UNIT 6- COMMISSION (EEEKK!!)

Today we were properly briefed on our last major project. After meeting Dr. Peter Klappa, the biology lecturer from Kent University, with his awesome personality, I started to feel a lot better about this project and have already come up with a few ideas. So we are challenged to produce our own, full length animation with all the Pre-production included (concept art, animatic, PreViz, etc). But apart from producing the animation we are also expected to handle this Unit with a more professional touch. Boring Powerpoint presentations will no longer exist. We will have to present our work with the most visually satisfying way we can, which will, of course, attract the audience's attention a lot more. The themes we can choose from are all related to threatening viruses invading the human body. We have 4 choices:

1) Infection by HIV

2) Making an Antibody

3) Fighting an Infection

4) I got flu!

After observing all the illustrations related to all subjects I am thinking of going for the first one because I like the hidden message behind it.

So what is the HIV?

"HIV is a virus that gradually attacks immune system cells. As HIV progressively damages these cells, the body becomes more vulnerable to infections, which it will have difficulty in fighting off. It is at the point of very advanced HIV infection that a person is said to have AIDS. It can be years before HIV has damaged the immune system enough for AIDS to develop."

 The Humane ImuneDeficiency Virus (or AIDS) has been spreading a lot more for the last years and is very common among young people, mainly because it's more likely to be passed sexually. I believe it's a very ambiguous topic to talk about, let alone depict it. After a short talk with Phil I realised how risky it is not to make this animation look too scary. AIDS is a virus a lot of people are infected with, it's not curable but that does not mean they lose their chance to live their life normally. Many have survived others haven't. This animation needs to show a human body being infected by this virus but not make it look like something which can change someone's life forever. 

"With modern HIV treatment, many people with HIV are living long and healthy lives. In fact, some doctors are hopeful that many people with HIV will live a near-normal life expectancy.
A lot of effort is going into making effective HIV treatment available to everyone who needs it. However, this is not always possible in some parts of the world. Without treatment, people with HIV will almost always eventually become ill, and their lives may be shortened.
Your best chance of staying well is to start treatment at the right time. To do this you need to know you have HIV. Many of the people who die from HIV-related illnesses in countries where treatment is easily available were diagnosed very late, often not until they were already very ill."

• Here are some notes I wrote down about this nasty virus during lecture:
• A virus is something between a living thing and a dead rock, more likely an alien creature that invades in a living organism and lives from it. In other words, a virus can only be developed and survive in a another body.
• What the HIV does when it infects a cell is that it's reprogramming it (changes the way it works).
• By using its RNA it intergrates itself into the blueprint of the of the cell (DNA) and uses it to produce more viruses which slowly invade all the ret of the cells.
• The virus can spend a lot of time in the cell and can come out whenever it feels like it, and then attacks all the rest of the cells. As a result, the immune system drops, which make the patient more prone to illnesses which slowly leads to death.

Some quick online images I found:

Here is a funny animation I found about using protection: