At first I wasn't sure whether I wanted to make a short film or a documentary. This was because I felt that I had a lot of narrative ideas however wasn't quite sure how to put them into such a short film, and I also had people willing to talk to me about their experiences with dementia so thought this would be good material for a documentary. However, after some thought I decided to make a short film because I wanted to create a narrative about dementia instead of just having people talk to me about it because it would give me more room to be creative with my storytelling.
STAGE ONE
Once I had completed my first lot of research, I had loads
of ideas, small scenes and quotes of dialogue in my head for my short film,
however I couldn’t put them into a well-thought out narrative. As a result, I
wrote down as many ideas as I could remember on paper and in the notes page of
my phone so that I could come back to them later for reference. I then used the
Google software ‘Mindmup’ to create a mindmap and log any ideas that came to me
in terms of the actually narrative itself, as well as technical elements of filmmaking
such as locations, characters, cinematography, mise-en-scene and themes. I then
printed this off so that I could add any more ideas that came to me when I
didn’t have access to a computer.
After doing some initial research of dementia and
brainstorming ideas, I came up with my first narrative idea. This was just an
outline of what I wanted my story to be about, and didn’t taken into
consideration cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing our sound or the research
into other short films and television which I had begun to look at as it was
just my initial thoughts. Once I had edited it several times and was happy with
my idea (below), I sent it to a friend who is studying television for some peer
feedback. I asked her to read through it and make notes of what she liked, what
she didn’t and importantly whether she thought I was being too ambitious with
my ideas and, having the experience and knowledge she does, did she think the
practicalities of actually making the film in such a short time period and on
this small scale mean I wouldn’t be able to achieve this idea to its fullest
potential. I have underlined and highlighted her notes.
MY INITIAL IDEA
“Gen is a
busy, single mum from Yorkshire. Her Father has dementia which is progressing
quicker than expected and although she visits him as much as possible she feels
guilty for how little she sees him when he is slipping away.
Whilst
walking/running through the park on one of the few days off she has had this
month, she takes her phone out of her pocket to see a reminder on her phone.
“GO SEE DAD”, it reads. Guilt washes over her, realising it had completely
slipped her mind to go and see him whilst she has the time to do so. She goes
to see Henry, her father, and arrives to find him sitting in the corner of the
living room, television off, curtains closed, looking distant. A care assistant
she doesn’t quite recognise is busying herself straightening pillows, she opens
the curtains and light pours into the once dim room.
“Hi Dad” Gen
says, with no response. Disheartened she stands hesitant at the doorway. The
care assistant gives her a sympathetic look as Gen follows her into the
kitchen. Plates are piled high in the sink and there is a half empty can of
beans on the side.
“How long has
he been like this, so vacant?” Gen questions. The care assistant sighs, and
reassures her not to feel guilty for ‘having a life’.
Gen goes in
to see Henry. Bending down next to him, she sees he is holding a closed dusty
book on his lap.
“What’s this?”
She asks, her eyes pleading for a response.
“Photos” he
mumbles almost audibly. At this point the care assistant enters the room and
tells Gen how she found Henry looking for it in the cupboards when she arrived.
“Shall we
have a look?” Gen smiles and opens the book. Henry stares blankly at it as Gen
begins to turn the pages and speak fondly of the photos.
“That’s me
and your mum” Henry’s face lights up as he sees a particular photograph, and
speaks in detail about the photo. He is almost a different person.
As he
describes the photo, the scene fades into the time he is talking about. Young
Henry and his wife, Jean, are seen walking down the seafront, hand-in-hand,
laughing about how bad the film was they had just been to see. The night is
drawing in, and as they reach the end of the promenade Jean thanks Henry for
the night and assures him she would definitely love to do it again.
The story
continues, which the narrative flashing between the present day in Henry’s
house and his life in the 1950s. Gen also speaks to Henry about her son Rob,
who is the same age as Henry was in the 50s, and sees the similarities between
her son and her father. (Would like to do comparison between young Henry and
Rob but think it would make the story too complex). POSSIBLY TOO COMPLEX FOR A SHORT
TIME FRAME.
Some
memories, of course, are faded and cut short as Henry loses his train of
thought. As time goes on, the memories get shorted and more inconsistent,
confused. (although this would be a
challenge, it would be a great way for editing and using distorted effects in
order to bring across the memories being upside down)Henry becomes
distressed as he cannot remember the things he wants to, and eventually they
close the photo album and Gen has to rush off to be somewhere. She feels guilty
for leaving him and doesn’t feel she knows him anymore.
Two months
later, Rob is at university, as Gen had earlier mentioned. (Need to somehow
symbolise that Henry has died) Maybe you could show Gen at the
same time and she could be gathering her father’s things together from his
house. Maybe she finds the photo album and opens the page to the picture that
you mentioned earlier then smiles to herself before placing it in the box.
Again would depend on timings but something for you to think about.
Walking with
his friends, Rob sees a poster for the Dementia UK memory walk on the notice
board near his lecture room. He tells his friends he will catch them up, and
reads the poster intently, before taking a quick photo of it and leaving.
Later back at
home, he sits on his bed and googles the memory walk. He finds one close by
looks at the image of his Grandad on his bedside, and signs up. – You may be able to address the narrative without even
using this little scene, so you could have a fade from telling his friends
about catching them up straight to the end scene of Rob and his mum.
The film ends
with Rob and his mum at the park entrance where the walk is taking place.
(Hopefully could be filmed on the day of a walk if we can find one in November)
– This scene sounds good! Just make sure you get prior
consent of any Run and if anybody will be seen in the footage (depending on the
rules of your college the participants will need a consent form just to cover
your own back.)
Gen tells Rob
how proud Grandad would’ve been of him, and the film ends with the camera
tilting up to the sky.”
STAGE TWO
After receiving
Lauren’s notes, I made my own adjustments and annotated my initial idea
further. Like I did with my mindmap, I printed off my idea so I could make
notes whenever I wanted to. For example, while on the bus I listened to some
music for inspiration and made some notes of how I thought I would bring my
idea to life e.g. the types of shots I would use, while still taking into
consideration the notes from Lauren. I also started making notes of any
elements of cinematography or editing which I see in film and TV and like the
look of, and storing these shots in an Instagram account (I have embedded this
in the sidebar of my blog so that I can constantly see it for inspiration as I
update it. In order to visualise my narrative better, I drew a rough storyboard
of what I imagined I wanted my opening scene to look like.
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| QUICK STORYBOARD OF INITIAL IDEAS |
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| MY NOTES/ANNOTATIONS, INCLUDING LOCATION IDEAS AND CINEMATOGRAPHY INITIAL THOUGHTS |
STAGE THREE
Now that I felt I had more of a
developed idea, I wanted to get feedback from someone who is effected by
dementia to see if they thought my idea was respectful and believable. I spoke
to another friend, also called Lauren, who’s Grandma has dementia and has grown
up with first-hand experiences of the effects of dementia on both the patient
and the family. I showed her my idea, and she suggested that I focus the
narrative more around the effects that dementia has on the patient and the
family, and less on the memory flashbacks because that in itself is quite
generic and doesn’t tell the audience much about dementia specifically. From
this I have decided that I want to interview Lauren for further research as her
insight into the condition will give me idea to create a more personal and
relatable story (therefore creating verisimilitude with the audience.)
I then used Todorov’s theory of
equilibrium as a basis to start to plan a new narrative based on what Lauren
has told me. I also started to consider who I would like to play certain
characters, if they were to appear in my final script.
I then took both this idea and my
originally idea to my teacher for some feedback. He gave me some questions to
answer in order to develop my plan further, as well as some further points of
research to look into in more detail.
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| TEACHER NOTES |
STAGE FOUR
From this I decided that my
narrative would display the effects of dementia through a journey through the
home of the dementia sufferer. The film starts at the end, with an establishing
shot of a house with a ‘for sale’ sign up outside. A woman and a teenager (her
daughter) are stood at the driveway. (Instead of having a male teenager like my first narrative idea, I decided that to have a teenage girl instead because stereotypically girls are more emotionally attached and sentimental than boys, also I know more female actors than male actors). They don’t say much, however the mum
reassures the daughter that ‘this is the right thing to do for everyone’. The
audience do not yet know what ‘this’ is. The mum and daughter would then enter
the house and see lots of removal boxes in the kitchen or the hallway. The
teenager says to her mum ‘it’s like he’s died’, implying that whoever’s house
it is hasn’t actually died, and they’re just moving out their belongings. An excuse
will then be made for the mum to leave the scene e.g. she has to go and put
some boxes in the car. The teenager would then walk through the house from room
to room and in each room there would be a memory/story of her Grandad, and the
further she got through the house the worse his dementia would get. For
example, in the first room (kitchen) there would only be slight early signs
that something was wrong, e.g. walking into the room and forgetting why he was
there, however by the time they get to the final room the memory will display
more obvious signs of dementia, for example he forgets who someone is or he becomes
agitated and delirious.
