CREATURE DISCOMFORTS: LIFE IN LOCKDOWN

Silver Eurobest Award
TitleCREATURE DISCOMFORTS: LIFE IN LOCKDOWN
BrandBORN FREE FOUNDATION
Product/ServiceCHARITY
Category B07. Not-for-profit / Charity / Government
Entrant ENGINE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation ENGINE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production AARDMAN ANIMATIONS Bristol, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 2 JUNGLE STUDIOS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Matt Smithers Born Free Foundation Head of marketing and fundraising
Billy Faithfull ENGINE Chief Creative Officer
Steve Hawthorne ENGINE Creative Director
Katy Hopkins ENGINE Creative Director
Pete Ioulianou ENGINE Creative
Ollie Agius ENGINE Creative
Laura Melville ENGINE Agency Producer
Henry Davies ENGINE Agency Assistant Producer
Tom Butler ENGINE Account Handling
Owen Keating ENGINE Account Handling
Gemma Glover ENGINE Social
Jack Cartwright ENGINE Social
Peter Peake Aardman Animations Director
Sami Goddard Aardman Animations Producer
Jane Davies Aardman Animations Animation
James Grant Aardman Animations Background Design
Ben Leeves Jungle Sound Design

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

We created Creature Discomforts: Life in Lockdown, which plays on the much-loved Creature Comforts construct and uses real interviews of people’s experiences of temporary lockdown to tell stories of wild animals forced to live under lock and key for life in zoos, circuses and dolphinaria. In the film we see caged wild animals in awful conditions talking to camera about their experience of captivity. It’s made to feel as real as possible with both sad and funny moments. The twist is that the voices are actually genuine unscripted interviews with people during lockdown. The way the voices marry up so well with the visuals makes you believe that this is what these animals must feel. But the real gut-wrench is at the end when you realise that they have to live like this forever, whilst humans are allowed back out once more.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

During the peak of lockdown in the UK, most people experienced being locked up against their will for the very first time. We wanted to use that experience to make people feel empathy towards millions of wild animals in captivity. The idea that underpinned everything we did was that our lockdown was always going to be temporary, but for some wild animals this terrible situation was forever.