Tales of the Road: "The boy who didn't stop, look & listen"

Genece Klein GRCP 101

Tales of the Road: “The Boy Who Didn’t Stop, Look & Listen”

Descriptive Contents:

TVC: 40

Client: Department for Transport

Agency: Carat

Director: Smith & Foulkes

Production: Nexus Productions

Animation: Nexus Productions

This short film of The Boy Who Didn’t Stop, Look & Listen is created from the producers of Nexus Productions. They are featured on the 2009 January Stash CD cover and also have been on two other Stash covers in the past.

The Director Adams Foulkes and Alan Smith are London’s top directing team. They have many awards for their work including an Oscar for the 3D animated short film This Way Up, Gran Prix award, Gold award at Cannes Lions and an ITV award for Best commercial plus many more. They’ve done work for Coca-Cola, Honda, and Dream Works Paramount’s Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events, they also directed several sketches for the BBC’s animated comedy show Monkey Dust.

What Happens in this film: Tales of the road is about a little boy who is injured and looks back on his life before his accident. It’s a film about warning children of the dangers of the road. The boy has a broken leg and is sad because he can’t play football. The narrator says the boy used to love to play football all day long. It has a dark feeling of gloom and sadness as he thinks back to the time he crossed the street and was hit by a car. His broken leg prevents him from playing football as a ball rolls up beside him. The voice of the narrator gives an explanation of how the little boy wished he had crossed the street in a safe place where he could see traffic coming, so he could play football again. It doesn’t actually show the impact of the little boy being hit by a car but implies that’s what has happened. The background is dark; the boy has big sad eyes with a sad, worried expression, he is dirty and bruised, his leg has a cast on it and a crutch is under his arm. The film switches forward to a bright day when the boy was happy playing football, and then it shows his friends as they cross the street and how they have learned to look both ways before crossing. It has a unique background of soft colors that contrasts with the lifelike 3D figures of the children.

Additional Background: Attached is a link to the Tales of the Road website. There are games children can play, on how to be safe on the road.

I played one of the games. You use the arrow keys to direct a child on his way across the street. It helps you find the safest place to cross the street and get home safe. When you go across the street the wrong way, it says OH NO it’s only a short walk but there’s a better place to cross nearby, try again. Then, when you do it right the school patrol officer helps you get across the street and it says; that’s a safe place with a picture of a thumbs up. It shows how you can be street smart taking the cross walks, and at the finish line is says well done.

http://talesoftheroad.direct.gov.uk/

Attached is another website called Think Road Safety with a link to the Tales of the Road website, listed above. This site is part of the website of the Department for Transport, who is the client for the Tales of the Road short film.

http://think.direct.gov.uk/index.html

This link is from YouTube of the film Tales of the Road: “The Boy Who Didn’t Stop, Look & Listen”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqGSBQAaxXQ&feature=related

A Key Question: This short film is a commercial. It is trying to educate young children on the safety of crossing the street. The Department for Transport did this film to help children to be safe. There was research showing that young children between the ages of 5 and 9 are more likely to die in a road collision than from any other accident. They say children can’t judge how fast cars are going or how far away they are. This film was a way to get the message across, to help children to realize they need to choose a place where they can see clearly in all directions and where a driver can see them. It stresses to be safe.

My Impressions: Oh my gosh! I think this is a great film and should be shown on TV more often. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this film before.

It might be a bit dark for children but the gloomy image this film portrays is not as bad as getting hit by a car. Sometimes the blunt facts of life’s reality need to be conveyed, for the message to get across.

The people who made this film are extremely talented. The artwork and the expressions on the child’s face was done really wonderfully and the concept of saving a child’s life is enormous.

In my neighborhood there are children who cross the street in unsafe places all the time, rarely at a crosswalk. They streak across the busy road barely being missed by the traffic.

A few years ago there was a grown man who crossed the street by my house, he didn’t use a crosswalk and he got hit by a car and died. What a horrible, painful ending!

The meaning of this film has a great message for everyone.