TOORBERG

TITLE SEQUENCE

Toorberg written by Ettienne van Heerden is the dramatic story of Druppeltjie Du Pisanie. Set in a rural farming community Druppeltjie was born displaying strange behaviour, his parents later identified as a mental disorder. Druppeltjie goes wandering one day and falls into a well. After countless efforts without success his father is left with only one option to stop his child from suffering in the dark well. To shoot him.

The title sequence we created captures Druppeltjie’s story through metaphors that dance around death and finally come to a dark end. Our medium of choice was charcoal because of its expressive and somewhat unpredictable nature. It also ties in with how we are born form nothing and return to ashes again.

This project was a BA Information Design group project at the University of Pretoria. The Title Sequence won a Silver Pendoring in 2015 under the student category for Video Communication

NARRATIVE

In the first scene a plant erupts from the earth just like the promising young life Druppeltjie was in his mother’s womb. As the story progresses and the viewer sees the plant again it turns into the skull of a bird. This promising life is no longer something beautiful but is infiltrated by death. In the story a neighbour sees crows flying overhead as a sign that the child has died. The germination process symbolises a prophecy foretold by community Sangoma about the child’s fate. The skull of the crow bringing death then falls apart as death ultimately leaves with the boy.

The second scene depicts a dragonfly flying up. Druppeltjie loved chasing dragonflies and was busy chasing one as he stepped back and fell into the well. The dragongly flies up and gets pinched by a hand reaching down. The hand then rips the wings off the dragonfly leaving it to plummet down to earth. The feet stepping down represent Druppeltjie stepping down into the well and the thorns the pain his fall has brought upon the community and himself. The farming community they lived in was inhibited by Pen thorn threes.

The next scene shows a tree with human bones hanging from it that disintegrates in the wind. The final scene depicts Druppeltjies father walking on a path. The path that fate or God has given him and he cannot turn back from. As he walks darkness surrounds him just as he believes his son who is now in the water surrounds him.