A UNIVERSITY of Worcester student has scooped a prestigious national award for her animated documentary on mental health.
Amy Moss’ short animated film, which features interviews with a range of people including medical professionals and those living with a mental health issue, recently won the Selected Entry Award in the 2017 Creative Conscience competition, which celebrates work that recognises social and humanitarian issues.
The 21-year-old’s winning ‘Mind Over Matter’ piece was produced through the University of Worcester’s experimental animation module and took seven months to create, which saw her research mental health and experiment with animation techniques.
Starting with a rough storyboard, Amy then worked alongside audio from her interviews to produce imagery, before employing techniques like pixilation and rotoscoping – a technique in which animators trace over live-action film, frame by frame, to capture realistic movement.
“I feel really privileged to have won the award as I felt as though the topic I was presenting wasn’t something most people tend to gravitate towards. Therefore, I’m really pleased I could produce a piece that got people talking about mental health,” said Amy.
“It was the first piece of work I’d ever submitted, so the fact it won an award will be something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
“I wanted the documentary to appeal to a person who has suffered with a mental health issue and the professionals who deal with the patients. More importantly, I wanted to present a first-hand point of view of someone dealing with a mental health issue.
“I also wanted to end the stigma associated with it and by doing this in an interactive manner with animation, it allowed the documentary to appeal to a broad range of people,” she added.
Amy is currently working on another animated documentary about living with a family member who has autism.
Visit www.creative-conscience.org.uk/winners/amy-moss to view Amy’s work.
