Storyboard explanations

1. The agapanthus flower in scene 1 is a common flower in the West African region, which is suitable for this piece, since Ishmael Beah's story takes place in Sierra Leone.
2. The colours, blue, white and green are taken from the Sierra Leone flag and turn into red, as soon as the story revolves around war.
3. The ink splash in the beginning symbolizes the birth of a child (in this case it is Ishmael's life) and the ink flow symbolizes the life line.
4. As the story continues, the pictures emerge from the flowing ink.
5. Ishamel talks about having a simple and remarkable childhood, therefore, you can see the scene at the water.
6. The colours transform to red as Ishmael shares about his landscape changing and becoming scary.
7. The airplanes are dropping diamonds as bombs, symbolizing the blood that is shed in this country for riches and wealth.
8. Being a child soldier is now the only hope, and becomes "your life, your reality."
9. The story continues about the abuse of drugs, so I chose the coca flower, white ink splashes and later on black ink splashes to symbolize the common drug: cocaine mixed with gunpowder.
10. Towards the end Ishmael talks about how "everyone was sick with revenge, for either loosing family, or for whatever the reason was." In this scene I displayed two child soldiers, that will even eliminate each other, because they're so disillusioned and far removed from reality.
11. "So until someone is willing to stop and forgive, we can't go forward."