A few months ago we were contacted by our friends at Studio Say So with a really exciting project for Florida Hospital. They were in the process of producing a video with the purpose of educating people about epilepsy, and the main focus of the video was a little girl named Jocelyn. Our task was to come up with a visual way of representing an epileptic seizure.
I began by researching what was happening inside of the brain during a seizure and the word “chaos” kept popping up. Somehow our visuals needed to give the impression of chaos. I thought that instead of trying to replicate what was actually happening in the brain from a scientific standpoint, it might be better to go in an abstract direction. This would allow for a more direct impression on what it felt like to go through an epileptic seizure.
The storyboards that were pitched to the hospital
The concept for the piece was a combination of an inky, boiling line that grew as the seizure took hold of Jocelyn. At the same time, I wanted to include random digital artifacts happening throughout that intensified as the piece progressed.
I wanted a line boil throughout the video because I thought it might add to the energy I was trying to convey. I broke out the brushes and ink and got to work. After painting the titles a handful of times, those frames were scanned in and the resulting cycle created the variation I was going for.
After everything was painted and scanned, I animated and composited in After Effects.
Here is the final video:
Many thanks to the guys at Studio Say So for bringing us on to this really rewarding project. Hopefully this video helps spread the word on the great work being done at the Florida Hospital. So happy we got the chance to be a part of it.