I had a tutorial with Kathleen today, the first in quite a while. I found it to be quite refreshing because she reflected on my time at university, which is something I don't really think about. I usually focus on the negatives & I know I do this so it was nice to be able to focus not only on the positives, but also that uni is not the be all & end all.
I keep focusing on everything I want to do, instead of just trying to create something that can get me a pass. I always thought this was a bad way of thinking, but as she said, I do have after uni & the rest of my life to focus more on what makes me happy to create. The point of my work now is to kind of bring together everything I have learnt not only on the course, but also about myself.
We spoke about my anxiety & how it has effected me throughout uni. It made me realise that I do always use it as a basis for everything whether through work or the process. All throughout this third year, i've had ideas involving anxiety but I always end up steering away from it because I think it's 'depressing' or just too personal for me to want to show it to people I know. I always speak of anxiety in a slightly different way to how I live it and Kathleen did bring this up. I feel like I have this idea of anxiety being a different 'person'. Like a character, and I think this makes it easier to talk about.
I never fully go into exactly how it effects me on a day to day basis because I just feel like i'd bring other people down, people would worry about me or they'd get the wrong idea. It doesn't define me, but it also is everything I do and say. It's something that has changed the course of my whole life & trying to think of it in just a negative 'oh i'll upset people' way isn't very good.
Going on from this, I want to focus on the anxiety idea I posted before. I have always wanted to do a more autobiographical piece, but possibly with hints of narrative. Kind of like a poetic version of my experience. But on the way home I was thinking about pairing it with interviews. I always liked the idea of interviewing & visualising, and it's like piecing everything together.
I also want to use elements of past projects, as if the film is a reflection on my experience as a creative person at university, but also pair it with other people's experiences to give it a more rounded portrayal of anxiety. I want it to be poetic & pretty, but also melancholic.
I think I need to visualise this more, but firstly I will try to contact potential people to interview. Even if I don't use them in the end, or I can't get people to interview, I think I will still do an autobiographical film. I do know a surprising amount of people who do suffer not only with diagnosed anxiety disorders, but also people who are dealing with other mental illnesses & suffer anxiety as a biproduct, but also people who just suffer from panic attacks etc. I feel like, if I do focus on this, it could turn out to be quite a powerful film & i should remember this. I shouldn't shy away from mental illness just cos it might make people uncomfortable. I dictate how I present the illness, and I should remember this.
