Shake Up The Conversation On Mental Health
In 2019, I reached out to the founder of a Hope For The Day, an organization that achieves proactive suicide prevention by providing outreach and mental health education. Having been personally affected by suicide that year, I wanted to contribute my skills as an animator and director. Hope For The Day already had a great foundational philosophy in the metaphor that our mind is like a soda bottle. Life shakes us up building pressure and we need to release it before it affects us negatively. They wanted to ‘Shake Up The Conversation’ on mental health. We released in for World Mental Health Day, and it's a reminder to consider our mental health, take stock in it, assess how we’re feeling and reach out to friends and coworkers to check in on each other. We are in this together.
In preparing the video, we wanted to visualize this idea and steer away from the typical mental health messaging of depression and suicide; avoiding the common mental health video visuals like falling, crumbling, jumping, cracking, and the typical associations. The main bottle character exemplified this through its journey in and out of focus, filling with bubbles and tension, and popping carbonation.
Another 'gray' area we explored was the space between 2D and 3D. Although most of the characters and worlds were built in 3D, we tried to find a distinct 2D, illustrative look with low-rez focus rendering, highlights, and flat lighting.
STUDIO: Summer Break
DIRECTOR: Ryan Bechtel
SOUND: Sanctus
MUSIC: Sanctus and Jordan Hamilton
CLIENT: Hope For The Day
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Jonny Boucher
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Carl J. Evans
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Mike Vinopal
