How Mr Kaplin showed us what it's like to have ADHD

Like many parents during the pandemic, I developed a profound appreciation for what primary school teachers do in managing our kids daily. 

As many of us experienced between watching Tiger King and stocking up on toilet paper—an activity I never quite understood—home schooling proved to be bloody challenging to say the least. 

Making Discoveries 

After months of squabbling with my seven-year-old daughter Mia and driving each other up the wall, I realised this wasn't just pandemic stress – something deeper was going on. 

Mia was aware of the film we were making, so I’d casually ask her questions over dinner and sneakily record her answers on my phone. 

Following a chat with Mia's teacher, we started the long journey of getting her assessed for ADHD. During our visits with CAMHS, and hearing Mia describe her struggles, I had a lightbulb moment – maybe I had ADHD too.  

Eventually Mia was diagnosed with ADHD and I was told that I have an anxiety disorder from living with undiagnosed ADHD all these years…. which explained a lot! 

So, together Mia and I decided to create a short film to explore our mental health and maybe help others understand these conditions. 

The film 

I wanted Mia to narrate the piece, and potentially even write the dialogue, because it was crucial that it felt authentic. After researching how organisations like CAHMS diagnose ADHD, I decided that interviewing Mia would be the most effective approach. 

I decided to challenge myself by developing 2D hand-drawn animation overlays, as I had little experience with it and thought it would add a childlike feel.

Mia was aware of the film we were making, so I’d casually ask her questions over dinner and sneakily record her answers on my phone. Sometimes while doing arts and crafts, I would ask her to draw her answers, which inspired some scenes in the film.  

I wanted the film to feel like it had ADHD, with random thoughts, cutaways, and distractions. I edited Mia's answers in various ways without including the questions to make it more scattered and random. Knowing that I could ask the simple question “What does it feel like to have ADHD?” at the beginning, very quickly we had our narrative.  

For the visuals, in addition to using Mia’s drawings, I drew from my own experiences and searched the web for memes and others' thoughts on ADHD. The goal was to create content that felt somewhat universal.  

My work already has a minimal, abstract, and youthful quality, which made the development process straightforward. The colour palette, character design, and animation style were established quite quickly. Using tools such as Cinema 4D, Redshift, Zbrush for certain elements, and Adobe After Effects, I began constructing various scenes and integrating them one by one into the narrated timeline. During this process, I realised a few scenes felt too specific to my own experience and removed them to make sure the content felt more universally relatable.   

Many people think ADHD is just about not being able to sit still. But it's way bigger – it causes anxiety, makes you blurt things out, and swings your moods around. 

I decided to challenge myself by developing 2D hand-drawn animation overlays, as I had little experience with it and thought it would add a childlike feel. I quickly learned Procreate Dreams and created most of the animations frame by frame on my iPad. Mia assisted by drawing the first frame of some overlays, which I then built upon. It was a lot of fun.  

After completing the animation, we were pleased with the film but noticed the sound quality was poor due to subpar recordings. We then collaborated with Box of Toys audio, who welcomed us to their studio. This created a relaxed environment for Mia to comfortably re-record her dialogue, and they also produced great music and effects.  

The creativity connection

Making this film really opened my eyes about both me and Mia – helping me see what's just us being us, and what's the ADHD talking. 

I've often experienced task paralysis without knowing why. Once, I had a meltdown because someone asked me to design a character. I love designing characters, but being asked to triggered panic. Until recently, I didn't understand this reaction.  

Many people think ADHD is just about not being able to sit still. But it's way bigger – it causes anxiety, makes you blurt things out, and swings your moods around. Without knowing you have ADHD, you might think everyone deals with this stuff. 

While neurodiversity is becoming more widely talked about - even to the extent it's become mis-labelled as a 'trend' - the depth of impact on individuals and their mental health is often overlooked.  

Mia and I both have minds that run a million miles an hour, and we're super creative. We enjoy creating, telling stories, having movie nights every Friday, and listening to music. Mia, now nine years old, has an impressive taste in music and films; thus, making this film together felt natural and enjoyable. This project not only rekindled some of my childlike imagination but also strengthened our relationship. 

Creatively this project has given me a renewed sense of purpose. While I’m unsure where this journey will lead, I want to keep making characters people connect with and get people talking about mental health and neurodiversity. Now when I see a stressed parent at the supermarket, I want to make something that reassures them it is okay to feel this way, others do, and they can seek help.