Documenatary

Canada’s Dark Secret (2017)
by Al Jazeera

Summary

The story of Canada’s residential school system and the indigenous survivors who bear witness to its abuses.

カナダの寄宿学校制度の歴史と、その被害を証言する先住民生存者たちの物語。

Message & Goal

To reveal the truth and history of residential schools in Canada. Educate the public about what was done to indigenous people in history, and how the current government works with the people to solve the issue.

カナダの寄宿学校制度の真実と歴史を明らかにし、先住民に対して過去に行われたことを一般の人々に伝えること。また、現在の政府がどのように先住民と協力してこの問題の解決に取り組んでいるかを教育すること。

Roles

• Produced by Newstime Productions and Al Jazeera

• Residential school survivors

• Former RCMP officers

• Government officials

Typography

Dramatic type and bold heavy type to emphasise the problem, serif typefaces to suggest the feeling of history.

問題の重大さを強調するために、劇的で太めの文字を使用。歴史的な重みを示すために、セリフ体の書体を採用。

Audience

Suitable for all ages (no graphical scenes) to understand more about Canadian Residential schools.

カナダの寄宿学校制度について、年齢問わず理解できるように（グラフィック表現は使用せず）制作。

Featured People

• Roberta Hill- Residential school survivor

• Ron Shortt- Former RCMP officer

• Gerri Butler- Ron Shortt’s life partner

• Denalda- Residential school survivor

• Bud Whiteye- residential school survivor

• Carol Cauchi- daughter of a residential school survivor

• Senator Murray Sinclair-former head of TRC

• RY Moran- Director of the NCTR

• Marjorie Ovayuak- residential school survivor 

• Eugene Arcand- residential school survivor

• Justin Trudeau- prime minister of Canada

Text

• 2:53 Greatest Tragedy in our whole country

• Years that were taken away from children

• A racist policy

• 16:56 Punished for who you are 

• Lots of tears

• Thousands and thousands of children are being abused

• 27:10 Even the sound of breaking glass scares me

• 31:48 I knew where I came from, but i just didn't know how i fit in

• Seven generations of native people grew up with no roots

• Truth and reconciliation

• Healed

• 46:50 there is always hope, without hope, we’re done

Workflow Sheet

Story Board & Notes

Style Frames

Sequence Test

I reduced the effects to clearly figure out the sequence.

Sound production

For the background music and sound effects, I am considering something sad and heavy, and fire sound effects to work with the visuals. I have also took inspiration from Jeremy Dutcher’s indigenous twist to classical music.
I brought these ideas to my friend Heeru, and explained the background history of the documentary, my concepts built in the type then she composed a piece to set the atmosphere to the title sequence. As we both have multi-cultural experiences, we have a lot of different ideas while creating the piece together, we had fun creating the sequence.

背景音楽や効果音には、悲しく重い雰囲気と、映像に合わせた火の音を検討しました。また、Jeremy Dutcherによる先住民の要素を取り入れたクラシック音楽からもインスピレーションを得ました。

これらのアイデアを友人のHeeruに共有し、ドキュメンタリーの背景となる歴史や、タイポグラフィに込めた私のコンセプトを説明した上で、タイトルシーケンスの雰囲気に合う曲を作曲してもらいました。
お互いに多文化の経験を持っているため、制作中にはさまざまなアイデアが飛び交い、とても楽しくシーケンスを作ることができました。

type used

completed sequence

After the last critique, I took in the ideas from my professor (Breck Campbell) and made some visual changes to the title sequence.

最後のクリティークを受けて、教授（Breck Campbell）のアイデアを取り入れ、タイトルシーケンスのビジュアルにいくつか変更を加えました。

• showing “great” and ‘country” big and bold to create a movie poster effect, and illusion that Canada is a “great country” before showing “tragedy” (the truth and real meaning of the sentence)

• slicing the word “generations” to illustrate the meaning of not having roots

• flicker effect added to “reveal”

• combined phrases like “staying strong” and “future”

• reversed the sequence of “Canada’s dark secret” to lighting the fire to burning wildly at the end

• worked with my friend, Heeru, to create music and sound effects

Final Refinements

• Typo on “future”

• Reveal of “tragedy” for a more tragic look

• Make “of our whole” to appear word by word

• Easing the blur transition for a long period of time

• Phrasing of “native people grew up” and “with no roots”

• Mask reveal of “with no roots” when part of “7 generations” dropped instead of fade in

• Reveal “revealing hidden history” letters in random order before flickering

• Increased pause after (black screen)

• Revised tracking on cursive type and the whole animation on that part

• Frame pause on “we’re done” for emphasis

• Slightly slowed down the start of catching on fire for main title

• Sped up the catching on fire part

• Eased the zooming in

• Frame pause on “Canada’s Dark Secret”

• Ease of final fading out on fire to credits

Reflection

To be honest, I was never interested in Indigenous and residential school issues. I have only slightly learnt about it during high school but it was very brief. Working on this project gave me an opportunity to learn more and fully understand our relationship with aboriginal people and what did our government did to them in history. Although we are still far from reconciliation, I appreciate Canada being open and tried to educate Canadians about this historical event., as many other countries still try to cover up their dark histories and their people became more ignorant. I even have the chance to educate my Chinese friend that I have met during my exchange about residential schools, while working on the sound effects and music for the piece. Other than that, creating type animation with music is very new to me. I am happy with my final outcome as I am still very new to time based design. I think utilizing all the knowledge from previous years of YSDN is the key to being able to create successful time based work, as the animation base off of compositions, typography and concepts built in to them.

正直に言うと、これまで先住民や寄宿学校の問題にはあまり関心がありませんでした。高校時代に少し学んだ程度で、とても簡単な知識しかありませんでした。しかし、このプロジェクトに取り組むことで、先住民との関係や、過去に政府が行ったことについて深く学ぶ機会を得ることができました。和解にはまだ遠い状況ですが、カナダがこの歴史的出来事について国民に教育しようと開かれていることに感謝しています。多くの国では自国の暗い歴史を隠そうとし、その結果、人々の認識が希薄になっています。

プロジェクトを通して、交換留学中に出会った中国人の友人に寄宿学校について教える機会も得ました。また、音楽や効果音に合わせたタイポグラフィアニメーションの制作は私にとって非常に新しい経験でした。タイムベースデザインに不慣れな私ですが、最終成果には満足しています。YSDNでのこれまでの学びを活かし、構図・タイポグラフィ・コンセプトを基盤としてアニメーションを組み立てることが、成功するタイムベース作品を作る鍵だと感じました。