Our animation team has had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with debbie tucker green on her impactful feature film, ‘Ear for Eye’. This adaptation of her stage play mixes spoken word, theatre and music to offer a vital perspective on racial injustice on both sides of the Atlantic.

The animation sequence, created by Glassworks, illustrates a meaningful conversation between two men with conflicting stances on activism. Its sketch-like appearance pulls the spectator into the narrative, making us feel as though the characters are directly drawing their thoughts on paper. To capture tucker green’s poetic rhythm, the animation moves and twists, with pencil strokes seamlessly transforming one scene into the next.

The figures had to be simple and without distinct features, but their body language and movements had to be highly expressive. We therefore designed abstract stickmen with fully functional joints that could move in a smooth, natural way. While the sequence was fully drawn by hand, 3D software was used behind-the-scenes to test camera movements and to enact the part with the flying papers.

The predominantly black and white animation uses chromatic contrast to emphasise the structural inequality denounced in the film. The only bursts of colour are those of the Pan-African flag and the red blood and fire ignited by the young man’s words.