If A Tree Falls — Leni Gao

motion design + illustration

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If a Tree Falls Animated Teaser
2024–2026, 2d motion, illustration, art direction, teaser design

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front is a documentary directed by Marshall Curry that examines the Earth Liberation Front, an environmental activist group labeled a domestic terrorist threat by the FBI. The story begins with the environmental problems around the forests. However, the documentary focuses on the fights between the people. In the end, the viewers question the definition of terrorism and the government’s position in society, but the concerns of the forest don’t seem to have a solution.

The concept behind this piece is to focus on the perspective of nature, showing how nature is treated after unintentionally becoming the source of human conflict, while suffering the greatest harm itself, and can only continue to remain there with its scars, a silent victim.

I took an experimental approach with the image treatment, music selection, and animation. I wanted to show the distortion and silence harm nature gets when people are fighting.

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