ADHD mixed media
A mixed media animation combining live-action footage with hand-crafted frame-by-frame techniques to explore the experience of growing up with undiagnosed ADHD.
About the Project
This project explores visual storytelling through mixed media animation, transforming a personal memory into an audiovisual narrative. The brief challenged us to communicate emotion, atmosphere, and meaning without relying on traditional dialogue or narration.
Drawing from my own experience of growing up with undiagnosed ADHD, the film explores the contrast between external silence and internal chaos. Through abstract visuals, fragmented animation, and immersive sound design, the audience experiences an emotional journey that culminates in the moment of diagnosis and self-understanding.
Rather than explaining ADHD directly, the film invites viewers to experience it from the inside, using visual distortion, inner dialogue, and rhythm to communicate feelings that are often difficult to describe with words..
Concept & Storytelling
At the core of the project is the idea of making an invisible experience visible. Instead of presenting ADHD through facts or explanation, I wanted to communicate the emotional reality of living with it before understanding what it was.
The visual language reflects the constant tension between how the outside world perceives calmness and the overwhelming stream of thoughts happening internally. Every creative decision - from pacing and composition to sound and animation - supports this central narrative, allowing the audience to experience the story rather than simply observe it.
The Mixed Media Process
The film combines digital filmmaking with analogue, hand-crafted techniques to create a tactile and expressive visual style.
The process began by filming and editing the live-action sequence before exporting every second of footage as individual frames. At 24 frames per second, each frame became a physical image that could be manipulated by hand.
Each printed frame was customised using scratches, doodles, markers, paint, crayon, and collage, transforming the digital footage into a series of unique artworks. The completed frames were then scanned back into the computer, digitally refined where necessary, and reassembled into a continuous animation. The result blends live-action cinematography with handmade textures, creating a visual language that mirrors the fragmented and layered nature of memory.
Sound & Atmosphere
Without voice-over narration, sound became one of the film's primary storytelling tools. Ambient textures, inner dialogue, and carefully paced sound design communicate the emotional progression of the story while reinforcing the contrast between external reality and internal experience.
Together with the mixed media visuals, the soundtrack creates an immersive sensory experience that encourages the audience to feel the emotional weight of the narrative rather than simply understand it intellectually.
This project challenged me to combine personal storytelling with experimental visual techniques, balancing concept, craft, and emotion throughout the production process. Working across both digital and analogue media reinforced the importance of choosing techniques that actively support the story rather than simply serving as aesthetic choices.
