Peter Donaldson’s Illustrated Economics (1976)

Concept and creative process

Titles for a series of 15 programmes examining the economic climate of Britain. The subject matter covered all aspects of the British economy with all its pros and cons and many questions were debated. The idea of using a Monopoly board as an analogy came to me, as a lot of the assets within the game could well represent matters to be covered in the programmes - the question mark on the dice, representing luck and the unknown, the Chance cards allowing text to be added. The objects used in the original game, such as the top hat, were replaced by symbols to represent finance or industry, such as the miner’s hat. The model shoot was filmed in 35mm on a rostrum camera set-up in stop frame animation mode. The cards had plasticine wedges of varying sizes hidden behind them to hold the cards in position as they animated single frame to the top position, taking only a few frames with the viewer’s eye and brain filling in the rest of the move. The sequence was shot and lit by cameraman Bert Walker at Zephyr Films.

Idea generation, model shoot direction and creative direction - Liz Friedman.

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