{"id":123,"date":"2018-10-12T17:40:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T17:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/?p=123"},"modified":"2018-10-30T14:55:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T14:55:50","slug":"film-exposes-pain-of-slave-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/film-exposes-pain-of-slave-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Exposes Pain of Slave Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ann Williams jumped out the window of a Washington, D.C., slave jail in 1815. Some thought she attempted suicide because she\u2019d been sold away from her family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new perspective on her wrenching story \u2013 and the problem of American slavery \u2013 is being shared with audiences through \u201cAnna,\u201d an animated short film produced by Nebraska\u2019s Michael Burton, Kwakiutl Dreher and William Thomas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1056\" src=\"http:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/180613_Anna_022A-SM.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-273\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/180613_Anna_022A-SM.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/180613_Anna_022A-SM-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/180613_Anna_022A-SM-768x507.jpg 768w, https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/180613_Anna_022A-SM-1024x676.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/180613_Anna_022A-SM-1200x792.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><figcaption>William Thomas, Kwakiutl Dreher and Michael Burton <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cIt shows us the human story of enslavement and how people built families and protected those families as best they could.\u201d<\/p><cite>William Thomas<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The 11-minute film won the Best Animation award at the 2018 New Media Film Festival in Los Angeles and has been shown at other film festivals nationwide, including Atlanta\u2019s BronzeLens Film Festival, an Oscar-qualifying event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt shows us the human story of enslavement and how people built families and protected those families as best they could,\u201d said historian Thomas, John and Catherine Angle Professor in the Humanities. His research helped uncover Williams\u2019 survival and her later, successful petition for freedom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Audiences have said they found the film haunting and emotional, unexpected qualities in animation, Thomas said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The film\u2019s distinctive style was inspired by a famous early 19th-century etching of Anna\u2019s leap and honors the historic time period, said Burton, the film\u2019s director and assistant professor of practice in textiles, merchandising and fashion design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Burton\u2019s team developed an innovative method of rotoscoped animation. Actors were filmed in costume. Student animators traced over each frame of footage with paint and overlaid the characters onto a painted background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Animation allowed the producers to achieve difficult effects, such as expansive, historically detailed settings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dreher\u2019s screenplay reached beyond typical portrayals of slaves to imagine Anna\u2019s emotional complexity and devotion to family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI create for Anna a legacy that moves beyond our popular notions about slavery,\u201d said Dreher, associate professor of English and ethnic studies. She gave Anna a background and story that allow for a more nuanced vision of the enslaved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Building on the film\u2019s success, Burton, Dreher and Thomas are forming a production company to develop a series of animated films set in early Washington, D.C., that explore the moral problem of slavery. They hope the series leads to developing an animation industry in Nebraska.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400px\" src=\"https:\/\/mediahub.unl.edu\/media\/7397?format=iframe&amp;autoplay=0\" title=\"Video Player:  Anna Animation Project\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ann Williams jumped out the window of a Washington, D.C., slave jail in 1815. Some thought she attempted suicide because she\u2019d been sold away from her family. A new perspective on her wrenching story \u2013 and the problem of American slavery \u2013 is being shared with audiences through \u201cAnna,\u201d an animated short film produced by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[29,34,20,21,30,22,27,26,32,33,28],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","tag-animation","tag-ann-williams","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-english","tag-film","tag-history","tag-kwakiutl-dreher","tag-michael-burton","tag-slavery","tag-textiles-merchandising-and-fashion-design","tag-william-thomas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}