Who Will Take Care of Me?
Concept & Story + Art Direction
Ayala Land and the Hero Foundation, a local organization that helps the children of fallen soldiers finish school, created an animated online video to create awareness for the plight of the orphans affected by the Marawi Siege.
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Narrated by Senator Grace Poe, the short film follows the story of an orphaned owl in search for hope and family.
Project Background
Project Hope
In May 2017, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared Martial Law following a terrorist attack in Marawi City. After four months, Marawi was liberated, at a cost of hundreds of soldiers’ lives.
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This project was an agency pro-bono initiative to think of ways to draw attention and donation towards the children that has been left orphaned by the war on Marawi.
Photos from Ramin Hashempour, ICRC (x)
The Story
It Takes A Village
It follows the story of an orphaned owl in search for hope and family within a dark forest. As he meets different animals, he asks them, "Who will take care of me?" While at first the animals were indifferent to the plight of the little owl, they soon realize that he was orphaned because his father risked his life to help everyone in the forest. In the end, all the animals in the forest took care of him.
Watch the film.
The Process
Here is a short run-down of how the film came to be. A huge part of what made this project enjoyable was from how collaborative it was. The final product was a collective of everyone's talent & hard work.
Conceptualizing
The Little Owl
This project came as a call-for-initiatives with a very open brief. In advertising, that means to throw caution (sparingly) to the wind when it came to ideation.
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I’ve always been fond of children’s story books and would usually throw one in when the right brief calls for it. For this, it was a bear asking everyone in the forest to be his father.
Ryan, my creative director and copy partner for this project, and I brainstormed the rest of the story in one-sitting. By the end of it, the bear turned into an owl, we had a story, and he had beautifully crafted a script to go along with it.
Creating The Look
Here is a peek at the preliminary work and studies we did before we got to the final look of the film.
Pictured below:
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â—‹ The first frames I drew when we presented it conceptually;
â—‹ Character studies showing the look & feel that we were aiming for;
â—‹ Mood boards our production team put together; and
â—‹ A color guide that the team would follow as we go into production.
A rough animation of the owl
from our production lead, Nolan.
Going Into Production
A huge chunk of production was collaborating with our animation team: from character design, storyboards, animatics, to the final cut.
Character Design by our animator/illustrator Nolan Fabular.
The greatest challenge during this stage was editing the film to the right length. Up to the very end, we were still trying to cut it as tight as possible. We wanted to tell a good story. We didn't want it to drag.
The film's animatics in its original length of four minutes. We ended trimming out a full two minutes. One of the scenes and characters that got cut was a full-scene dialogue with the fish.
The Final Output
The look we decided on was a combination of a vibrant & naive illustration style, set against dark gritty backgrounds.
The film was designed as a children's story to appeal to both kids and their parents, those who could best empathize with the cause and donate to the foundation. Through charming animation and the use of animals, it told the story of these orphans in a new way. To the hundreds who watched the film, it was a call for empathy and community at a time when it is most important.
The film was distributed over social media and screened as trailers in Ayala Malls' cinemas, leading to various physical and digital call-for-donations.
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If you're interested in helping, donate here.
Voice talent (animatics): Noelle Segundo
Project descriptions by Ryan Caidic.
Executive Creative Director: Melvin Mangada
Creative Director: Ryan Caidic & Nolan Fabular
Illustrator & Production Lead: Nolan Fabular
Copywriter: Ryan Caidic
Art Director & Illustrator: Mariel Empit
Animation & Editing: Elisha Pablo & Matto Cruz
Sound Arranger: Luis Alcantara
Producer: Sunny Lucero & Cheese Bagnes
Project List:
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+ Who Will Take Care of Me?