Life, Animated

To research more about autism, my group watched a film called 'Life Animated.' Released in 2016, the film tells the story of an autistic man called Owen Suskind, who has used Disney animated films throughout his life as a way to understand the world around him. The documentary was really touching and helped me to understand what life is actually like for autistic people and also gave me a new appreciation for Disney films because the effect they had had on Owen's life was obviously profound. He used different scenarios in the films to overcome challenges in his own life and to understand the world around him,he applied the structure in the films to real life. In one example, he compared himself to Quasimodo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, to show how he felt like an outcast but now feels he fits in. The film also showed how creative people with autism can be, with beautiful animated scenes showing a world, 'The Land of the Lost Sidekicks' that Owen had created. The animation here was really beautiful and colourful, contrasting with the more sketchy and dark animation that was used at the beginning of the films to show the way the world was seen by Owen before he discovered his coping mechanism. I think this film helped us all understand the mind of someone with autism more and we all took inspiration from it for what we wanted our animations to be like; portraying autism as something not wholly negative. 

Scripts and audio

Before I began animating, I wanted to get the script written and recorded to have that as a guide. I think audio in our animations is really important, because we want to take a more abstract approach and some of the things happening on the animation will be hard to understand without a narrative. Much of the sensory overload I will focus on in my animation has to do with sounds being distracting for an autistic person anyway, making the script even more important. Ally, Kate and I all met up and each wrote our scripts together so that we could  be sure they all flow together and have a similar feel. I based alot of my script off the information Ally had gotten from her autistic friend about why exams are difficult for her. Here is what she said;

• Explain to me what to expect in advance ....otherwise I will imagine all sorts of things that might not happen and I will get over anxious unnecessarily
• Don’t make me sit too close to other people ..I cant stand it
• I need to wear my headphones to listen to music and block everything out
• Everybody needs to know that I have to rock when I am concentrating ...I cant help it
• Switch the lights off...I cant stand the flickering....I will get obsessed by it and be too distracted
• I hope nobody is wearing smelly perfume or washed their hair with lemon shampoo

I used this and other information that I got online to write a script that flowed along with my planned storyboard. Along with advice from the rest of my group, I came up with the following script;

"Exams can be really difficult. I can’t stand them. I get obsessed with little things, like tiny sounds or even smells, and it becomes distracting. I need to block all the sounds out. I can’t help it."

My group and I booked out the sound booth in uni and recorded each of our scripts a few different times, Ally kindly voiced mine for me and I think it will work really well over the finished animation, with the timing coming up at about 18 seconds.

Autism animatic

Attached is my animatic for the applied animation module. Its very rough and i think alot of the camera angles etc will be different in the final animation, but it gives me a guide around which i can base the timing of my animation.

Autism animation storyboard

Ally, Kate and I had a group meeting recently to discuss our ideas for our animations. We all came up with individual ideas and then gave eachother feedback and ideas on improvements or ways to illustrate our points better. All of our animations will be one continuous shot, and will focus on three different narratives about 3 people and their experiences with autism. My character will be called Julia. The animation will begin with a zoom of julia's name, which will zoom out to reveal the rest of the exam paper, with the words on the paper swirling to show confusion. The shot will continue to zoom until we are right above her, and then she will morph into a fly, which will buzz loudly, and land on a table where a pen is scratching loudly. The pen will then turn into a leg walking, taking two steps and then morphing into the hands of a clock ticking. The point is to illustrate how distracting and overwhelming these things can be in an exam situation for a person with autism. I think the sounds i choose to use will support the points im trying to make about the distractions.

Applied animation

I have narrowed down my ideas and discussed them with my group; I am going to be focusing on the different aspects of sensory overload a person with autism can go through when taking exams. I researched this online on sites like ask reddit, where you can ask people questions like how autism affects their life. I also found some information about how stressful exam situations can be on the national autistic society's website. A few of the things I found out were things like; the overwhelming size of the exam hall, things such as strip lighting, noise, smells, or an invigilator walking around the hall can all be distracting.  Ally also talked to a friend she knows with autism who told her about her feelings towards exams; she said a few interesting things like not being able to stand sitting too close to other people, needing to wear headphones to listen to music and block everything out, getting distracted by flickering lights or smells like strong perfume. I think all the information i've gathered could work well in an animation. We as a group have agreed we would like all of our animations to be one continuous shot as opposed to scenes cutting and to keep a more abstract background style. I think this animation will be a challenge as i've never done anything like it before but i am excited to give it a try.