Inside Our Autistic Minds – Ethan

After extensive collaboration and design processes with the series director and producers, along with Chris and the contributors themselves, we created four individual, personal and unique short films on behalf of Anton, Ethan, Flo and Murray, visually and audibly channelling each of their interior worlds. They were then revealed by Chris to their families and friends, showing how they’re really feeling inside and what’s really going inside their autistic minds.

Ethan is an autistic student and an aspiring rapper with a love of grime. Everyday environments such as a noisy college corridor or a busy street become unbearably loud to Ethan, and difficult to handle. To cope with the overwhelming unpredictable sounds, he tries to block out the noise by wearing headphones, isolating him from other people in his class. Written in the form of a rap and channelling the emotions he is unable to express, he explains to his classmates his hypersensitivity to sound.

Set against the backdrop of his music Ethan’s film takes the form of an immersive journey to his college, artistically and visually depicting the plethora of overwhelming sounds that he encounters along the way.

Ethan and Chris presented his film to his classmates, friends and family in a unique 270° degree Screen X immersive cinema. He was originally captured with a 360 degree camera to help give the impression of seeing the world from his perspective. This material was then combined with hand drawn illustrated and animated elements, designed to echo the style of Ethan’s original sketches captured during one of the early design consultations.