Production The Process of Historical Animation

question_answer A Conversation with the Co-Producers

Our team undertook documentary strategies to ensure that the details of the animation were as historically accurate as possible. We compiled a database of images and contextual information for each scene containing references and examples of local buildings, structures, tools, utensils, clothing, and hair styles. Here, we break down the animation process and the decisions we made about how to portray Anna's world.

A screenshot from the animated film. Enslaved people carry on conversations in front of whitewashed wooden structures.

The Plantation

Arranging the structures and layout of the fictional Coleridge Plantation.

A screenshot from the animated film. A woman and a young child sit at a counterbalance loom.

The Loom House

Constructing and laying out the plantation outbuildings.

A screenshot from the animated film. A woman wearing a white dress and headscarf peers out of a third floor window.

Clothing & Hair

Designing the clothing and style of Anna.

A screenshot from the animated film. A coffel of enslaved men, women, and children are marched through the streets of Washington, D.C., with the unfinished capitol building in the background.

Washington, D.C., 1815

Reconstructing the streets of early Washington, D.C.

A screenshot from the animated film. A view of the buildings of F Street at night.

F Street, 1815

Recreating the F Street neighborhood.

A screenshot from the animated film. A woman in a white dress and headscarf stands by a window in a dark room.

The Garret

Imagining the tavern's "slave pen."