Campaign Video Illustrations: Oh Yeah Wow x Go Gentle
Compassionate, humanist, hand-drawn illustrations for a campaign video about end of life rights.
Client: Oh Yeah Wow / Go Gentle Australia
Year: 2017
Medium: Ink
Collaborators: I made the drawings, and the rest was up to this talented lot:
Oh Yeah Wow: Christina Remnant (Producer); James Bailey (Animation / Motion Graphics); Jamie Messenger (Score composition & performance); Ryan Granger (Sound);
Go Gentle: Andrew Denton with Bastion Agency (Script & Direction)
The process
Context: Go Gentle Australia asked Oh Yeah Wow to create an illustrated campaign explainer video to advocate for laws permitting Voluntary Assisted Dying in Victoria. I was brought on to add a compassionate, human element to the visuals.
Brief: To create a series of black and white ink drawings to tie in with a spoken voice over, and meeting the tone and theme of the project.
They needed me to create illustrations that emphasised the human suffering that can be avoided, but also to reiterate the governance and checks and balances in place to keep the proposed law safe.
I was asked to provide them digitised and prepared to file specifications so the in-house animators could easily create motion graphics with them, on a very tight schedule.
Approach: I spent a week or so in house at Oh Yeah Wow, working closely with Christina Remnant (Producer), and James Bailey (Motion Graphics).
We discussed the script, timings, and cues, and read up about the context, proposed laws, and social impact. (Andrew Denton’s Better Off Dead podcast helped me understand the context and issues involved). Then I set about creating a wide variety of hand-drawn assets to suit (over 100 drawings).
The drawings were made rapidly with india ink, brushes, and pens. After a drawing made it through approvals, I would digitise it (clean it up and add transparency) so it could be placed, layered and manipulated in After Effects. In order to achieve this in a limited time, I used scripts and batch edits in Adobe Bridge so leave me more time to draw and less time on the computer.
The drawings featured on this page are just a portion of the total made for the project.
Results: Walking the line between sensitivity and sensationalism is a tough brief, but by making use of feedback cycles available in house and via the end client, we were able to have the tone match the requirements.
The resulting video was used by Go Gentle to communicate and explain a controversial topic in a calm, even handed way. The video was shown as a conversation starter to a great number of MPs as part of the Victorian campaign.
On 29 November 2017, Victoria became the first Australian state to pass legislation allowing voluntary assisted dying. The law gives anyone suffering a terminal illness, with less than six months to live, the option to end their life.
On 19 June 2019 the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 came into effect. Victorians who are at the end of life and who meet strict eligibility criteria can now request access to voluntary assisted dying.
