We worked directly with the creative and programming team for Essence to build four custom experiences: Path to Power, Health, Entertainment All Access, and the festival's first-ever Wellness House.
From space layouts & creative ideation to custom scenic fabrication, to audio/visual/lighting installation, we were able to create unique and memorable experiences for the consumers and talent.
Incarceration Nations: A Global Docuseries is a Documentary project born out of the pandemic era- and consists of dozens of interviews conducted over the past 5 years on every continent.
The project was relationship with Incarceration Nations Network, and closely tied to our work with The Writing On The Wall.
THE PROJECT
Incarceration Nations: A Global Docuseries is a Documentary project born out of the pandemic era- and consists of dozens of interviews conducted over the past 5 years on every continent.
The project was relationship with Incarceration Nations Network, and closely tied to our work with The Writing On The Wall.
OUR TEAM
Creative Producer
Animation + Editing
Narrative Editing
Sound Mixing
Sydney MacDonald
John Syzonenko
Nicholas Motyka
Danny Taylor
THE METHODS
We received a package full of USB sticks, a CD, and a 2TB drive full of interview clips from around the world. Traveling was not an option, so we began working with found footage b-roll + animation sequences to contextualize the interviews.
All of the illustration sequences were drawn + animated in VR- using a program called ANIMVR- and then finalized in After Effects + Premiere Pro.
Episode Title: Waiting... And Waiting... For Trail
Length: 10min 49sec
Mass incarceration is a global calamity.
From England to El Salvador, Argentina to the USA, Brazil and Lebanon to South Africa and Sierra Leone, its harms and horrors of look strikingly similar. Incarceration Nations is the first docu-series to tell this border-crossing story.
Narrated entirely by those who have lived incarceration around the world, the ten episodes of Incarceration Nations expose an international crisis while also spotlighting solutions, showcasing the work of INN justice partners from one continent to another.
Ideal for classrooms, panel discussions, justice-related film screenings and more, INN-TV is a powerful education about one of the greatest human—and civil—rights catastrophes of our time.
Episode Title: Waiting... And Waiting... For Trail
Length: 16min 44sec
Of the 11 million people in prison worldwide, 3 million of them are legally innocent: awaiting trial for months, years, sometimes decades behind bars.
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, discover the nightmare that is pretrial detention in the USA, South Africa, Nepal and Trinidad.
Episode Title: (In)Justice for Women
Length: 28min 44sec
Globally speaking, women represent the fastest rising prison population.
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, learn how incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women from Taiwan to Sierra Leone, Argentina and Chile to the USA, are battling starkly similar systems of (in)justice.
Episode Title: Families Behind Bars
Length: 21min 58sec
When you incarcerate one person, you incarcerate an entire family--especially when that one person you lock up is a parent.
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, learn about the global epidemic that is parental incarceration--and the critical work that organizations worldwide are doing to counter it--by hearing from those directly impacted in Argentina, the USA, Scotland and the UK.
Episode Title: Education Not Incarceration
Length: 30min 56sec
Why education, not incarceration?
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, those who've pursued education behind bars in Ghana, El Salvador, the USA, Chile and Italy share how education changed their lives in dramatic ways.
Episode Title: Smart on Drugs, Not War on Drugs
Length: 31min 19sec
The global war on drugs is a colossal failure, incarcerating millions and decimating targeted communities: people of color and women worldwide.
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, travel from Lebanon, Brazil, Bolivia, Australia, Taiwan, Ghana and Canada to Portugal, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the USA to learn what the world would look like if we were Smart on Drugs instead of waging a disgraceful War on Drugs.
Episode Title: "Home"Coming
Length: 18min 53sec
Around the world, coming home from prison means facing an obstacle course of challenges--undergirded by legal discrimination against formerly incarcerated people.
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, hear from those who've lived the reentry process in South Africa, the USA, Australia and Northern Ireland.
Episode Title: Those Closest to the Problem…
Length: 18min 14sec
Around the world, directly impacted justice leaders--many of whom have spent years in prison--are driving change in powerful ways.
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, learn from formerly incarcerated activists in Mexico, Malawi, the USA and South Africa--all of whom are evidence that, as the mantra of JustLeadership USA goes, those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.
Episode Title: Correcting Correctional Centers
Length: 23min 49sec
What would a prison that is so unlike prison as to be worthy of another name look like?
This episode of Incarceration Nations answers this question by taking you on a virtual journey to radically innovative correctional centers that actually correct in Finland.
Episode Title: Heal Not Harm
Length: 38min 53sec
"Hurt people hurt people," goes the saying.
So what would it look like for global justice systems to stop cycles of hurt and harm in their tracks--instead of perpetuating them with prisons and punishment? And what do those who experience harm really need, anyway?
In this episode of Incarceration Nations, hear from those impacted in Rwanda, the USA and the Democratic Republic of Congo.