In researching animated documentaries, I re-watched an animated three minute film that I’m very familiar with; The Girl Effect: The clock is ticking. This excellent short graphic-based film uses shapes to illustrate the problems associated with women in poverty. As a teacher, I regularly used this film in lessons to illustrate problems in developing countries that emerge from child marriages, keeping girls out of education, and lack of access to sanitary products, amongst other things. This video, unlike live action, betrays the vulnerability of young girls using a silhouetted figure. This figure can age 14 years in a minute, she can be suspended in air and metaphorically thrust along a representation of time to illustrate her lack of control. In the animation, we are taken through two timelines of our character’s life in under three minutes, with the optimistic timeline showing to us the opportunity for a better future granted by education. This film is both am incredibly effective educational tool, highlighting complicated issues simply and clearly, but it also acts as a powerful camps for the charity The Girl Effect.
Arguably, the music in the film is just as effective as the animation itself, taking us through a journey of danger, optimism, and safety in a three minute composition based on the same motif moving from a minor to a major key. The impact of visual statistics, clear story-telling, and emotive music combines to make an effective educational and informative fundraising tool in this excellent short campaign film.