Road Safety Campaign Shows What Crash Victims Would Look Like Alive Today

On average each week in New Zealand, five families are told the devastating news that someone they love, is someone they will never see again. Their families don’t just lose a loved one. They lose everything that person could have become.

As part of National Road Safety Week, Brake (a road safety charity) partnered with Y&R NZ to create a highly emotional and impactful campaign encouraging New Zealanders to think about the potential life-long cost of their decisions on the road. The project is called Living Memories.

Five families from around the country volunteered to be part of the project. Each family worked with a forensic age progression specialist and the digital artists at Weta Digital, to help create an individual portrait of what their child – lost years before in a terrible crash – would look like today. 

Starting with a collection of childhood and family photographs, forensic specialist Kevin Darch created an artistic impression of how each child lost would look in 2015. This image was then supplied to Weta Digital who digitally sculpted a 3D portrait model of each person including the fine detail like eyelashes, eyebrows, skin tone and texture. Each portrait was touched by atleast eight different artists in various departments at Weta Digital to create the final images.

Brake, Y&R NZ and TVNZ then partnered to take this project and its important message into the homes of Kiwis via NZ’s highest rating current affairs show, Sunday. The story immediately stirred up a reaction on TVNZ Sunday Facebook page, and was then also picked up by TV One Breakfast, NZ Herald, Stuff.co.nz, NZ Women’s Weekly, and more.

Caroline Perry from Brake says, "Road crashes have devastating consequences for families and the effects last a lifetime. The aim with this campaign is to look not only at lost lives, but also lost potential and lost futures. Living Memories has given these five families an opportunity to see what their child might have looked like, and demonstrates to the rest of us the lasting impact that crashes have.”

"Meeting the families and presenting them the portraits was a profoundly moving experience and I hope that this campaign will touch people in a meaningful way” says Lisa Dupre, Senior Art Director, Y&R NZ.

As part of Brake’s National Road Safety Campaign, the Living Memories project also extended into print, social, online and outdoor media – amplifying the reach and impact of these incredible portraits right across the country.