Let it all out
As a student i've always been one to hide my mental illness. As a student i've always been limited to my freedom of expression. Through art , I've flourished. What started out as student art project in light of comtemporary issues, I created this video to express the real thoughts behind the illnesses. The stigma is inevitable, But there is no harm in educating those behind it. Allowing the audience into my deepest inner most thoughts has allowed me to express an honest representation of how suffering from a mental illness can feel like for a person and how much chaos they must work through each and everyday just to survive. Due to the limitation in time i was forced to cut out up to 3 minutes of my original film which meant that stringing together what was left was difficult but i believe that even the emotions i have protrayed in these 5 minutes of this film are enough to sum up this catostrophic battle. I felt that using a strong visual of flashing words on a screen was a good approach in catching the attention and focus of my audience. There would be no eyes wondering, instead just sitting in silence watching and reading the story. I chose to include an auditory element of my voice as a narration of the story to add a personal element using slow broken tones and echos to enhance the mood and atmoshphere. The music in the background was carefully chosen through its beats and pauses to match the pulse and rhythm of my voice against the words on screen. I decided to bring the beat up towards the end and top off the story with the aspect of hope and reasssurance through my addition to resources for support groups and hotlines that are useful for anyone with any issues or questions in regards to mental illness. My film ended with " Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life. Now its time to rebuild yours." I chose to include this as a personal message from me the creator to my audience as during the process of making this video I myself had hit rock bottom being rushed to hospital due to circumstances influenced by my mental health. I plucked so many emotions from this dark time and put a positive message behind it as this film is one of awareness and education and most importantly positivity. The image in the background of the ending of the film is one of my own pieces of art of which i created as an awareness piece on the topic of menatl health in which i focused on a young girl with a blank expression of who has many dark expressions withing her face clawing to get out in which i entitled. " Add some colour to your black and which thoughts".
Discuss