Maybe I'm over complicating the matter by looking for another story which I can adapt for my animation. I think it's important to keep things simple, in order to get the point across most effectively? If I complicate things with drawing similarities to other stories, I might risk losing my viewer before I even make the point.
So as fitting as it would to have found a story that echoed the real life issues surrounding the Train of Death, maybe it would be easier to focus on the actual thing itself, and take my influence directly from that?
If I could re-tell the story of what happens, but in adapted form then maybe that might work best?
Here's a few ideas I had in terms of realising the different aspects of the issue at hand, and how I might bring them to life creatively.
UNIDENTIFIABLE FACES
If each migrant leaves behind a life they don't want, for a life they might never find, just what is the meaning to their life's? Are they almost non-existent? Insignificant? Invisible?
What if I based my story on the nameless faces that board these trains, almost stuck in a physical limbo until they can emerge anew or accept the lives that await or befell them. My designs could have blank expressions, unidentifiable faces, almost ghost like figures if you will who face this dangerous journey together.
Possible look of it could be something like this...
In a silhouetted, rotoscoped fashion maybe? Having these blank, expressionless figures against actual footage of the subject. It could provide a quite ghostly look to the video, reflecting the issue quite well in that respect. Might come across as too gimmicky tho, thus diluting the topic at hand.
Will have a think.
A BIRD OF HOPE
An notable icon of freedom and hope is a bird, something instantly recognisable and quite suitable to the topic.
So what if I showed the story of a single bird, who would represent the journey of a single immigrant, their mutual journey's similar enough that the message gets through, but different enough to provide a unique take on the issue at hand? The journey the bird would face would prove hard and hazardous, full of risk with little reward, and reflective of the migrants journey, perhaps too obviously.
A huge journey ahead, one tiny bird versus the world.
Sounds a little loose though, I'd still need to flesh such a story out with further details and substance. Plus, a bird might be too obvious a statement in regards to freedom maybe? Dunno, just seems a little predictable. Although maybe the treatment of it wouldn't necessarily have to be.
Adapting the back story of the issue into such a simple form might serve it well, but then again it might simplify things too much and detract from the seriousness of the issue, something key to making people care for it.
All my research in poetry and poignant story telling might be best served by doing the same thing they did themselves, that being to simply reflect an issue or underlying lesson in a loose, metaphoric sense, ie: making something myself based on issues that have truth.
Obviously, it's something I will have to develop and look into further.
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