Death to death penalty

As you may know, Amnesty International is an international non governmental organisation whose stated mission is “to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated.” The movement was started in London in 1961 by Peter Benenson. In order to mobilise public opinion to put pression on governments that let abuse take place, the organisation appeals to very creative, sometimes shocking campaigns intended not only to attract people's attention, but also to touch their hearts, so they would want to take the innitiative.
 Here is an example:

With this commercial, Amnesty International is turning up the heath on the death penalty. The heat applied to a series of wax tableaus melts a firing squad, a gallow, a swordsman, an electric chair, leaving just the emblem of Amnesty International, a burning candle. Each of these four executions represents an area or a country in the world shooting - China, Libya, Syria, Viet Nam, Yemen), hanging (Bangladesh, Botswana, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Japan, North Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Sudan, Syria), beheading (Saudi Arabia) and electrocution (USA).

Initially, the advertisers wanted to create the entire spot on camera, shooting real statues created out of wax. But in initial tests it was descovered that is was to too difficult to shoot melting wax without it looking like stop-motion, so the film was almost completely done in CG except for a few live action elements.
As with all Amnesty campaigns, the film was created on a voluntary basis. Also, the statues were all sculpted in in CG and they were deformed (“melted”) using special software.

I find this commercial really touching and I think it really conveys the message in an impressive, very hard to ignore, making you care way. The execution is truly inspired, as it really supports and emphasizes the tagline, with the figurines made of wax that are slowly melting, suggesting that death penalty should no longer be applied. I also liked the logo detail at the end, when from all the melted wax rises a burning candle, which carries two meanings: on one hand, it symbolizes the hope of the people, and on the other hand it represents the logo of the brand.

Andra Androniciuc