Behind the Scenes
This is my major project for my Master's degree in graphic design (distinction). I used a mix of the latest versions of (Creative Cloud) Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Illustrator for the visual. Along with Adobe Audition for audio editing.
The video is about the experiences and challenges of autism, depicted through the various dimensions the ship travels between.
There is a scene where the rocks in the cave the spacecraft is within, tear a large hole in the side of the ship's hull. This is symbolic of the amplified sensitivity to physical pain which autistic people including myself can feel. It also represents sensitivity to loud noises such as balloons popping and Christmas cracker bangs.
The challenging part of making this scene was the curved metal wall with the hole in it. This required some out of the box thinking. Action21 charity shop had a metal bin they were going to scrap and allowed me to take photos of. However, the angle was too close to get a good photo, so a volunteer/employee there cut the bin in half for me. I took photos of both halves and used that as a base image for the set piece.
The torn part was easier, I used a Coca-Cola can cut in half (easy enough as thin metal) and punched a rough hole in the middle of both halves with a craft knife, to create the torn appearance. I then composited the torn photo on top of the bin halves to create the final result. The trick is not to think about what the materials actually are, only about how they look.
For this scene used a variety of photographs of crystals and gemstones, chiefly amethyst. I wanted to make the film visually appealing with an emphasis on a beautiful varied multiverse.
This is actually my eye that I filmed, I wore a white mask with the intention of making it easier to edit around my eyes for the film. For the red iris, I applied a red shape layer on top with After Effects and tracked the animation to follow the shape as my eye opened.
The exploratory shuttle featured in the too-bright scene was actually an electric air freshener I bought from a charity shop, with a transparent drawing pin stuck in the output hole (ouch!) for the headlight and a random screw piece blue-tacked to the side for a side light.
The scratched look is because I was originally intending to paint it grey so needed to rough it up first, but the look does also fit the tired and scruffy theme of the spaceship. I used some black paper to cover over the switch part of the object. It's remarkable what can be done with ordinary objects repurposed.
This 'bird dala' (i.e. mandala) is made up of a photo I took of a starling in a tree, cut out, and mirrored. The mirroring really does change the final look of it. The mandala was part of the sequence that was the most visually abstract and chaotic.
It represents a panic attack or meltdown which can happen when autistic people become overstimulated or stressed. Within the narrative it's the result of an emergency portal-out which results in unguided uncontrolled travel.
I really like this After Effects transition effect called CC Flow Motion, which I used for the emergency portal-out and portal-in.
I used Bing (AI) Image Generator to make this lettuce-verse fragment image, then extracted the components to animate them subtly.
For this scene I used a photo of a London Underground station passage, but with many parts swapped out for other images.
The liquid aliens started off as regular marbles I bought and photographed, then I used liquify to warp them to the forms you see. Eyes separate.
I wanted to end on a more cheerful note. This 'bliss' sequence represents where an autistic person feels safe and comfortable. In the case of the narrative, it's the place where they can finally set down after travelling looking for a new home. I used clips of Earth but wanted it to look both alien and beautiful hence the sky replacement.
