Final Year at University

From this point onwards until next July, almost all of my posts will be directly related to my final year of study of animation at the University of Huddersfield. For this final year of study I have been given a completely open brief. I intend to produce a short animated film, somewhere between one and three minutes in length, however the first hurdle was to find a subject matter that would keep me interested for long enough.

The starting point that I have chosen came to me whilst I was reading a book on the subject of Masks. In the prologue of the book the author describes,

"The story of the Masked Mexican wrestler, who defends the rights of the impoverished. When thugs come to evict them from their land in the slums, he shows up in his mask to defend the poor and chase away the debt collectors".

Upon reading this piece of text last spring I became immediately excited and had to tell all of my flat mates about this amazing man living in Mexico City. His name is "Super Barrio Gomez" or more commonly "Super Barrio".
He seems to be something of a modern legend and it is easy to find information about him on the Webb, but like any legend I found that the information in the first piece of text that I read about him might be a little exaggerated. It turns out that he is a protester who believes his message should be put across without the use of violence. So this destroys the Zorro Esq images in my mind of him forcefully chasing away anyone who intended to cause harm or take advantage of the disadvantaged.

However even though my research has turned up some narrative hurdles, it does not change the fact that when I first considered using "Super Barrio" as the starting point for my final year of study I felt sparks/lightning/thunder, whatever you like to call it. I believe that the subject matter will be enough to keep me focused for the next 8 months.