Minor Project: Social Anxiety Disorder

After some feedback from Phil I have decided to work with Social Anxiety disorder and working with visuals metaphors.In other words, their will be two worlds within my animation the inside world: the house, german expressionism inspired, dark colours, grey, purple, browns and suffocating; and the world outside their window is lovely, colourful, playful and enjoyable, bright colours yellows, greens and blues. We will see the character overcoming their social anxiety and her trying to leave the house to previal make it back into the world but the house won't let her leave. It physically stops her from leaving but in the end the character will previal and make it back into the world. 

This animation will be a visual metaphor of being imprisoned by fear and anxiety. After firguring out what my idea is, I have gone away and researched what it is like to have social anxiety disorder, here are some symptoms and a couple of short films about the condition. 

 

And here is a documentry about Social Anxiety.

Matthew’s story

Matthew skipped class today. It’s the first day of the new semester, and he’s afraid that the professor will go around the class and have the students introduce themselves. He knows it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it really stresses him out. Whenever he has to speak in front of more than just a few people, his voice starts shaking and his face gets red. He always feels so humiliated afterwards.
Since public speaking is Matthew’s worst nightmare, he’s been avoiding a speech class he has to take in order to graduate. He’s also dreading his brother’s wedding, even though it’s over six months away. As the best man, he’ll have to give a toast at the reception and he’s already nervous about it.

Symptoms: 

People with social phobia tend to:

• Be very anxious about being with other people and have a hard time talking to them, even though they wish they could
• Be very self-conscious in front of other people and feel embarrassed
• Be very afraid that other people will judge them
• Worry for days or weeks before an event where other people will be
• Stay away from places where there are other people
• Have a hard time making friends and keeping friends
• Blush, sweat, or tremble around other people
• Feel nauseous or sick to their stomach when with other people.

After researching into this disorder it actually makes me think that I myself have experienced anxiety and I think to a degree I understand what these people are going through. Altogether this research will allow me to understand my character better when designing and animating.

Also in the second video they describe Social Anxiety with a voice in the back of your head. This idea of someone telling you to not to do something I can use this for my house in telling my character, ''not to go'', ''Where are you going?'', ''They wont like you out there''. 

Some more personal stories on this disorder can be found here: http://www.adaa.org/living-with-anxiety/personal-stories/all-stories/6