To This Day is a project based on a spoken word poem written by Shane Koyczan (shanekoyczan.com) called “To This Day”, to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.
We worked with Shane to develop this call for submissions and microsite which we pushed to our network and the broader animation community.
I designed and animated the call of entries and helped produce the entire thing while also making the final edit for the full piece.
86 animators and motion artists donated their time and brought their unique styles to 20 second segments that we threaded into one fluid voice (below right). This collaborative volunteer effort demonstrates what a community of caring individuals are capable of when they come together.
Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point… A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying.
You can learn more about the project at tothisdayproject.com
Here is the final piece:
Here’s how it all happened:
We worked with Shane and his lovely voice for a recent project with the NRDC (illustrated by the also talented Dan Matutina). While he was in the studio, he offered to voice a video about emotional education in the school system. In gratitude, we offered to help him on a future project.
Shane came to us with To This Day, a spoken word poem about his experience with bullying, and the idea to turn it into an animated piece to launch in conjunction with Pink Shirt Day.
We got inspired to use this as an opportunity to let the animation and motion design community flex their creative muscles. We developed an identity for the project, created an animated call out-video and a simple microsite which we pushed out through our networks, to Wine After Coffee and to Motionographer.
We broke the poem into 22 segments, which we distributed at random to over 400 respondents. Storyboards, style frames, concepts and animation tests followed before 86 finished pieces of animation — more than the final piece could even accommodate. We are absolutely floored by the love and creativity that went into each piece.
The official To This Day video is made up portions of our selection of 40 pieces of submitted animation. Each submission can be watched in full on the To This Day Vimeo channel.
A SPOKEN WORD POEM BY:
Shane Koyczan
Shane Koyczan
PARTICIPANTS:
Ryan Kothe
Mike Healey
Will Fortanbary
Brian Neong San
Diego De la Rocha, Karen Kwan Yee Poon, Lilian Sepúlveda Navarrete, and Arcelia Ocaña Manjarrez,
Gizelle Manalo
Adam Plouff
Mike Wolfram
Hyun Min Bae
Oliver Sin
Seth Eckert
Viraj Ajmeri
Vishnu Ganti
Yun Wang
Reanimation
Cameron Spencer
DeAndria Mackey
Matt Choi
Reimo Õun
Samantha Bjalek
Eli Treviño
Ariel Costa
Caleb Coppock
James Mabery
Samir Hamiche
Waref Abu Quba
Deo Mareza and Clara Oktarina
Josh Parker
Scott Cannon
Thomas McKeen
Kaine Asika
Marcel Krumbiegel Teresa del Pozo
Eric Paoli Infanzón
Maxwell Hathaway
Rebecca Berdel
Zach Ogilvie
Anand Mistry
Chase Ogden
Dominik Grejc
Gideon Prins
Lucy Chen
Mercedes Testa
Rickard Bengtsson
Stina Seppel
Daniel Göttling
Julio R Pacheco
Marilyn Cherenko
Tim Darragh
Jaime Ugarte
Joe Donaldson
Josh Beaton
Margaret Schiefer
Rodrigo Ribeiro
Ryan Kaplan
Yeimi Salazar
Daniel Bartels
Joe Donaldson
Daniel Molina
Sitji Chou
Tong Zhang
Luc Journot
Vincent Bilodeau
Amy Schmitt
Bert Beltran
Daniel Moreno Cordero
Marie Owona Mateusz Kukla
Christian Procter, Sean Procter, and Aaron Brager
Steven Fraser
Aparajita R
Ben Chwirka
Cale Oglesby
Igor Komolov
Markus Magnusson
Remington McElhaney
Tim Howe
Agil Pandri
Jessie Tully
Sander Joon
James Waters
Chris Koelsch
Melvin Sanchez and Yeimi Salazar
Ronald Rabideau
Alessandro Bertelle & Manfredi Cortivo
Andrea López and Michael Monzon
Howey Mitsakos
Randy Knott
Kasper Nyman
Kavin Twikoon
MUSIC BY:
The Short Story Long:
Olivia Mennell
Stefan Bienz
Maiya Robbie
ARRANGED BY:
Aaron Joyce
Recorded, mixed and mastered by:
Corwin Fox
Lyrics by:
Shane Koyczan
PRODUCED BY:
giantant.ca
SHANE'S SPECIAL THANKS TO:
ALL WHO BELIEVED IN THIS PROJECT.
Leah Nelson
Jorge R. Canedo EstradaAlicia Katz
for having the bravery to helm such a monumental project.
Brett Wilson
Joni Avram
for their generosity of spirit and tireless support.
Olivia Mennell
Maiya Robbie
Stefan Bienz
Corwin Fox
Aaron Joyce
Christina Zaenker
Melissa Bandura
for creating such a beautiful piece of music and having the patience to explore this art form with me.
Christi Thompson
Jess Sloss
for keeping me organized and making me appear to look like I know what I’m doing.
Bill Belsey
Sandy Garossino
Nea Reid
Paul Crawford
Julie Fowler
Loretta Mozart AKA my Grandmother
Sandy Garossino
Nea Reid
bullying.org
for never saying “You can’t do that.” For always saying “OK… how can I help?”
