What I am working on

At them moment I am working on a test animation for my university project. The finished animation will be part of a larger animation that will be shown in schools to raise awareness about bullying. This animation will be aimed at 10-11 year olds, as you can imagine we are having to keep the content of our animations tame. I'm doing this by using metaphors.

I am trying to go for a mixed media approach, I want my backgrounds to be mostly traditionally made while my character has been created digitally. I have tried my best with this project to retain my signiture style for the most part which often doesn't come though in my uni projects.

The other thing I am working on in conjunction with the animation is an illustrated booklet/zine to be handed out to the kids as a help guide and will also include an insight to how the animation was made. In this I want to include a section for parents with ways they can help their kids if they are being bullied. Most of my advice has come from real life experience with bullying. Sadly I know without the schools support bullying is hard to combat using non violent means which is unfortunate. The best way to combat bullying is to find the root of the problem and I want to encourage bullies to find other ways of dealing with their frustrations.

Ideas for the booklet

-Statistics
I'm trying to keep these at a minimum as not to bore the kids, but still include enough to inform parents.

-Advice
Things that worked for me, helping the kids stand up for themselves without the need for violence. Giving kids suggestions in how to project their frustrations in more health and constructive ways.

-Unused case studies
I have based my animation on how it feels to be bullied instead of a case study I think it will be more effective. With case studies you have to chose one which isn't too tame but isn't too extreme, I was finding it hard to find a suitable case study so I decided basing it on the emotional struggle would be a better approach since the others working on the project are focusing on case studies.

- Activities
I'm thinking of including activities to help kids express themselves in a none harmful way. And maybe even include activities to encourage children to help out other kids they believe are being bullied.