Animation
Storytelling / 3D Modeling / Rigging / Editing / 2D animation
Goal: Master Thesis Project
Result: animation showcased at Northeastern Student Film Festival, Lift-Off Sessions, Festival l’Art en Chemin
Tools: Maya, Photoshop
Duration: 3 months
This film explores the issues of systemic repression of emotions because of imposed societal expectations on the way women are expected to express their anger. This project explores overcoming trauma and meeting with the “dark” side of self. The name refers to the fact that the language defines our vision of self, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”, as Wittgenstein put it.
“Although posttraumatic growth often happens naturally, without psychotherapy or other formal intervention, it can be facilitated in five ways: through education, emotional regulation, disclosure, narrative development, and service.(…)
The next step is to produce an authentic narrative about the trauma and our lives afterward so that we can accept the chapters already written and imagine crafting the next ones in a meaningful way. Your story—and the stories of people you’re helping—can and should be about a traumatic past that leads to a better future.”
(Tedeschi, 2021)
Storyboards:
This cartoon addresses the issues of psychological trauma and healing. . It also addresses how societal expectations imposed on gender can harm us.
The idea of meeting with the trickster beast represents one of the oldest parts of our brain – the limbic system, which plays a crucial role in regulating emotional responses (Kandel et al., 2013).
For example, according to the Social Development and Learning Lab (Harvard), violence exposure has been associated with detrimental effects on brain development and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder in children.
People who experience violence feel the full spectrum of heavy emotions: guilt, victim-blaming from self and others, and anger and fear. The anger comes from the limbic system and is often suppressed by a lack of support and traumatized self-blaming. Many violence victims do not receive proper treatment that would allow them to process this anger and accept that the event is not the victim’s fault. (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). Many violence victims keep it secret for years. This makes many people live with feelings inside of them that they cannot process and accept, making these primal survival instincts the beasts in cages that can hurt violent victims and even others because their existence is not accepted and neglected.
I believe that the chance to face and process destroying feelings in a safe environment can allow violence victims to convert these feelings into healing. This is from my personal experience
Contributors
Story, 3d modeling, animation
Daria Koshkina
Music, sound design
Jose Gonzalez