Drawing the Border
To tell the story of the deported in Tijuana is to truly illustrate a new, unfamiliar reality. Just a few miles from San Diego, Tijuana may not seem immediately different from any American metropolis.
Most cities take shape similarly: They have concentrations of large buildings and concrete paths; plazas house restaurants and office spaces alike; they have developed districts and rougher parts; they handle cars and people — and therefore traffic.
On the surface, Tijuana felt familiar.
As our team began interviewing and exploring the stories its residents had to share — about family separation, deportation, and the aggressions of immigration law — we began to understand the shocking life changes the city has shaped.
Our illustration team’s goal was to show an everyday scene that a deportee might experience, but render it as a story — some unfamiliar locale, a departure point — that slowly becomes a reality.
The drawings are presented as an animated sequence that eventually fade into the actual immersive footage.
For many deportees, the circumstances they encounter in Tijuana are completely unfamiliar until they are left there to confront their situation every day.
It is a tough story. From food shelters to encampments, Tijuana is full of physical and mental places most of us can only imagine.
The process we created to illustrate 360 footage is quite straightforward.
Our team picked specific clips, focusing on scenes and places that were part of the deportee journey:
- For each episode, we selected a few still shots that embodied some of the key experiences shared.
- We imported the 360 still into Photoshop and traced the gist of the scene with tablets. We agreed on a specific style of stark, black lines to keep the illustration as objective as possible.
- With watercolor brushes in Photoshop, we colored in the shapes. The goal was to strike a balance between reality and illustration.
- After the initial illustration, we imported the black outlines into Illustrator to vectorize, and then into After Effects to fill in the lines through a sweeping animation.
- Under this animation, we faded in the watercolor coloring, and compiled it all together to fade out into the 360 footage still shot.
The pictures echoed the incredulity in the stories we heard.
Each conversation brought us to unfamiliar places. We went in and out of the personal corners of those that have been deported, learning stories in churches, shelters, and places of work.
Though the streets could belong to any city in the world, these experiences could not have.
Immersing oneself into a physical place is one endeavor — the next step is to listen to a story, and explore a state of mind.
To see the final illustration and the Deported: Life Beyond the Border project, go to http://www.jovrnalism.io/ and check out the project in person at the ONA18 Immersive Storytelling Festival.
USC students Rachel Yedam Kim, Naylee Nagda and Jenny Liu Zhang collaborated on developing this technique as part of the JOVRNALISM course led by Prof. Robert Hernandez at USC Annenberg. Zhang wrote the text for the post while Nagda did the video tutorial.
