Prison Cel

Hench Associate Professor Draws The Light On Social Justice

A sneak peek at Truth Has Fallen.

Using methods most people attribute to movies involving green ogres and penguin habitats, a new documentary from John C. Hench Division of Animation & Digital Arts Associate Professor Sheila Sofian entitled Truth Has Fallen is set to highlight a crusade to free those wrongly convicted of capital crimes, while educating audiences on the current state of the American justice system and its issues including racism, the death penalty and the susceptibility of eyewitness testimony.

“This is by far my most ambitious project,” said Sofian, who studied documentary filmmaking and animation as an undergraduate at the Rhode Island School of Design and received her M.F.A. in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts. “There are amazing stories out there to interpret, and this one is a unique way for me to combine all my loves.”

For the first time in her

Sofian works on animating her film.

career, Sofian will blend live-action and experimental animation as she illuminates the views of James McCloskey of the non-profit, non-religious organization “Centurion Ministries,” along with three of his vindicated clients. Truth Has Fallen also features input from famed Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and O.J. Simpson’s defense attorney Barry Scheck.

As a filmmaker drawn to social issues and having already used her talents to educate viewers on domestic violence and the experiences of war in her previous award-winning animated films, Sofian’s Truth is the culmination of over 10 years of research and planning.

“I read a news article about James McCloskey and immediately was struck by the fact that these problems that exist in our justice system needed to be told,” explained the director.

With five of the documentary’s 15-20-minutes of animation completed, Sofian’s painstaking creative approach consists of painting on glass with tempura paint mixed with glycerin. After working on each cel, Sofian captures the still wet images with a camera mounted above her workspace. She then imports the film into her computer to edit it.

Stills from Sofian's film.

“People make judgments based on what they see, and by animating portions of the film, I can get them to focus on what they’re hearing,” said Sofian, who will use the film’s “dreamlike” visuals to ensure that audiences view the film with “an empty palette.” In fact, the actual images of featured speakers like Eddy Baker who states “there’s many people across this nation that are indeed innocent,” and was himself wrongly imprisoned for 24 years for a South Philadelphia murder before being freed with the help of Centurion Ministries, appear only in the film’s epilogue.

“To complement the sound is important to me and it’s my greatest challenge,” Sofian added. “I want everyone to listen more closely to what’s being said.”

With close to 75 pages of carefully planned storyboards, and in receipt of both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Media Arts Fellowship established by the Rockefeller Foundation of $37,000 and $35,000 respectively, along with a Panavision Grant, Sofian has finished Truth’s audio recordings and is set to begin shooting her live-action sequences this summer. For a filmmaker used to a solitary approach to her projects and whose previous works (Survivors, A Conversation with Haris) have averaged less than 20 minutes, Sofian admits her foray into new and uncharted territory has left her a bit overwhelmed. 

“I’m completely indebted to the people around me,” Sofian added, noting that in addition to the numerous professionals on board who’ve helped scout locations and offered to build prisons and court rooms on the school’s soundstages “for practically nothing,” the Gould School of Law has given her full access to one of their massive lecture halls. “There’s so much to do, but it’s all coming together.”

Anticipating a release date in 2009 for Truth Has Fallen, Sofian is surprised how much she’s learned about the country’s justice system through the course of her research and interviews. It’s something she hopes her audience will experience as well.

“It’s been astounding to realize just how many people are in prison that shouldn’t be there. In fact, I would love to explore more of what prison does to a person, but that’s a different film,” she said. “I’m just grateful that I can finish this one before I die.”

Associated Person:

Sheila M. Sofian