In October 2024, I began studying for my Level 3 Foundation diploma in Art, Design and Media at the Online College of Art and Design. My first project for the course was World Photography Project: How Photographers Documented their World. In it, I researched the photographers Josef Sudek,[1][2][3] Edward Weston,[4][5] Ori Gersht,[6][7][8] Olivia Parker,[9][10][11] Wolfgang Tillmans,[12] Bruce Gilden,[13][14][15][16][17] Hellen van Meene,[18][19][20][21][22][23] August Sander,[24][25][26] Diane Arbus,[27][28][29][30][31] Dorothea Lange,[32][33] Henri Cartier-Bresson,[34][35][36][37][38][39] Martin Parr,[40][41][42] Ansel Adams,[43][44][45] Jérôme Sessini,[46][47][48] Andreas Gursky,[49][50][51][52][53][54] Richard Hamilton,[55] thenatchdl,[56] and Nick Church,[57] and learned about contact sheets, meaningful view, depth of field, still life, taking in the moment, and looking back at life. The only genres and terms that I already knew of before the project were portrait and landscape. After researching the photographers, I was influenced by Parker and Gursky to make use of colour in my still life photographs and take the position of a central object placement.[9][10][50][51] Then I took my portrait photographs in the moment like Gilden, with the subject as the focal point.[13][17] For some of my meaningful view photographs, I took inspiration from Parr’s photographs. They were taken at unusual angles and drew the viewer’s attention to objects, activity and composition elements.[40][41] I enjoyed going to different locations to take my photographs. The biggest challenge in the project was analysing the photographs and choosing which ones from my contact sheet to edit in Adobe Photoshop. I had to point out the details and structures to explain how they match my interests, and why I chose the photographs.

Next, I did a Fine Art project with the theme of what “home” means to artists and people in general. I went to the Folkestone Museum, where I took photographs and analysed historical art, including: Folkestone, 1790 by Richard Kerr,[42] Victoria Leaving Boulogne by Charles Brooke Farrar,[43] The Landing of the Belgian Refugees by Fredo Franzoni,[44][45] North Street Folkestone by Elijah Albert Cox,[46] Sinking of the Bienvenue by Victor Sebastian Foley,[47] Dogfish Season by Charles Padday,[48][49] and The Folkestone Boat Train by Bertram Priestman.[50] Then I went to the studio of local artist Shane Record to photograph and analyse contemporary art.[51] Record told me that he dislikes doing art of places that “do not mean anything to [him]”, and that he includes the theme of home in his art because art “is [his] life”. It “means something to [him]; [his] home in Folkestone”. Looking at the artists’ work in person and through secondary sources helped me understand the brief for the project more clearly. It also inspired me when considering what home means to me and different ways that I could communicate this visually. At home, I researched the artists Willem de Kooning,[52][53][54][55][56][57] Cy Twombly,[58][59][60][57] Robert Mapplethorpe,[61][62][63][57] Bernard Cohen,[64][65][66][57] Mark Wallinger,[67][68][69][57] Harold Cohen,[70][71][72][57] Edward Hopper,[73][74][75][76][77][78] George Shaw,[79][80][81][82][83][84] Johannes Vermeer,[85][86] [87][88][89] Pierre Bonnard,[90][91][92][93][94][95] Chris Ofili,[96][97][98] Rachel Whiteread,[99][100][101][102][103][104] Nan Goldin,[105][106][107][108][109][110] Bill Viola,[111][112][113][114][115] Gillian Wearing,[116][117][118][119][120] Peter Doig,[121][122][123][124][125][126][127] Ger van Elk,[128][129][130][131] Carl Holsøe,[132][133][134][135][136] Aline Gaiad,[137][138][139] Gerald Laing,[140][141][142] Edvard Munch,[143][144][145][146] Kehinde Wiley,[147][148][149][150] Njideka Akunyili Crosby[151][152][153] and Patrick Caulfield.[151][152] Through my research, I learned about techniques such as cross hatch, patterns, abstract art, collage, angles, mark making, monoprinting,[153] self-expression, and the history of painting. Next I created a moodboard of things that matter to me, such as my family, toys and video games. I initially had issues creating a mind map because I drew it on paper, so I made another one digitally and spaced the images and categories out. I then developed ideas and patterns for my final piece, and experimented with oil pastel, cutouts, clippings, acrylic and watercolour paint. The experiments and artist research were the parts that I enjoyed, with the former helping me to explore different possibilities and compositions for my final piece.

When creating my final piece, I was inspired by Hopper to draw diagonal lines for my television at an odd angle. Wanting to create a balance in contrast of atmosphere similar to Hopper, I concentrated on the balance of warm, light colours and cold, dark colours regarding the television’s light. Following this, I made an oil pastel cottage painting based on Ofili, and added custom-made Scribble Hatch patterns to the living room door. Ofili’s Nigerian patterns and mark making reminded me of my Nigerian heritage. I then produced circular patterns inspired by Wiley, Caulfield and my laptop’s bubble screensaver, and initially added them to the wall. I looked at Harold Cohen’s computer art, which inspired me to draw and paint two abstract dogs, based on a photograph of my pet dog. One was made entirely of shapes, and the other was divided into coloured sections with acrylic paint in a portrait, located above the door. Inspired by Crosby, I cut out textured magazine clippings in different shades of pink and glued them in, placing them in an area where the television’s light would be in the foreground. To make the television, the Danish flag (with the coat of arms of England), the cottage painting, and the dog portrait stand out, I drew thick, black outlines over them, inspired by Caulfield. Working on this project led to a new perspective in art. I now saw it as a captured documentation of life and time. It also indicates the artists’ effort to communicate an idea or feeling through the subject of the painting, and the materials and techniques used in it. I created six versions of the art, but had problems choosing one for my final piece. I eventually settled on the fourth one. Regarding improvements, I could have taken my time and not rushed through the tasks. If I had the chance, I might have explored more mediums and elements in paintings and portraiture.

The next project was Urban Sounds Night and Day: Introduction to Illustration in Animation. I began my research for the project by watching and analysing The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock[154][155][156][157][158] and Ice Merchants by João Gonzalez.[159] This area of the project worked for me, as I was learning about how they used contrast, lighting, perspective and sound effects in their work to create a sense of drama and give the viewer a broader sense of realism and empathy. It inspired me to go for a walk in the urban environment of Deal, and later Margate. During the walks, I used my phone’s camera and sound recorder to take photographs and record sounds in real time. Hitchcock’s use of perspective and angles to create drama in The Birds and Vertigo[160] were major inspirations for the environments that I chose to take the photographs. The buildings that I photographed were Serpentine South (when I was in London),[161] Turner Contemporary[162][163] and the Droit House.[164][165][166][167][168][169][170] Following the walks, I experimented in mark making and used various tools to produce a series of colour and black-and-white drawings in response to the urban sounds, inspired by Gonzalez’s illustration style (complete with textured backgrounds). The tools included pencil, brushes, inks, watercolour paint, oil pastel, toothbrush-flicking and masking fluid. The drawings were then compiled into a concertina sketchbook.

To identify the materials that Gonzalez used in Ice Merchants, I experimented with monoprints (with different results). One of my strengths was that I used Photoshop to digitally edit, manipulate and combine monoprints and hand-made concertina marks and play around with colours. Another was learning from mistakes since I made a new monoprint of the Kent Fire and Rescue Service after I left an older one in the sun. Next, I made a moodboard of animal images, using them and my visualised sound and mark making textures to create a concept character, the Squirgeon. The concept of combining human and animal features in the character design was influenced by Bibo Bergeson’s storyboards for A Monster in Paris. Harold Michelson’s storyboards for The Birds included thick arrows to indicate direction, close-up and point-of-view shots, and different tones of grey, black and white.[171][172][173][174] Bergeson’s boards had lots of lines to show movement.[175] Taking inspiration from the two artists, I initially did a rough storyboard in pencil on paper, with action lines to keep the same energy as Bergeson, then did another, larger, refined one in HB pencil (for tones and shadows) and 2B pencil (to make the outlines stand out) on white cartridge paper. These processes showed some of my other strengths, such as using my imagination and developing my storytelling skills. Prior to doing the storyboards, I also researched Saul and Elaine Bass,[176][177][178] Sam Hudecki and Darryl Henley,[179][180] Butch Hartman,[181][182][183][184] and Hayao Miyazaki.[185][186][187][188][189][190]

Near the end of my Urban Sounds project, I produced an animation using Adobe After Effects to submit to Young Creatives x RNLI to be put on display at the Turner Contemporary.[191] When I think of force, I think of strength and nature. My work brings together the physical movement and strength of nature and the sea, as well as that of the RNLI crew. The seaside of Deal inspired my mark making sketches based on the waves’ motions and sounds. This animation was inspired by the RNLI flag; I thought about how I could bring these elements together to illustrate the idea of force. By layering the mark making, I created the rhythm of the waves, and used different shades of blue for a textured background to communicate the force of the sea. In physics, arrows are associated with the movement and magnitude of force. The RNLI flag was adapted using arrows to reinforce the idea of motion. Shapes in nature gave me inspiration to add moving shapes, which I animated in different directions. To give the shapes weight, I added naturalistic textures (fire, sun, water, earth and sky, which are forces on their own). “Waves Breaking on a Lee Shore at Margate” by JMW Turner influenced my watercolour painting of the sky and sea, which was used for one of my shapes. Finally, I added a drop sound effect to the movement of the shapes, and added wave sounds in the background. This all reinforces the power of the sea, and the strength and impact of the RNLI crew in our community.

After my Urban Sounds project was the Textures and Layers project. I selected five words (water/ice, fragments/earth, decay/vegetation, clouds, hidden/obscured) to construct my moodboards, using different images and paintings by artists like Hayao Miyazaki, David Hockney (whom my mother thought was a young adult, when he was actually 87 years old), Ori Gersht and Berndnaut Smilde. Then I researched Max Ernst[192][193][194][195][196] and Jane Dixon,[197][198][199][200][201][202][203][204][205][206][207][208] which is where I learned about the technique of frottage (pioneered by Ernst).[192] I noted the similarities and differences between the two frottage artists in terms of colour and composition, then made frottages using 6B graphite stick (1-2, 7, 10-11, 13-14), charcoal (3), graphite putty (4, 12, 15), and black oil pastel (5-6, 8-9) on surfaces and materials indoors and outside in the garden, including wooden tables (1-5), ceramic tiles (6), brick walls (7), paved ground (8), parasol bases (9), shells (10) and leaves (11-15). I also made two frottages in Photoshop, one being a plant forest inspired by Ernst’s fantasy landscapes, and the other being the sea and docks, influenced by Dixon. Next, I took a look at Susan Derges,[209][210][211][212][213][214] Ori Gersht[215][6] and Berndnaut Smilde.[216][217][218][219][220][221][222][223] The artists’ processes (Derges using natural elements and photographic paper to make photographs without a camera, Gersht capturing destruction of man-made objects and natural forms in real time, and Smilde using contrast of natural form and urban settings to create fantastical elements) inspired me to make two contact sheets of photographs of water, fragments and clouds in Photoshop, where I changed the hues and removed any distracting elements. The interiors in some of my cloud photographs were taken at the Turner Contemporary.

Next, I learned about tracing shapes and adding/creating repeat patterns. I printed some of my photographs and images from my clouds and hidden/obscured moodboards, and used the tracing and repeating processes to capture their form and textures, making them feel a little dramatic and have a sense of movement. I then researched Tim Burton,[224][225][226][227][228][229] Hayao Miyazaki,[230][231][232][233][234] Akira Toriyama,[235][236][237][238][239] Pendleton Ward[240][241][242][243][244][245][246][247][248][249] and Nick Park,[250][251][252][253][254][255][256] and drew a mind map referring to my previous work for the project. This work served as early ideas for my character designs and landscape designs (influenced by Miyazaki, Ward and Toriyama), including my character Seimatz and the world Ourantopia. During this process, I played around with the colour palettes to see which one worked in the sense of the character and landscape standing out from each other, and created textures from my frottages and shape tracings to use for the landscapes. After that, I made concept art of Ourantopia’s core Aertroot. The process involved combining the shape tracings and frottages, changing them to different shades of blue, turquoise (background), brown and yellow (core), adding a yellow light behind the core to make it stand out, and slightly blurring the background and smudged some of the edges to give it a soft, fluffy texture similar to a cloud. Finally, I took photographs of my own hands, and used them as reference for my character’s hands, therefore developing my hand-drawing skills. Shading was added to give him a more three-dimensional look.

In September 2025, I decided to research artists and their sketchbooks. Artists draw concepts and ideas in sketchbooks to practice their skills and develop them over time. Thus, the sketchbook is the starting point for an artist’s career.[257] The artists that I researched included Leonardo da Vinci,[257] J.M.W. Turner,[258][259] Grayson Perry,[260][261][262] David Hockney[263][264][265] [257] and Mark Powell.[266][267] Following the research, I was inspired by Leonardo, Perry and Hockney to do 51 out of 70 sketches, experimenting with materials such as Graphite HB, 8B Wash, Caran Dache colouring pencils, Global biro, edding 1880 Drawliner 07, GALAXY fineliners, et cetera. What made this project successful for me was that I had a wide range of materials to make as many drawings as I could. The subjects included objects, food, buildings, animals, birds, people, and organic forms.

Then there was my Illustrations for Poems project. I researched Ellie Lee,[268][269] William Kentridge,[270][271][272][273] Jim Woodring,[274][275][276] Lynda Barry,[277][278][279][280][281][282] Paul Glabicki[283][284] and Satyajit Ray.[285][286][287][288][289][290][291][292][293][294] Using materials like gouache, Victorian maps, ink, squirters, sponges, fineliners, pencils, paper cutouts, et cetera, I produced different concept art and illustrations for Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven.[295] I experimented and played around with different elements to make them stand out and/or tie into the poem’s Gothic horror theme. For example, I painted the titular raven with black ink and added shading, lighting and details using layers of black ink and some white ink, changed the levels of the floor and walls in Photoshop, and added frottage textures and lowered their opacity to make the map visible. I also researched Victorian book cover designs and typefaces and created early and finalised book covers and pages in Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, and linked my illustrations to sentences from the poem. I found creating the page layouts (with the illustration and text on different reflecting pages) difficult, so I had to make three drafts and choose the one that was the most accurate.

Finally I did my Collections project. I looked at a list of museums that I could visit, eventually choosing to visit the Deal Museum. I learned that the museum contained layers of historical resources, archives and collections. The items in the collections ranged from vintage models (for example, typewriters, compasses and boats), plans and maps of the Deal and Walmer areas, photographs, H.M. Royal Marine uniforms, and timeline boards describing events in the town’s history (for example, pirates and smugglers). I visited the museum in September, and took photographs of most of the objects. The only object that I both photographed and drew was the stuffed taxidermy cobbler rat, Ratty. I used a uni PIN 01 Fine Line drawing pen and Mogyann Brush/Fine pen to draw the rat in real time in 20 minutes, then coloured him in with Stabilo Aquatico watercolour pencils. This process allowed me to capture the texture of the fur. Two months later, I learned about the cabinet of curiosities and what inspired its creation.[296][297][298][299] I researched collections at art galleries and museums, including the Deal Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum,[300][301][302][303][304][305] the British Museum,[306][307][308] the Pitt Rivers Museum,[309] The Museum of Palazzo Poggi,[310] the Oxford University Museum of Natural History,[311] and the Ashmolean Museum.[312] Following this, I was introduced to Joseph Cornell’s boxed assemblages[313][314] and Domineco Remps’ Trompe-l’œil paintings.[315][316] I enjoyed looking at Cornell’s work, and his utilisation of collage and maps in the box interiors inspired me to use maps in my backgrounds, because I felt that they added colour, texture and a sense of place. This fitted well with the museum. Remps’ paintings drew my attention with their realism, and I wanted to try to capture this in my own sketches.

In November, I visited the Deal Museum again to take some more photographs from an observational perspective, basing most of my sketches on these primary sources. They were drawn in pencil, biro, fineliner pen, Zebra Z-Grip biro, BIC biro, and watercolour pencils on sketchbook pages and vintage maps of Deal. I also chose to use Ratty for my double-page spread. Then, I used printscreens from Finder and Photoshop to make contact sheets with green circles around the sketch photographs that I would use in my double-page spread. When it came to making the spread itself, I used magazine templates[317][318][319][320] as secondary references to properly construct four magazine layouts for Deal Museum, and inserted the sketches, removing the background from some of them in one layout. This was the part of doing the collections layouts that I enjoyed, more so than the poem book layouts. I could incorporate the techniques that I had learned into my final project.

After I had explored four different layouts for the final double-page spread, I decided to develop the first idea further. I already liked the layout of the sketches and the use of a map, adding texture to the background, but I had problems making the sketches stand out. In order to make this work, I added a beige rectangle layer under the map and turned its opacity down 65%. This enabled me to reduce the contrast between the linear elements of the map and its background, helping it to recede in the composition. Next, I adjusted the contrast levels of each sketch, knowing that bigger contrast would help them stand out. Finally, I felt that the sketches would have a much greater impact if I varied the scale of some of them, in order to draw people’s attention to the bigger ones. Out of the four layouts, I liked this developed first one as it felt the least corporate-looking and the most creative, which I felt reflected the feeling of the Deal Museum.

My strengths for this project include my improving digital computer art skills (working in Photoshop and Illustrator) and doing observational sketches in pencil. I explored a wide range of materials, techniques and surfaces. Thus, this helped to improve and expand my illustration skills and use of materials and techniques, and develop my observational drawing skills to a higher standard. This has led to more interesting outcomes within an illustration pathway. I learned about new drawing techniques like ink and stick and gouache, developing and matching an illustration style to match a brief, and book and magazine layouts.

In December 2025, I chose to make an animated short film about the theme of aging and seasons for my Final Major Project. I called it Of Seasons and Skin, naming it in reference to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which was referenced in cartoons, particularly Looney Tunes and Tex Avery. I researched other animators, artists and filmmakers who also tackled these themes, gathering information about their processes and methods. They included Pete Docter,[321][322] Richard Linklater,[323] Hayao Miyazaki,[324] F. Scott Fiztgerald and David Fincher,[325][326][327][328] Jennifer Bartlett,[329] and Bill Viola.[330] After analysing their work, I was inspired to develop a storyboard and character designs for a central character walking through the seasons as they age. I based the simplified facial features of the baby, toddler and preteen on Pendleton Ward, the design of the teenager on Hayao Miyazaki, and the young, mature and older adult designs on both Tim Burton and Miyazaki. I did a rough storyboard, researched age groups to understand their appearances and movements,[331][332][333][334][335][336][337][338][339][340][341] and did an interview with my older friends about their stages of life for inspiration on the character’s life events. This helped me identify the stages of life that I wanted to include. Even though I did not create the young adult’s design without the graduation hat and gown for the character design lineup, I included the design in the storyboard itself. Interestingly, on the day that I finished my initial storyboard (28 March 2026), the British weather in real life was changing constantly (from windy to cold to sunny to raining to hailing).[342][343][344][345] It felt like my project was coming to life in real time, even though I had not begun animating it yet.

For the seasonal landscapes, I researched Pieter Bruegel the Elder,[346][347] Claude Monet,[348][349][350][351][352][353] Miyazaki,[354][355][356] Burton,[357][358][359] and Ward.[360][361][362] This gave me valuable insights on colour, texture and subject matter, which later helped to inform my own sketches developed from primary resource photographs, including ones taken during a walk at Betteshanger County Park. Although not mentioned in my Statement of Intent, I also researched another favourite artist of mine, David Hockney.[363][364][365][366] I drew inspiration from his landscapes and decided to use frottage textures. Adding the textures into the landscapes completely transformed the look of the scenes, giving them greater visual depth. In iPad drawing No. 2 from The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, Hockney used an iPad to digitally draw the landscape, and created layers of colourful marks and textures, capturing a sense of light.[363] I created my winter landscape in the same manner, but with a colder colour scheme instead of warm, vibrant colours.

I used Adobe Animate to produce the project. Throughout the project, I encountered different challenges in the animation process. I had to refine some of my character designs. This included more research, which led to me adapting the baby’s face to look younger and removing the codpiece-like fly from the young adult’s trousers. I further researched berets in order to draw the mature adult’s one accurately, and gradually slowed down the transformation from a mature adult to an older adult. I changed the colour of the butterfly from orange to blue to make it stand out from the autumn landscape. I encountered a problem with Animate crashing three times; the first time this involved a heavy amount of strokes on soil. I printscreened the soil, created and exported a transparent .png file of said soil from Photoshop, and imported the file into Animate to prevent any future issues. Editing and special effects were done in After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. In After Effects, I added a text layer for the project’s title, using the font “Snell Roundhand” against a frottage earth texture, and added the “Dissolve – Sand” effect to make it appear and disappear. I chose this effect because the project’s opening scene takes place in earth soil. I watched a tutorial on title animations by Smertimba Graphics,[367] which inspired me to create animation effects and the position for my director credit. I later added a triskelion symbol in the background for the end credits, because in my family, it is thought to represent the cycle of life.

When it came to the soundtrack and sound design, I wanted to use this to further illustrate my idea of seasonal changes. I made recordings of what the footsteps would sound like in different conditions, and combined this with sound recordings of me playing the keyboard/piano, alongside my custom-made electronic music tracks. This was successful since it enhanced the ambience of the different seasons.

I had a good understanding of how to use animation software and produced my own short animated films (Sensory Chaos, Hunger Pains, Breathe, Real Take) before I started this course. During the past two years on the course, I have expanded my repertoire of different media, refined my observation skills, learned how to analyse the work of others, and used this research to make decisions on how to develop my own personal ideas. I have also learned how to manage my time to develop my ideas in answer to a brief and a set deadline. I completed everything that I committed to in my Statement of Intent on time. During the planning phase, I broke down my tasks into a framework that I was able to manage and reflect on every week. By analysing my work weekly, I was able to address any feedback and issues with timing and consistently find effective solutions to the design development of the characters and the seasonal landscapes. The final look of the characters and landscapes demonstrates my commitment and the level of development involved in my project from the initial pencil-sketched ideas in the research phase through to the finished product.

Overall, the film was intended to run for one minute, but ended up running for two minutes and 20 seconds. This longer duration is a testament to my original aim to broaden my understanding of storytelling through animation. I have demonstrated this understanding in my thorough research of the human aging process, including stance and movement. The medium of animation allowed for the visual storytelling, which involved adding more frames, and therefore more time to the film. I am happy with the final outcome; I showed it to different test audiences at different stages in its development, to which they gave positive feedback. They immediately understood the themes of the project and enjoyed it. I also had the pleasure of seeing and watching projects by some of the other OCAD students, including Bo Burnham, MeiyiOtaku, Joanne McKeown, Beatrix Finch, et cetera. If I had more time, I could have developed the musical score further, taking inspiration from my research on “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi.[368] As the deadline was short, I made the right decision to focus my time on the visual storytelling of the theme within the time parameters, completing the project on time and to a high standard. My favourite scene was the autumn scene, because it encapsulated everything that I wanted to visually achieve in perfect harmony with the storytelling of the theme. Going through this process has reinforced my love of animation and has inspired a further study in illustration, which I hope to embark on at Falmouth University. To celebrate my graduation from OCAD and the completion of my project, my mother and I went on holiday to Crete, Greece for a week. After the holiday, I joined OCAD’s End of Year Summer Show on 3 July 2026, where we entered a virtual exhibition.[369] My project was on display at the exhibition (1:12), and after we watched it, Matt Theodore praised the film. He described the film and the amount of work that I had put into it as “amazing, really fantastic work” and “a huge undertaking, a project of that size and incredibly ambitious and beautifully produced”. On 27 July 2026, I got my Diploma in Art and Design results. It was a Distinction, which gets me into university. I would not learn of this until 10 August 2026.

I had a personal bereavement this week, because one of my grandfathers, Kjeld (18 March 1942-3 August 2026[370][371]), died in peace after my father visited him in his care home in Denmark. Kjeld was a local historian and author who documented the cultural, architectural, and environmental history of the cities of Aalborg and Nørresundby.[372][373][374][375][376][377] He wrote the 1999 book Det grønne Aalborg: Historien gennem 200 år (The Green Aalborg: The History Through 200 Years),[372] and hosted slideshow presentations in the North Jutland Region.[375] When I was a child, I would always mistakenly think that Kjeld was much younger, with brown hair and a moustache and beard, and imagined him as such. His death reminded my father of a scene in my project, where my character dies as an older adult before the cycle of life begins anew in spring.

In memory of Kjeld, my grandfather, and David Hockney, who passed away one month after I completed my project.

Real Take is an animated short film about a young autistic adult who struggles with communication.

What is Real Take about?
The setting takes place in the park, in Greg’s sketchbook, outside the flower shop, and in his house. The characters in the film are Greg, his support dog Franky, his ex-girlfriend, the woman, the monster in Greg’s sketchbook, and the mugger.

Greg is a young man with autism. He lives alone with his support dog Franky. He uses a sketchbook to document moments and experiences in his life, as well as a calming tool. He looks back at sketches depicting his previous relationship with his girlfriend, the first of which has her telling Greg about his inability to face conflict. Responding to the ‘human’ call to be ‘better’, Greg tries to fit in with life around him. When meeting a woman in the park, he tries and tries again to navigate the moments and experiences of conflict and other strong emotions. He also confronts his difficulties regarding getting to know a new person. Can he be successful?

The film is about struggling to communicate and overcoming fear of conflict, and exposes misconceptions to do with neurodiversity. The main themes in Real Take are conflict, understanding, communication, empowerment, overcoming one’s fears, and standing up for others.

Realist elements:
Park.
Greg’s dislike of noise.
Greg’s fear of conflict.
Franky, the support dog.
Sketches depicting bad memories.
Greg’s ex-girlfriend.
Greg wanting things (such as a tub of soya spread in the refrigerator) to be in order.
Greg’s struggles to communicate.
Woman smiling and giving Greg’s dropped sketchbook to him.
Closed flower shop.
Greg’s house.
The mugger following and attacking the woman.
Franky’s confusion on whether to protect Greg or save the woman.
Franky biting the mugger’s leg.
Greg remembering his ex-girlfriend telling him about his inability to face conflict.
Greg gathering the courage to stand up to the mugger and take his knife away.
Greg’s sympathy towards the traumatised woman.

Formalist elements:
Greg having a blue border outline around himself when having negative thoughts (fantasy).
Point-of-view shots with Greg looking at his sketchbook and the woman and walking towards the mugger.
Animated sketches playing through Greg’s mind (fantasy).
Point-of-view close-up shot of Greg’s ex-girlfriend’s mouth (fantasy).
Text saying, ‘Nervous’ and ‘Say something!’ forming in Greg’s head (fantasy).
Knot forming over Greg’s stomach to represent his fear and agitation (fantasy).
Monster sketch to represent Greg’s anger (fantasy).

Perspective:
The film uses a subjective perspective as it mainly focuses on Greg and not on the other characters. Examples include his animated sketches, the blue outline enclosing him, his various expressions, point-of-view shots where he looks at his ex-girlfriend’s mouth and the woman, and loud foley sound effects (such as turning a page, Greg’s stomach rumbling or building, emotional drum noises), all of which make the viewer feel close to him.

Colour:
At the beginning, the film mostly uses cold, less saturated colours for the park scenes and the animated sketches, fitting with Greg;s somber mood and giving the sketches the appearance of a distant memory and a dark past. As the film progresses, the interior of Greg’s house and the park scenes during the afternoon use warm, brighter, more saturated colours. This represents the rise of Greg gathering the courage and determination to face conflict and stand up to the mugger, and his sympathy towards the woman in a happy open ending.

Editing:
Camera zooms and pans are used throughout the film, such as the first scene with Greg and Franky on the bench (the focal point), Greg looking at his sketches before and after they play in his mind, the mugger following the woman outside Greg’s house, which he does not notice (mise-en-scène); Franky’s confusion on whether to protect Greg or save the woman, et cetera. Fades are used between scenes to show the passage of time and change in tone, such as when the film fades from Greg’s angry monster sketch to Franky sleeping peacefully in his basket in Greg’s house.

Action scene:
Greg is safe in his home, drawing in his sketchbook.
But he is unaware of the mugger, whom Franky notices.
Therefore, he walks out of his house to the park without worry.
But he hears the woman scream.
Therefore, he looks around and sees the mugger attacking her.
But Greg is apprehensive.
Therefore, Franky is confused on whether to protect his master or save the woman.
But he sees Greg panicking.
Therefore, he springs into action, biting the mugger’s leg.
But meanwhile. the shocked Greg does not know what to do.
Therefore, he remembers his ex-girlfriend telling him about his inability to face conflict.
But rather than acting scared, he gets more determined to face his fears.
Therefore, he takes the mugger’s knife away, and the mugger runs off.
But the woman is left traumatised by the event.
Therefore, Greg sympathetically shows her his sketches.

Why and how was the film made?:
Real Take was conceived in 2022 as an entry for Screen South’s Estuary on Film event. I did moodboards, concept art, the script and a schedule, and submitted them to Screen South. However, the idea was not chosen by the event, but I still wanted to make the film, so I continued. Production was part-time and lasted until this month. The film was made using Adobe Photoshop, Animate, After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Inspired by live action-animation films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and a real life roller coaster scene from Wandaland by Richard Noble,
I took photographs in a park in Ramsgate and used them as background, experimenting with them to represent the contrast between Greg’s world and the outside world. Adobe Stock images were also used as backgrounds for the park the flower shop and Greg’s house, with some being used as props in the latter. I watched other films for inspiration. Feeling My Way by Jonathan Hodgson had scenes with coloured outlines around rubbish bins and a square order around a man sitting in a laundromat, which inspired me to give Greg is blue outline to represent his nervousness, sadness, loneliness, restrictiveness and separation from his surroundings. Scenes from Mary and Max in which Mx wants logic and order I his life were used as inspiration for Greg pushing down a crease on his trouser leg at the beginning, and his reactions to the misplaced tub of soya spread in one of his sketches and the closed flower shop. His internal struggles to communicate were based on Louis’ nervous introduction in Louis’ Shoes. I took inspiration from Lambert the Sheepish Lion for Greg’s ex-girlfriend’s criticism of his inability to face conflict, and his initial cautiousness and bravery when standing up to the mugger. The knot forming over Greg’s stomach when he struggles to communicate with the woman was inspired by a scene in Utopia Portals by Jessica Ashman.

The idea of using animated pencil sketch scenes to show Greg’s bad experiences with conflict came from a scene in Feeling My Way with a pencil-drawn bicycle and Louis’ Mind Palace in Louis’ Shoes. The look of the sketches was also inspired by Musical Traumas by Miloš Tomić. Greg’s point-of-view shots when looking back at his sketches were initially going to depict bordered eyes, inspired by Riley Andersen’s emotions watching her father feed her broccoli in Inside Out. The sketches were originally planned to be done in Photoshop, but were done in Procreate instead, and edited in After Effects. For the sketch were Greg’s ex-girlfriend misplaces a tub of soya spread in the refrigerator, I added text saying, ’15 minutes later…’ This was inspired by the “dialogue text” scenes from The Man With Beautiful Eyes by Jonathan Hodgson, as were the ‘Nervous’ and ‘Say something!’ texts that appear in Greg’s head when he struggles to communicate.

To create Greg’s nervous facial expressions in close-up shots, I traced shocked, disbelieved, nervous and worried faces from films such as Forrest Gump, Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to use as reference. I used Richard Williams’ The Animator’s Survival Kit to creat neutral, calm/confident and cautious walk cycles for him. For Franky, I was inspired by Dug’s emotions from Up to depict Franky’s loyalty and care with wide eyes and a tilted head for his master Greg, and his uncertainty of whether to protect him or save the woman’ Carl’s sleeping pose in Despicable Me to fade from Greg’s monster sketch and animate Franky sleeping in his basket in Greg’s house; and Max’s confronting and shocked poses from The Secret Life of Pets and The Secret Life of Pets 2 to depict Franky’s alert when hearing the woman scream and deciding whether to protect Greg or save the woman, and his aggressive defence pose before charging over. When Franky bites the mugger’s leg, I used a scene from Animal Planet: Dog Bites Host as a reference when animating Franky moving his body forwards and around and wriggling his bottom. I also included the model sheet for Franky (based on reference sketches in the film’s title sequence. The music for the film was composed by Kate Wintie in Logic Pro X, with the addition of stock music provided by Randolph Matthews. I looked t film scenes where the music and sound effects build to add to the tension, like Anxiety by Mayshan Kelishadi and Joker. The technique of rotoscoping was used for three scenes that were difficult to animate: the woman’s arm handing Greg’s sketchbook to him, the mugger running away, and Greg kneeling down before calling Franky.

Genres:
The genres used in Real Take are realist-fiction (Greg’s dislike of noise and fear of conflict, Franky being Greg’s support dog, the sketchbook drawings showing Greg’s bad relationship with his ex-girlfriend, his struggles to communicate with the woman, et cetera) and fantasy (the sketches being animated, the monster sketch representing Greg’s anger).

Release:
The film was submitted to the Oska Bright Film Festival to be screened in 2026, but was not selected. It was selected as a finalist at the French Duck Film Festival, and selected by the Together! Disability Film Festival. As of 6 November 2025, the film is available on the Creative Foundation’s website.

*Written in Notepad.

From December 2023 to 2024, I was producing animated sequences for a short film named Breath or Breathe. I downloaded and installed Blender, where I started to familiarise myself with the layout of the software. First, I learned how to add an object and move it around, modify objects, and render a scene, and tried some modelling and sculpting tools. Next, I loaded my reference artwork in a new window, and used “Sculpt Mode” to create a sculpted fox head to animate at a later date. I then looked at some processes to help refine the features on the fox character. I added colour and material behaviours to the head and face, and briefly looked at the “Node” editing space. I learnt how to unwrap my model and was ready to paint, but there were problems with the addition of textures. Because of this, I decided to move on to making stop motion breath animations, using sand-on-glass, ink, chalk and watercolour paint. During walks in Folkestone, I took photographs of surfaces with relaxing, calm textures to use in my sequences, and recorded the tide in Folkestone Beach coming in. I worked on timing ‘in’, ‘hold’ and ‘out’, and repeated the breathing sequences for 10 breaths, each one treated slightly differently with effects such as “Bulge”. After that, I watched some footage of murmurations. For the tide, I created “Time Remap” keyframes for it coming in for 2 seconds, held for 4 seconds and out again for 2 seconds, and applied different colours to it using “Hue/Saturation”. Next, I created some particle swarms by using motion paths, inspired by the murmuration footage. I used bubbles and flying fish textures for mine. I even did an animation where I used the Geometry Options “Curvature” and “Segments” to make the texture background bulge out and in to simulate breathing, gave a “3D Text” animation effect to ‘Breathe’, and made it three-dimensional by extending the “Extrusion Depth”.

In late February, Lydia Hibbert and I began coming with ideas for the breath film’s introduction: narration, text, diagrams, a growing and shaking animated brain with eyes (visual representation of tension building), multiple layers and colours. We watched I Am Here by Eoin Duffy, Detention by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and David Seitz, Focus by Alex Boya, and The Fake Calendar by Meky Ottawa as research, and I made a moodboard of brain images in different art styles (illustrations, vector graphics, abstract, lineart, et cetera). Then I used different brush techniques in Photoshop (“Roundness”, “Hardness”, “Opacity”, “Flow”, “Spacing”, “Size”, “Angle”) to create early sketch designs for the brain. We returned to my Blender fox head, where I unwrapped the textures of the eyes, mouth and the head itself, added shading and experimented with “Noise”, “Voronoi” and “Gradient Textures” and the “Color Ramp”, and painted the model in “Texture Paint”. The next day, I experimented with some advanced brush settings, “Shape Dymanics”, “Scattering” and “Texture”, and did some drawings focusing on the shape of the object (brain) rather than the outline, using the “Layer Mask”.

Between March and April, I looked at texture and colour. I experimented with “Color Dynamics”, “Shape Dynamics”, “Foreground Colors”, “Background Colors”, “Shading”, “Lighting”, the “Mixed Brush” (“Wet”, “Load” “Mix” and “Flow”), the “Paint Bucket”, “Gradients” and “Brush Modes”, using them to create some more designs for the brain. Next, I made notes on how the brains would be animated to convey emotion. For example, the blue brain in my “Color Dynamics” drawing would be for sadness and shake and wobble as if it were crying, and the “Shading and Lighting” brain would slowly grow and shrink to simulate breathing. Later in March, I added armatures to my Blender fox head’s ears, eyes, mouth and nose, and came up with the idea of having the brain fade into the background just before the breath sequences begin. I started creating and adding effects for the introduction’s poem, using “Particle Systems”, “Expressions” and “Linear Wipe”. The poem is:

‘I breathe to help calm my mind.
It dissipates stress and tension.
I fill my lungs through my nose to the count of four,
hold for the count of eight,
and release to the count of four.
As I release my breath, it liberates me from my fears.
It evaporates stress,
defuses anger,
decomposes sadness,
and resolves the frustration of being unable to solve a problem.’

We watched War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko by Dave Mullins and Brad Booker, Letter to a Pig by Tal Kantor and Amit R. Gicelter, Ninety-Five Senses by Jerusha Hess and Jared Hess, Our Uniform by Yegane Moghaddam, Pachyderme by Stéphanie Clément and Marc Rius, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye, Singularity by Marissa Davis, Un Corpo/A Body by Milena Tipaldo, Afterimages by Mackenzie Duan, Crossing to Ireland by Jean Maskell, The World by Jalal ad-Din Rumi, and If You Feel Terrible by Rebecca Wadlinger as research to get ideas for the introduction, such as isolating irrelevant parts, moving poems, dialogue, lip-syncing an animated mouth to dialogue (made using the “Slider Control” effect), transitions from text to imagery, filling the screen, repetition, morphing and deconstructing, overlays, and reversing footage. I made two breath sequences in Procreate to use in the film, one of which is used in the introduction.

In May, I included my ink breath animation in my film’s introduction, where I used the “Posterize” effect and scattered text. Next, I made a sequence in Procreate where the text ‘evaporates’, changing brushes between frames, and gave it a “Shatter” effect on the second to last frame. Behind the text is a transparent boiling animated texture background, inspired by watching How to Be Alone by Pádraig Ó Tuama and My Mother’s Coat by Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits. I designed a red grass background with a large hole in Photoshop and added footage of the fire in Lydia’s wood stove in After Effects, making a sequence where the fire shrinks into the hole. The shrinking fire represents defusing anger. Then I did a sequence where my botanical montbretia illustration’s petals shrivel up and the plant’s colour changes to blue, and the petals fall off as the plant withers and dies before they decompose. This represents decomposing sadness. Finally, I animated a sequence in Procreate and After Effects, with the three-dimensional camera zooming and passing through saturated, dissipating, layered clouds, which represents resolving the frustration of being unable to solve a problem. Near the end of the month, I learned how to rig the armature’s bones to the parts of my fox head with ‘Ctrl+P’, had a look at “Weight Paint” where the amount of different coloured paint depended on the weight influence on the bone, and pressed the ‘I’ key to add keyframes for moving, rotating, squashing and stretching the head in the timeline. We then went to record sound effects for my film, such as fans, outside ambience, birdsong and running tap water, and played around with them in Adobe Audition, giving them effects such as filters, pitch-shifting and reverbs.

In June, I worked with Randolph Matthews, composing music for my film. I also added inhaling and exhaling keyframes to my fox head and exported the rendered animation as a PNG sequence. Next, I animated the fox’s eyes and mouth closing and opening when he inhales and exhales in Photoshop, and also began doing the end credits. The fox animation and end credits were finished in July. At the end of the month, Breathe was submitted to the Folkestone Documentary Festival. The film can be watched here (original link).

In August, we designed nine different posters for the film in Adobe Illustrator. Breathe was submitted to the Margate Film Festival, along with Sensory Chaos.

In November 2022, I did some animations for the Folkestone Living Advent Calendar. They include: a boy putting tinsel over Cornelia Parker’s Folkestone Mermaid’s neck like a scarf to invite her to the festive holiday fun and keep her from feeling left out; the Crowned Death skull’s crown changing into a Santa Claus hat with Christmas lights as children (named Jimmy, Joanne, Robert and Kimiko) run past him; Mark Dion’s Giant Seagull on Wheels parking near a street art seagull on a house to keep his company, before they watch a fireworks display and the children celebrate; and Jimmy giving Sophie Ryder’s Standing Lady-Hare and Dog a present, which brightens up their colours. The animations were made using Adobe After Effects, Photoshop and Character Animator (children walking and running).

In November 2023, I produced three animations for an exhibition/live performance for the Folkestone Living Advent Calendar, named The Trial of Jack Frost. I used Procreate to make a mugshot turnaround of four characters (a grumpy alien picking his nose, a goofy mummy with vampire fangs, a Boris Johnson-caricatured Frankenstein’s monster and a robot rabbit), and did a stop motion laser cutout silhouette segment of Jack Frost stealing a stocking full of presents. The cutouts were drawn in Procreate and edited in Adobe Illustrator. They were then exported separately as a layered rig with labeled layers from Photoshop to be used in a title sequence for the exhibition, made using After Effects. In it, Jack drops down from above, bouncing on the spot when he lands. He points at his name, ‘Jack Frost’, in the title, its cutout-style letters flying and rolling into place. Then his name moves down a little to make way for ‘The Trial of’, much to Jack’s displeasure. I was given instructions on how to animate Jack and the letters. First, I set the anchor point for each body part in After Effects using the “Pan Behind Tool”. Next, I made an image sequence for the head positions and Time Remapped them. After that, I arranged and imported all the assets (including the letters). We downloaded Duik and installed the plugin to After Effects, and learned how to create arms and set up the armature for both arms, set up and saved workspaces that best suited the task. Then, I used the “Shy” switches to clean up my timeline and keyframed my “C” layers. I animated the rigged two-dimensional puppet, added the animated letters and used the “Posterize Time” effect to give the effect of a stop motion sequence, before exporting the film and uploading it to Dropbox. The exhibition opened today at 5:30pm, and was open between 6pm-7pm.

From September 2023 to October 2023, I was at Young Animators Club doing projected animations for use in a walkthrough exhibition named Haunted House Experience. Using Adobe After Effects, Photoshop and Procreate, I produced Grincha Lisa, in which Lisa del Giocondo (the Mona Lisa) does a Grinch smile for a few seconds after sporting her usual calm expression; a William Kentridge-style stop motion chalk animation of a shadowy, Tasmanian Devil-like monster, known as the Psyclone Ghoul, who grows and leaps out at the viewer before disappearing; a dancing stop motion Irish spider and a brown claymation spider, the confused ghost of Boris Johnson (a satirical symbolisation of the end of his position as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom), and spiders, skulls, ghosts (voiced by pitch-shifted archive recordings of Miranda Richardson as the mummy from the audiobook version of Horrid Henry and the Mummy’s Curse) and Johnson bursting through the doors, accompanied with smoke and lightning and followed by the claws of a growling werewolf. I also made a golden decorated picture frame using cardboard, spray paint, cutouts and small objects, and produced an advert for the exhibition in which someone approaches Block 67 as lightning flashes and thunderclaps are heard, and waits outside the doors before the werewolf’s claws appear.

I attended the exhibition today between 2pm and 6pm. There I saw most of my animations, except my Psyclone Ghoul and claymation spider and Grincha Lisa, due to time and problems with setting up the laptops and projectors.

From April 2023 to July 2023, I was at Young Animators Club doing animations for use in a film named The Pigeon Theory, as part of an exhibition named Big Folkestone Doodle. Written, animated, narrated and scored by the other young animators and myself and edited by Lydia Hibbert, the film is about the pigeons’ takeover of the world and has interviews with different people in Folkestone giving their thoughts and theories about them based on their actions. It was made using Adobe After Effects, Character Animator, Premiere Pro, Google Maps and Procreate. I made a pigeon puppet for a stop motion scene in which a flock of pigeons (the other young animators’ pigeons) fight over breadcrumbs and have a party, and did three hand-drawn animations: one of a squirrel running and jumping across some Folkestone buildings’ walls and windows to reach an acorn (named Squirrel Climber made using markers, a plastic sheet and a photograph), another of a pie on a window sill growing legs and standing up, and one of a rotoscoped pigeon looking back before turning into a seagull and flying towards the screen, eating the camera. All three animations were photographed in Procreate, which I also used to do an animated advertisement for the exhibition itself.

On 22 July 2023, the exhibition opened at 4pm, and I attended it at 3:30pm. There I watched the film and saw my animations, though the one with the squirrel did not play due to the interview featuring it being shortened before the squirrel could move. The film was later uploaded to YouTube under the name The Pigeon Problem. My pigeon is seen at 3:45, and my animations are at 6:07, 9:17 and 10:42.

From November 2022 to December 2022, I was at Young Animators Club doing two animations for an exhibition at the Chaos Cards Tabletop Gaming Centre. One was a stop motion animation of a yeti and an arctic fox brawling in an ice cave, made using Dragonframe, After Effects and Premiere Pro. The puppets were made using felting wool, aluminium wire, polymorph, upholstery foam, liquid latex, foot magnets for the stage, dragon eyes and glass eyes, while the cave was created using chicken wire, newspaper, rocks, Modroc, bicarbonate soda, shaving foam and a steel sheet. The other was a hand-drawn logo animation for the word ‘Chaos’, with the letters forming from metal, straw, fire, wood and stones.

On 20 December 2022, the exhibition opened between 5pm and 6pm, and I attended it. There I saw my stop motion animation projected on the wall and ceiling, used along with the other young animators’ animations as part of a film named CHAOS!, and entered a room with the ice cave set and puppets amongst the young animators’ sets and puppets. CHAOS! was uploaded to YouTube on 22 December 2022, and can be watched here (my animation is at 2:10).