Nobody Is Normal is the film that highlights the simple, yet often unspoken truth that we all feel like we don’t “fit in” one way or another.

The film captures the feeling of not fitting in - personifying insecurity as a monstrous creature that we keep hidden inside. The story follows a creature disguising itself in a human skin suit in order to appear like a “normal” teenager and fit in at school. However, they soon discover that things at their school aren’t quite as “normal” as they might seem. In fact, everyone seems to be hiding something inside.

The beautifully crafted stop-motion animation creates a surreal world for our story to unfold.

Complementing the visuals is the iconic Radiohead song “Creep”, which provides a melancholy ode to the outcast.

Our hero characters were brought to life in metaphorical ways that align with British descriptions of the range of topics covered.

Anxiety depicted as a tightly knotted ball, depression a looming cloud, body image a blob-like figure, and our LGBTQ+ character depicted as a brightly coloured rainbow figure.

To bring our quirky concept to life, we opted for stop motion animation which visually allowed the audience to suspend belief and focus on the emotion rather than the effects. This required creating a world for our story that was recognisable to our young audience as reality, but would also allow for more surreal story elements.

Over lockdown, sets were built on kitchen tables crafted with impeccable attention to detail and ingenuity of found materials to keep costs low. To aid the sense of unease, and further the stylised nature of the story, we nodded to B-movie horror films with jaunty camera angles and lighting.

We also decided to reduce the colour palette for the majority of the film to represent the monotony of normality – particularly in a uniformed school environment – which allowed for the vibrancy of individuality to shine through once the creatures were revealed.