No estás solo.
2D Animation, Master's Research
Media: Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects
Audience: Adult Puerto Ricans
Research Committee: Karen Bucher, MA, CMI, Amami Antia-Obong, MS, Andrew Boyd, MD
Final Deliverable: One 2D Animation and Three Storyboards
Social determinants of health including cultural barriers, natural disasters, and an ongoing health care crisis affect the mental health of the Puerto Rican population and their willingness to seek mental health services. The data shows that there is currently a need to promote mental health literacy and create an educational campaign in Spanish that can highlight prevention, early detection, and treatment of mental illness for Puerto Ricans.
This Master's research addresses the needs of the Puerto Rican community in the development of an educational animation that can promote mental health literacy and highlight their necessities in a way that is culturally relevant and relatable to the Puerto Rican experience. It will promote representation through diversity and visuals which the Puerto Rican population can identify with. This will help expand the types of culturally representative animations that are currently being implemented in the medical illustration field.
Pre-Production
Preliminary research on mental health needs in Puerto Rico, mental health literacy, the use of animation in mental health and other similar topics took place. Using the information obtained from a focus group and literature review, initial character sketches and backgrounds were designed. After writing a script based on these concepts, preliminary storyboards were developed and reviewed.
Production
The character sketches and backgrounds were vectorized using Adobe Illustrator. Then, these were brought into Adobe After Effects to create the movement for the final animation.
Post-Production
Audio was recorded and brought into Adobe After Effects along with the subtitles. Both were created in Spanish and English to cater to the needs of multiple audiences within the Puerto Rican population.
