December 11th, 2019 
Julissa Padilla 
One of the most prolific issues that has been affecting our generation has been school shootings. People have been protesting and showing their part to fight against gun violence. Many people believe the only way to fight an important issue is through art and parody. Sometimes even a simple poem can be just as powerful.
The media company TED, who are famous for their inspirational speeches at their conferences, created a subdivision called TED-Ed in which they develop videos focused on educating even more people, including children. In the animated film based on the poem “The Opposites Game,” written and narrated by Brendan Constantine, the filmmakers interactively guide the audience through a question that no one ever thinks about: What is the opposite of a gun?
In his poem, Constantine brings a unique blend to an important issue with humor that will make any reader stop and think. With that, anything that is unique to the reader brings opportunity for animation to bring this kind of story to life. TED-Ed Animation Director Lisa LaBracio decided to choose this poem. LaBracio, who is a stop-motion animator, decided to bring along animator Anna Samo to help her with this daunting task of showing a new perspective of gun violence to an audience.
The Opposites Game presents itself as an amazing stop-motion short film that will bring every viewer a new sense of realization of how precious life can be. I was able to speak to the two directors of the film to hear their process of the film.
Julissa: The Opposites Game is just fascinating. Not only because of the stop motion, but because of all the different techniques and mediums that you used in it. I thought that was pretty impressive. What inspired you to create this short film about gun violence?
Lisa LaBracio: The short is part of TED-Ed’s poetry series called ‘There’s a Poem For That’. This series is something that has been cooking for a couple of years, but the idea is to try using poetry to talk about feelings or explain topics that are hard to cover in a pedagogical format, which is how TedEd normally works. I work as an animation director at Ted-Ed, so I had the opportunity to look at all the poems while we were in the process of curating the series. I really loved this poem from the beginning and I actually shared it with Ana very early on. It’s funny and talks about something very important, but does it in a narrative way.
Anna Samo: When Lisa shared the poem with me, my initial reaction was, Oh my God, this is so beautiful. I really want to work on this film. I also knew, this is also going to be very, very hard because the poem is so perfect … and doesn’t actually need anything to add to it.
Julissa: … Even just reading the poem on its own, you could already picture in your head every single line and every single word that he is describing in it, which is perfect for animation.
Lisa LaBracio: That’s why I actually was drawn to it from the beginning. I could feel what it’s like to be in a classroom with an exercise – that you start off thinking that it will be one thing and it turns into something way bigger than what you imagined.
Anna Samo: For me, you could visualize so well what was happening. We didn’t just want to do animation that stuck to what the poetry is actually saying. We tried to balance abstract and narrative to create a stronger experience.
Julissa: Why did you guys decide to do this short in stop motion rather than traditional or CG animation?
Lisa LaBracio: I think that’s our preferences; how Ana and I liked to work. So I knew right away that I wanted this film to be kind of tactile – and have an opportunity for experimentation – different from the normal content that we make at TED-Ed. The reason I called Ana is because I also know how she works and what her preferences are. We like the ability to be able to make decisions on the fly and to improvise a little bit… In this case, we started off thinking about items in the classroom, materials that we could be using – and it makes sense to be working on a blackboard. It made sense to be working on classroom paper.
Anna Samo: I wanted to know a little bit more about Emily Dickinson because I grew up in Russia. I wasn’t familiar with her poetry. In the poem, the students and the poet are playing with lines from her poem I wanted to watch. So I went to the bookstore, bought a book and it turned out to be a 770 pages compilation of her complete poetry. It was more or less an accident that I bought the book. I was on vacation and I thought, okay, maybe I’ll read a little bit and do some sketches inside it.
Julissa: Even with the visuals too, it’s a lot childlike drawings mixed with a realistic hand gun. Its like a nice clash of visuals because it is supposed to be in a classroom. Is that what you were going for, because since it was talking about school children to make it childlike, but you still want it to have that adult edge into it?
Anna Samo: No, I just can’t draw better.
Lisa LaBracio: It’s almost like working in a flip book, but then you’re treating it like stop motion as well. We were drawing under the camera. Drawings were done in place underneath the camera, then we would turn the page and draw the next drawing and using dragon frame and onionskin we could reference the last drawing. But there is no time for precision and there’s no place for it either… The viewer’s eye is drawn to what’s happening in the pictures center and the ear to Brendan’s voice. I think everything we did was a response to his rhythm and tone. We really learned to like how much we could get away with this style of animating. So that was the fun discovery for us.
Julissa: The audience would just get into the story and then don’t even notice all the little things. You just have to get yourself into that rhythm of not worrying about little things anymore.
Lisa LaBracio: We still see it as photographs, but other people see it as a film. It’s important to remember that.
Julissa: Even one of my favorite visuals from the short film was when it looked like you burned through the middle of the book.
Anna Samo: It was not really burning, but it might look a little bit like that. We were drawing and you get this dust from erasing, or just from working with chalk, you get this black dust. So we collected this dust and put it inside the hole and that’s why it looks like it’s moving.
Julissa: That’s really smart and effective. How do you hope people feel after watching it?
Anna Samo: I hope that they feel the duality of emotions that are in the poem. And perhaps sadness over how fragile life is.
Lisa LaBracio: I think in context of the socio politics of the moment, we hope that the film can be a catalyst for conversation. A little background on the film itself – Brendan was asked to write a poem on gun violence prevention. It’s a very polarizing conversation in the U.S. now and Brendan, by making the poem about a conversation that he has had, comes to a conclusion. It doesn’t feel like he’s ever telling you what and how to think. Teachers are using the film in classrooms to start conversations or to maybe have the beginning of a polarizing discussion – without having it start from a place of polarization. That’s really important to me, that it continues to spark conversation and discussion around the topic.
Anna Samo: As you said, he guides his characters through this change – from the point where it’s something what they are talking about something very abstract. Then at the end we realize this could be the gun pointed at anything at the end of it. This is the contradiction of life and death…
Lisa LaBracio: Watching it with an audience, you can actually feel that in the room. Up until that point people are laughing and being brought along on the ride…
Julissa: With the mass shootings these days, to me it makes him more personal. Just knowing, especially the opposite of the gun is whatever’s on the other side… Are you guys planning to animate to other kinds of poems like this that has a political message?
Lisa LaBracio: So TED-Ed is working on curating and securing funding for a second series of the poetry series. That’s a work in progress right now and then Ana and I don’t have any specific plans regarding any of those, but obviously we’re excited to see what happens with that series. The hope is that in our second season we’ll be able to identify even more topics that we can cover in this format.
Julissa: People trust the brand Ted….
Lisa LaBracio: Which is also why it’s important for us to be very careful in curation too. Because TED-Ed doesn’t take a stance in many issues. We don’t consider ourselves a partisan organization, even though sometimes we do take a position. But its important when we do, like when we do educational lessons, those are strictly pedagogical. But, we can present an ugly history to you and then let you decide how to feel about it. Same thing with the poetry series.
Julissa: Using animation as a perfect medium too, because you can explore all kinds of topics.
Lisa LaBracio: I agree.
Julissa: What kind of advice would you give to any future animators who want to create content that has a powerful meaning, like your short.
Anna Samo: I honestly, I don’t try. I never tried to create a message. If something inspires me – as this poem did – then I just throw my emotions on that. If the message if you’re working on is honest and hard, then people will respond to it.
Lisa LaBracio: I think Brendan is the perfect example of that because he created this poem and we got the chance to visualize it. Brendan’s poem is a personal experience also, which really helps us as the audience accept his story in different ways…you have to know your audience and also consider all the different ways to do form and to form your idea.
A recent graduate of Woodbury University, and an Academy Gold Intern, Julissa has now entered the motion picture industry, placing an emphasis on her passions for film making and animation.
She is currently working on a screenplay, and doing interviews and writing articles for both Entertainment Scoop and Animation Scoop.
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- INTERVIEW: Directors Lisa LaBracio and Anna Samo on “The Opposites Game” - December 11, 2019
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