Tim's film lights up the world of OCD

Photo: JASON OXENHAM

LIGHTING UP THE DARK: Tim Hagan hopes his film will help remove the stigma of obsessive compulsive disorder.

A short film unravelling the fear behind a mental illness has been a life’s work in progress for Tim Hagan.

Mr Hagan made the film, A Life Less Travelled, for his honours degree in graphic design at AUT University.

The six-minute movie seeks to communicate some of the emotions created by obsessive compulsive disorder.

For him, it has been a very personal project.

Diagnosed with the anxiety disorder when he was 12, Mr Hagan has since been on and off several types of medication, which he still takes to help with his anxious thoughts and emotions.

He says although all experiences with OCD are different and the film is a subjective view, he hopes it will still speak to a broader audience.

The movie, filmed at locations around Auckland and edited in his apartment, is an imaginative sequence with a monologue over the top.

He hopes broadcasting it on YouTube may help to remove the stigma of the disease, which people often suffer with in silence.

"The more open it is, the less stigmatised it’s going to be," he says.

"I don’t know how much I’m going to be doing about it but as long as I’m adding something and not just sitting back.

"It doesn’t have to be all this dark, horrible stuff."

Mr Hagan has been working on the film for the last four months as well as working as a graphic designer.

Making films has always been his passion and his hobby, he says, and fitted in perfectly with his idea to go back and do an honours degree at AUT.

Deciding to make the film was the first time he had opened up about his illness.

Until this year, he says, only family and a few close friends knew about his OCD, and telling his university class about his project brief was a daunting prospect.

"I remember my first day of uni, I didn’t know anyone there," he says.

"No one really knew what OCD was."

But he says it’s been liberating to talk about it and people have been understanding.

"It’s quite a relief," he says. "I think I was afraid for no reason."

A Life Less Travelled will be screened at Galatos in Newton as part of the AUT graphic design exhibition, Line Dot Line.

The screening is this Friday at 6pm.

For more information on the exhibition visit www.linedotline.co.nz.