This is an excerpt from my recent essay about animated documentary medium and whether is it a powerful tool or not to raise awareness about civil issues around the world.
The mix of documentary films and an animation technique is like a peculiar union. This form of filmmaking can be attractive for the audience in its consequential way.
In my opinion, documentary animation can be a powerful tool to make substantial changes in public minds and raise awareness about civil disturbances. It can generate empathy by irradiating new perspectives and activating powerful emotions in audiences.
Moreover, this filmmaking sector is growing amazingly quickly, and the public is now witnessing a hum around it. More significant numbers of documentary animations produced in the last decades and more film festivals have added a distinguish documentary section in their comprehensive programmes.
However, there exists a definition gap; then some part of the public identifies what animation is and what is a documentary as a separate media. Moreover, it could be a hindrance for them to understand the message, and they would not choose that kind of film for their viewing.
That means that the numbers of people who will see a film will be significantly lower. Furthermore, the social effect will be postponed and does not immediately makes changes.
The film The Girl in the Hallway (2019) by Valerie Barnhart will be analysed to find the answer about the efficacy of animated documentary as a potential medium to present real-world stories and as a communication tool with the public.
The Girl in the Hallway premiered on Vimeo in 1999 as a Staff Pick Award, and later at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and following a festival run at ShortFest, Fantasia and Annecy.
The film is a result of a collaboration between the artist Valerie Barnhart and the writer, storyteller Jamie DeWolf.
Valerie Barnhart is an independent visual artist, director and animator based out of Canada. She studied at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design where she earned her BFA and Visual Arts Major.
Jamie DeWolf has a background as a performing artist and educator. He also worked as a director on commercials, music videos and documentaries. He is known for his vibrant exploration of a wide range of genres, and his social activities bring into public focus problems of underprivileged communities. DeWolf’s short stories fulfilled with arousing boundary-pushing subject matter.
Jamie DeWolf calls this story The tale of Little Red Riding- Not all girls make it out of the forest. The core of the narrative is his personal experience that he shared during stage performance for the radio podcast SnapJudgment.org. It based on an actual event that took place in California, in December 1999 when seven years old Xiana La-Shay Fairchild disappeared and did not come back home from school.
Valerie Barnhart discovered DeWolf’s performance on YouTube channel and was moved by it. So, she contacted with writer and got his permission to start working on a film.
For Valerie Barnhart, it is a first film and the first time of using the animation as a medium. She literally taught herself how to animate during three years of production. She spends much time in examining materials for the film by analysing crimes scenes, reading articles about murdered and missing people cases, additionally working on creating reference videos of acting, visual researching, studying other artists and filmmakers.
The Girl in the Hallway made by using 2D stop motion technique. Artist animated it straight ahead chronologically in one take by painting every single frame with charcoals, pastels, and graphite on paper and accompanied them with collages of newspapers and some plasticine. Barnhart played with the style and technique by experimenting throughout the production. (Figure 2)(Figure 3)
Interesting to point, that if in the animated documentary is used original voiceover of a person who is the main character behind the story, it gives an extra authenticity to it. Hence, it can carry the genuine emotions of a speaker. It works as the most beneficial sound effect that could not be recreated by acting.
Valerie Barnhart put to use the advantage of it and applied the original recording of Jamie DeWolf’s first performance with this story on the stage in San Francisco. As a result, the authentic record provides additional sensitive capacities to the narrative and made it extra relatable and easily understandable on an emotional level. The origin of soundtrack guarantees that the audience can truly feel the tautness of the voice of Jamie DeWolf and show out his inner sensitivities of this painful event. The sound perfectly draws out the atmosphere of the story, the feelings of the main character and every word he delivers.
Moreover, the animation technique is also quite exceptional in how it conveys the mood of the story- it uses fictions as an interpretation tool. Thus, the animation improves beyond presentations and offers participants of the film privacy that they need to express themselves more freely.
This form gives the experience to move away from reality by using artificial devices in the filmmaking process. Animation helps to create a sense of distance and anonymity, the audience no longer looking on a specific individual. Nevertheless, it still allows identifying that person. Additionally, this anonymity allows spectators to feel more intensely.
Besides it, if the whole visual sequence of the documentary film supplemented with animated segments, it gives more vitality to documentary, and it allows viewers to delve deep into the emotional part of the narrative. Also, it filters out appalling details that people find hard to digest and lets to explore their emotions and engage with the story.
As a result, the audience will respond differently to the animated documentary than they will do it to a traditional, live-action form.
Obviously, Valerie Barnhart’s animation style utterly matches the grim condition of the events. With frightful visuals, rendered by using traditional tools, mostly charcoal and graphite, it carries the horrific burden of DeWolf’s regret. However, it still helps the audience to pass through the frightening narrative and conveys the central message of the story.
It is important to note that in the film The Girl in the Hallway, there are two heart-breaking stories.
First is the disappearance and murder of Xiana Fairchild. With the major message that moves the audience- silence and inaction are the cause of a passive form of violence. Silence is complicity. DeWolf and Barnhart speak out laud that we are discriminating against those around us. What even if society recognises this situation, by remaining in silence is the same as continuing it.
In addition, underneath the central promise lies Valerie’s discovery about the existence of cultural genocide of indigenous women and girls.
Since in our modern and humanitarian society, the settler colonialism still exists. Moreover, external laws, regulations and civil forces cannot protect these settlements and monitor crime situation on the inside them. Consequently, these women and two-spirited became easy targets and victims for kidnapping, abuse and murder.
This is where Barnhart came across DeWolf’s phrase about Red Riding Hood and decided to use this definition straightforward and drew a line between fairytale story character and Xiana Fairchild by dressing her in a red dress (Figure 4). The choice of colour represents women and girls from indigenous communities as easy and defenceless targets for hunting wolves.
Besides, it is challenging for filmmakers to staying an objective while working on a project. Then thorough the process, the characters involved in the story and become more familiar; hence, as a natural reaction of the artist to start to draw conclusions and consequently change an opinion to more subjective.
This is what Valerie Barnhart said about her experience in the interview for Medium.com, in January 2019: “It was hard finding a balance where I can fully give justice to Xiana, stay true to Jamie, reflect on genocide, and reflect on my own personal experiences that connect me to both of my subjects. It required a lot of energy, thought, and sensitivity as I in no way, want to exploit a tragedy or emotionally manipulate my audience”.
It is clearly seen that the film The Girl in the Hallway is a strong example of documentary animation which displays as an effective and affective medium for portraying social issues.
Taking everything into consideration, it is satisfying to say that documentary animation likely will continue to grow and mature well as social impact tool in the future. As this approach grows, as well as crafts of animation and documentary filmmaking themselves, there are some critical notes to keep in mind when thinking about this practice.
It should be said, that if viewers define documentary and animation genres in a strict context base, as separate kinds, it is hard for them to swallow it, seemingly and it is less truthful for them. Thus, for this part of the audience, it could be hard to accept these messages that animated documentary films try to convey. For a large part of the audience, this particular format of the film could be a barrier to accept this genre since they believe that animation means Disney’s Mickey Mouse. So, for them, it is challenging to accept serious themes presented by animation techniques.
Even though there is no formula to predict or calculate when the understanding and recognition of this part of society is going to change in their minds, clearly, it is possible by applying additional steps and strategy to speed up that process.
For instance, the solution could be solidarity work between animation documentary directors and artists and a skillfully carried out social media tactics. It already started happening around but a bit erratically and uncertainly. These films need more attention to them, more visibility in the media. And social media campaigns can attract more visibility and draw extra attention to the public.
In the filmmaking industry, the story, cultural aspects and human factors move in balanced ways. This is where directors, hauled up with distinctive media strategies, can use films to boost public consciousness to think, act and renew the world.
Reading and references:
Annabelle Honess Roe
Absence, Excess and Epistemological Expansion: Towards a framework for the study of animated documentary, 2011
Maureen Furniss
Art in motion: animation aesthetics, 1998
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/601621/girl-hallway/
https://www.ladyfilmmakers.com/girl-in-the-hallway
Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video