Panchita! Short film for charity

Unsaid Studio is a Design & Motion Company in New York City with roots in Brazil and the UK working on a short film now in production, Panchita!, that is inspired by the true story of a girl looking to find her own stable foundations and follow her dreams. A film made with love and for a good cause.

Client

200 million people still live in poverty in South America… TECHO is an NGO that makes a tangible difference. In the last 25 years, they have built homes for 131,000 families in 18 countries and counting.

Reason for undertaking

To help those in Need. To help drive change, raise awareness and support TECHO via a gofundme.

To respond to an inspirational true story: “Mama we have a floor! We have a floor!” From the moment a volunteer described the joy of seeing a 6-year-old girl dance in her new Techo house for the first time, our short story began to fall into place. Upon unearthing a magical old VCR, Panchita discovers her calling - to tap dance.Guided by an unexpected, supernatural friend and mentor, a new passion transforms her very surroundings.

Give something back with our art. Personally as artists we wanted to combat the growing feeling our space in digital art is becoming less permanent, less meaningful and more greed driven. Proud to be empowering south american artists in the process.

Challenges

What creative and technical challenges were involved and how did you solve them?

Establishing the the look of the film was a balance, Favelas are generally not nice places to set a film in or very inspiring,. Through Panchita's eyes, it's a wide new world full of tropical colors and simple, innocent shapes. The film needed to inspire people to make change and uplift. Techo empowers and is something to be optimistic about; it's a tale of hope and triumph against adversity. We settled on an illustrative, almost toy-like miniature visual style that appealed to all ages.

The Sand

Within the favela, there is no space free from the elements, the very ground is unforgiving and stifles Panchita’s dreams. The sand, a key member of our cast, visually and technically was a challenging balance. It needed to move realistically, feel miniature and stay consistent with our world of simplified shapes.

Miniature Toylike Set

When you donate, TECHO enables you to reach into a favela and affect someone's life in a physical way. We wanted our toy-like set to make it easy to imagine placing a new model home into the scene with your own hands.