What is the film about?

A 2D short animated film inspired by the work of Amnon Weinstein who finds and restores violins from the Holocaust so that they can be played forever as a symbol of hope forever.  www.violinsofhope.org

A little background information...

I was inspired by an article that I read about the organisation Violins of Hope. As a violinist myself, I wanted to create something that would be visually appealing and support the main focus of the short film, the music. By having such an emotional subject matter, it was important to me to have a strong link between the music and the visuals, therefore connecting the lines of the animation to being the strings of a violin, transitioning through the film, flowing with the music.

The score was based on traditional Jewish music, from which I picked out key themes to fit each section of the short film. As the director, it was important for me to ensure that the music came originally from the types of music that would’ve been played in the camps on the Jewish violins.

How was the film made?

Strings was made using TV Paint and was animated mainly on 1’s to create a more fluid movement between the shots. As the lines of animation represented the strings of the violin, each shot was made up of a transition to the shot, the shot and then the transition onto the next shot; this meant that the animation process took on 3 stages.