Director CJ Cook at Meister in Portland: “We were approached by The SpingHill Company to produce a series of vignettes for CNN’s documentary “Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street.”

“A total of 10 minutes of design and cel animation created in three months, an incredibly tight timeline. So tight that we were still working on design and treatment as animation started locking in keyframes.

“It’s just as important to understand and study the event itself as it is to remember what was lost before and after to the Tulsa Massacre. The vision of Greenwood’s community at its height pitched to us by the documentary’s director Salima Koroma was colorful, lively, and one we worked very hard to try to bring to life.

“We recognize the subject matter is a sensitive and difficult topic to cover appropriately and we took our role very seriously. Our team is incredibly proud of our contribution to the film.”
 

Client: CNN, The SpringHill Company
Writer/director: Salima Koroma

Production: Meister
Director: CJ Cook
Executive Producer: Samantha Cook
Storyboarder: David Saracino
Lead Character Design: Daniel Amdemichael
Lead Environment Design: Yann Benedi, Diego Freyre
Designer: Tom Goyon, Sabrena Khadija, Allen Laseter, Agathe Leroux, Vhaldemar Madama, Léa Rey-Mauzaize, Arthur Vergani
2D Lead Animator: Léonard Bismuth
2D Animator: Lauren Bednar, CJ Cook, Grégoire de Bernouis, Victoria de Millo Gregory, Louis Holmes, Jerry Jaimes, Sandy Lachkar, Maëva Le Fouillé, Meghan O’Brien, Andrew Stadler
3D Animator: Brent Austin, Ryan Reid, Ian Ross, Ben Lippert

Title Design: Somatic
Designer: Alex Haldi
Special Thanks: Steve Waite, James Thayer

Music: Ambrose Yu