TED-Ed “Accents”
Direction, Design, 2D Animation, Poetry
WINNER
Cristal for a Commissioned Film - Annecy International Animation Festival 2019
Bronze Cube, Motion & Film Craft - 98th Annual ADC Awards
Merit Award, Single Film - 98th Annual ADC Awards
Animating an ode to a mother’s accent
“Accents”, a spoken word piece written and peformed by the talented Denice Frohman, is an ode to her mother’s Puerto Rican accent. I was invited by TED-Ed to turn Denice’s singular poetry performance into animation. We took on the energy, soul and rhythm of Denice’s performance, and translated it into moving image, transposing her rhythmic vocal motifs and allowing her lyrics to propel and lead the imagery using vibrant and raw frame-by-frame animation work.
Check out some of the other amazing animated poems in TED-Ed’s “There’s a Poem For That” series on Facebook.
“I wanted to write my mother out of a shame that didn’t belong to her. I wanted to write her into a power that she possesses. I wanted to subvert the hierarchies of language that puts English at the top, and every other language at the bottom.”
Credits
"Accents" by Denice Frohman [from Feels Like Home 2013]
Narration: Denice Frohman
Directed and Produced by: KAPWA / Robertino Zambrano
Animators:
Jin Hien Lau
Bethany Levy
Derek Lau
Elsa Secco
Albert Hogeol Lee
William Pietsch
Robertino Zambrano
Sound: Bamm Bamm Wolfgang
Produced by TED-Ed
Content Producer: Gerta Xhelo
Associate Producer: Bethany Cutmore-Scott
Special Thanks: Jessica Ruby
For full TED-Ed Credits watch the video.