with Davis for three or four hours. We discussed the idea of animation for the film, how it should and could work. Back when he first met Malala, he had done some audio only interviews and thought how else could he show her past, her life in Pakistan. Her experiences in Pakistan, her childhood seemed like a storybook to him. He envisioned animation in a storybook style.
I designed a look that captured that storybook feel, the emotion and atmosphere, the vision of youth, the places they can’t go back to anymore. We wanted to capture a softness, a sweetness, a tone, seeing the world through a young girl’s view, Malala’s view. The animation needed to feel authentic but also poetic, lyrical and impressionistic so that it contrasts with the live action in such a way that you get the feeling you’re stepping back into their [Malala and Ziauddin’s] past and their precious memories.
SHOOT: We heard that Guggenheim initially gravitated toward you based on your short film The Renter, which brought an atmospheric and emotional quality to the story of a boy’s experience at a daycare center.
Carpenter: I think that’s true but I haven’t asked him if The Renter is what actually led him to me. Davis mentioned the film which is quite different from what we did for He Called Me Malala–but the animation for both is textural and atmospheric. The Renter had some of the qualities–a sense of light, depth and texture, an organic, natural look–that Davis wanted for the documentary.
SHOOT: How did you dovetail the animation with the live action footage to attain the best effect?
Carpenter: I’d see the live action and would refine the animation. If we had made all the animation after the film was shot and just dropped it in, it would have been completely different. But because the animation was responding to the footage, often as it came in, they tie better together. They play well together and play off each other. They became one, complemented each other. Davis is so collaborative and open, which helped to make all this possible.
I often am asked why don’t the animation characters have well defined faces. They have faces but are more subtle than some kind of photorealistic rendering. I think that helped the live action and animation play well together. To go from live action of Malala to a well defined animated version would be too jarring. By having facial details that are soft and subtle, you can move from the live action to the animation with less of a bump.
SHOOT: That decision also makes the animated Malala more representative of other girls. Figuratively speaking, the audience can fill in the faces of others and what they have gone through and are still going through.
Carpenter: Yes, by being not so detailed, the viewer can fill in the blanks so to speak, the big picture of how her story represents the stories of others. It helps us to relate with Malala and the movement she represents and the others whom she speaks for.
