“THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA:
DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS”
DOCUMENTARIES
All images ©2009 KOVNO COMMUNICATIONS
Kovno Communications
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.” Co-directed and co-produced by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith. 2010 Academy Award® Nominee, Best Documentary Feature.
What they asked us to do...
“Our story is a thriller, very tense and political,” says Mr. Goldsmith. “The two scenes we gave Alligator Planet had some humor in them. Eli’s work heightened that humor without trivializing it. His animation was sparse and spare, and at the same time clever and pointed. Audiences, without exception, love it.”
What we did...
Eli worked with Judith and Rick to bring to life key moments in the story of the Mr. Ellsberg’s acquisition and distribution of the documents known as the Pentagon Papers. The sequences were visualizations of several of Ellsberg’s activities in 1971 when he copied and delivered the top secret documents to Ben Bagdikian, then an editor of The Washington Post. The animated sequences illustrate parts of the story that could not have been covered with archival footage or re-enactment. They also happened to be moments in the film that, in hindsight, were humorous, and needed a light touch.
Our results...
In the case of ‘The Most Dangerous Man,’ we worked to find a way to represent characters in the film without making them too ‘cartoony’, or representational. Since much of what took place was clandestine, we referenced film noir lighting techniques to heighten the suspense..