NEW YORK CITY — Travelers Insurance, the provider of property casualty insurance for auto, home and business, has released two new short films that are part of its “Unfinished Stories” campaign. Conceived by TBWA\Chiat\Day NY, the project (https://www.travelers.com/distracteddriving) is designed to honor real victims of distracted driving by bringing their unfinished stories to life through a series of animated shorts.
Distracted driving kills at least nine people a day and injures over 1,000 people each day in the US alone (www.cdc.gov). Travelers discovered true stories of lives cut short by distracted driving, and worked closely with the victims’ families to imagine what might have been. “Unfinished Stories” envisions those potential future chapters had the driver not been distracted and the tragic accidents avoided.
The campaign just released two new films that detail the unfinished stories of 19-year-old Shreya Dixit and 61-year-old Howard Stein, both killed in preventable distracted driving incidents.
Shreya was a gifted student and talented singer-songwriter, who was on her way home from school one afternoon when the diver of her vehicle became distracted and hit a concrete pylon. In The Stage, a film brought to life with animation by Psyop and directed by Jack Anderson, Shreya’s story doesn’t end there, but rather imagines her as a successful graduate student who returns to her love of music.
Howard Stein was a self-taught master craftsman, who delighted in making furniture and goods for friends and loved ones. He was struck by a distracted driver while tending to his truck on the side of the road. The Tree House - created in partnership with Lobo (http://lobo.cx/info/) and directed by Guilherme Marcondes - envisions the special relationship between Howard and his granddaughter, Evie, whom he never had a chance to meet before his untimely death.
In The Route, which debuted late last year, the unfinished story of budding track star Philip LaVallee imagines him rising to the top of his sport and competing at the 2018 Olympic Games in Rio.