Research into my final year project

The Final year project has begun at the University of Bradford. According to the module handbook, the brief is as follows.

  "You will develop your own project idea in consultation with an individual project supervisor, who will be a member of teaching staff in the School. The project is a substantial piece of independent study: you will determine the direction, content and implementation methods in consultation with your supervisor. The supervisor will advise and guide the decision process, but will not tell the you what to do or how to do it."

   

This project was available to us to choose our own ideas. First of all, I had to decide the medium in which I planned to create the project. I looked into the areas of animation, VFX and environment design and decided that for me based on Computer animation being my course, it would be best to create an animation. Next it came to creating ideas. I spent a long time over the summer brainstorming possibilities for the animation. Something that would be original. That was the most important thing. For me I felt that to hit Originality and individuality it was important to look at something that relates to me. I began focusing on myself before narrowing down to the topic of Obsessive Compulsive disorder, a disorder that I in fact suffer from and can relate to. At first I hoped to create a coping mechanism for people who are suffering and need a means to help them calm down. I read into the topic of OCD and researched through the use of quite a few books.   

 Clark, D. (2007). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for OCD. New York: Guilford Press

Gius, M. (2006). Living with severe OCD. Bothell, Wash.: Book Publishers Network.

Salkovskis, P., Oldfield, V. and Challacombe, F. (2011). Break free from OCD. London: Vermilion.

Veale, D. and Willson, R. (2011). Overcoming obsessive compulsive disorder. London: Robinson.

I looked at cognitive behaviour therapy, it being the only real calming method for the OCD sufferer. Instead of this, I turned my attention towards an awareness style animation/trailer. Many children and adults don't understand what OCD is nor how people affected by it struggle. I looked at different compulsions to relate to story ideas and came up with quite a few options.

 

   These ideas include a leprechaun that can't touch coins, a man in a biohazard suit who struggles to clean a room, a man who's wife is represented as a germ, a vacuum cleaner with a life of it's own and an ice related one.

I eventually settled on the ice idea which I will discuss in my next post.