Melisa Machuret
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node: 092 · type: animation · hand-drawn intros for a TV series · 2020

Drawing the people who couldn’t stay home.

In 2020 I drew the intros for a documentary TV series on a Spanish-language network in the US. Each episode told the true story of a frontline Latino worker, and of the families who carried the pandemic with them. Every frame was drawn by hand, in white lines on black.

  • 2020
  • hand-drawn intros
  • documentary TV series
  • frontline Latino workers
// episodes · tap to play

Four episodes

  • Hand-drawn animation: hospital monitors and tubes wired to a beating heart, white lines on black.
    Episode 2 · no soundHospital monitors, wired to a beating heart.
  • Hand-drawn animation: a patient in a mask, resting in a hospital bed, in stippled white on black.
    Episode 4 · no soundA masked patient, resting.
  • Hand-drawn animation: a framed drawing of a patient breathing through a tube.
    Episode 5 · no soundAn intubated patient, held in a frame.
  • Hand-drawn animation: street signs of a Chicago neighbourhood under a dark, speckled sky.
    Episode 6 · no soundA Chicago neighbourhood under a dark sky.
// process · from a real story to a drawing

A true story, drawn with care

Each episode began with a person’s own words. The drawing had to carry what a camera couldn’t: the inside of a hospital, a body fighting to breathe, a whole neighbourhood waiting at night, without ever exposing the people who trusted us with their story.

  1. A drawn heart on a thin white line, on black.
    01

    Listen

    Start from the worker’s own words, and find the one image that holds them: here, a heart on a line.

  2. A masked health worker beside a drawing of two lungs.
    02

    Show what can’t be filmed

    Draw inside the body and inside the ward, where a camera couldn’t go, with medical care for detail.

  3. A drawn chest X-ray, the lungs clouded with white specks.
    03

    Keep it dignified

    Patients are drawn, not photographed, so the story can be told without exposing anyone.

  4. A row of drawn faces, a community, at the bottom of a dark frame.
    04

    Give it back to the community

    End on the people around the story: families, neighbours, co-workers.

// credits

Hand-drawn animation by Melisa Machuret

Watch the network’s feature on the series ↗