Bristol, U.K.-based Aardman Animations has created a new series of characters for the second year of a campaign promoting Leonard Cheshire Disability, a group that supports more than 21,000 disabled people in the U.K. and works in 52 countries. The organization lobbies for change and provides innovative services that help disabled people gain the opportunity to live life their way.
This time around, among the cast of Creature Discomfort characters (the first year’s campaign featured Creature Comfort protagonists) from Aardman for agency Freud Communications, London, are a blind chameleon, a hearing impaired Cheshire cat, a physically limited mouse, and a wheelchair-bound rabbit. The latter two are featured in “Love and Sex,” one of four spots in a multimedia initiative that includes TV and the Internet.
“Love and Sex” opens on the mouse who says, “Some people think because you have a disability you should be with someone with a disability. It doesn’t always work like that.” An elephant steps into the frame, its trunk takes a peanut from the mouse’s hand. The trunk then kisses and caresses the mouse on the head. The mouse explains, “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”
Next up is our bunny seated in a wheelchair. In the background is a field full of baby rabbits, others in a hutch upon which is sprawled out a grinning daddy with carrot in mouth. The mom rabbit relates, “Well, they think that if you’re disabled, you can’t have a love life. That’s not true, though. I can have sex!”
A female voiceover then relates, “Change the way you see disability,” as the Leonard Cheshire Disability logo appears on screen in an end tag, accompanied by the website address www.CreatureDiscomforts.org.
Voices of authenticity Aardman’s Steve Harding-Hill, who directed the spots, related that the campaign “is based on the unscripted voices of young disabled people talking about the issues that affect their lives. The animations cover subjects such as love, sex and education, and challenge public perceptions of disabled people.”
These voices ring true as they come out of the mouths of the Aardman stop motion animation characters.
Bryan Dutton, director general of Leonard Cheshire Disability, related, “Disabled people experience unnecessary social barriers which are created largely through ignorance. The public’s low expectations, especially of their ability to have relationships, play a big part in this. We want people to change the way they see disability, to think and act differently and to engage with disabled people in all aspects of life.”
In its “Up Close and Personal” study on perceptions of disability and relationships, Cheshire Disability made several key findings. For one, disabled people have exactly the same hopes and anxieties about relationships as non-disabled people. Secondly, some 68 percent of disabled respondents have relationships with non-disabled people. And both disabled and non-disabled people have low expectations of disabled people’s relationships.
Beyond the four commercials, Aardman produced various components of a fully integrated campaign, including a 15-minute “Making of” film (directed and shot by Ben Dowden).
Team effort Among the other Aardman contributors were producer Helen Argo, character and set designer Sylvia Bennion, model-making manager Chris Entwistle, model-making team leader Lee Tetzner, model-makers Alexis Hoskins, Nigel Leach and Jonathan Tate, DP Mark Chamberlain, animators Yago Alvarez, Dave Osmand, Chris Sadler and Inez Woldman, puppet rigger Nick Herbert, and editors Michael Percival, Dan Lincoln and Dan Williamson.
Talent from London post/effects house Rushes included producer Carl Grinter, After Effects artist Matt Lawrence, VFX artists David Kidde and Marcus Wood, graphics artist Brad Le Riche and telecine artisan Adrian Seery.
The Freud creative team included creative director Simon Riley and producers Spru Rowlands and Justine Pacy.
1 Comment
Pingback: Invest in Backlinks