Autistic Creator from Sri Lanka is featuring at Spectrum Fest!
Dominic Brendon Perera is an 18 year old from the Island of Sri Lanka. He was diagnosed with autism when he was three years old. He saw everything through his own world in his mind in the form of colours and shapes and art and sound in particular always delayed to reach his mind. He focuses on movie making, video editing, creating music, special effects and authoring even more.
He finds online work as a designer or video editor hard to find as it is very difficult to find work in his country since they do not employ Autistic young people. He is a firm believer in inspiring and motivating other children with Autism. He wants to expand his autism and mental health advocacy efforts and reach more people through using his skills and offer his voluntary services toward making a difference. Lego has been a very big part of developing his creativity and so through his Lego movies he wishes to encourage parents to let their Autistic children use Lego as it is very therapeutic for them as it was for his and can make them shine
Dominic uses Lego as the main medium in his films, and I had a lot of questions to ask him about his original work.
First let's hear about your film! What's the title?
The Relic Hunter the X Masters Saga
Can you give me a short description of your film?
It is based off my novel the Relic hunter x masters saga and is about a team of Autistic teenagers with special mind powers led by their mentor Denvore Grey, they fight the evil dark lord Afanasie using powers of light
What made you want to make this?
I wanted to do this specially to inspire Autistic kids as they love when lego comes to life and also because my novel is about Autistic young people with high senses and powers, to give them a special voice in this world
How did you get into stop motion filmmaking?
I was 8 years old when I first began stop motion, I used to design on minecraft a lot and one day something just clicked and I decided I wanted to make lego mini figures move like in a movie so I studied it on minecraft and that is when the ideas came flowing into my mind
What other creative work have you done?
I am a video editor, am into special effects in a big way, an amazon author in which I illustrated and wrote two children’s books and also wrote the novel due to the high sense I have and realised other Autistic kids also have the same gifts, I am also a graphic designer
What’s your favourite thing to make stop motion films about?
I love lego, I love that lego that inspired me to become creative and excited about designing and I love taking the time to making sure every movement, special effect editing etc goes into producing a professional result to make other kids happy
What’s been a highlight of your work on youtube?
The views naturally, and the fact that my audience appreciate the effort put into making the movies and also it has motivated me to do more movies. For me, having nearly 2,000 subscribers means a lot to me and I will continue to make better original lego movies and share them with foundations abroad.
Here is a link to Dominic’s youtube channel
And to his book!
You can see his film tomorrow at our Spectrum Fest main event - 1pm at Concordia’s DeSève Cinema! Click here to get your tickets!