Interview with (Anonymous)

I was approached by someone who has experienced loss in her family. She agreed to provide me with information regarding her loss given that she remains anonymous. 

How are you related?

“I am her cousin.”

What happened?

“From what I’ve heard, she went into the hospital complaining of an ear ache. She was really sick, got better and then was sent home. The following morning, her mother woke her up, and my cousin had no idea who the mother was. Was brought back into hospital and after a week she passed away after getting progressively worse. They were constantly getting referred to different doctors, as the others had no idea. The diagnosis came too late.”

How did her mother react?

“I don’t know her initial reaction because I wasn’t there. When I eventually went to see them, I saw that the mother was still in denial. This was probably because the funeral home was a two minute walk away, so the shock hadn’t really sunken in. During the funeral itself she was fine until after the cremation. It must have been the first time she cried and broke down completely.”

How did her father react?

“He was in shock the entire time. You could tell that he was overthinking every moment. He was the same at the funeral. I didn’t ever see him cry but you could still see how pale he was.”

Does she have siblings? How did they react?

“Yes she does, her older brother was very quiet. He goes to school overseas and came back for her funeral. He spent a lot of time in her room. He isolated himself a lot and you could see that he was very numb.”

“Her older sister appeared to be fine, which came across as quite weird. It seemed like it hadn’t sunken in for her even after she went shopping for her sister’s funeral clothing.”

“The little brother didn’t seem to realise what was happening. Since the funeral was open casket I remember seeing him throwing up after seeing his sister’s body. He had no idea how to react, as everyone in his family were displaying different emotions.”

How did the extended family react?

“Our grandmother cried a lot. There wasn’t very many different conversations around the topic, besides the fact that she died young.”

How did her close friends react?

“The only thing I saw from them was them in tears.”

Was there anything else, in terms of reactions around her death?

“Her school is a mile down the road. During the procession, there was a long line of people going from her house all the way to school. It was for everyone to pay their respects, it was quite amazing. All her teachers and other friends were there.”

After the Previsualisation Shoot

On Thursday, the entire DFSA crew went to 9 Colbrook Avenue to have a previsualisation photo shoot based on the first draft of the script. The purpose of the shoot was the following:

1) Orientate the crew to the location
2) Decide if the location was appropriate for the story.
3) Help brainstorm the lighting and camera options for the shoot at the location.
4) Execute the script to see if the plot and character progression were okay.

As a crew we left Farnham at 10:30AM, and arrived at 9 Colbrook Avenue at 1:00PM. From there we started shooting on my Canon EOS 7D because it had the closest possible specifications to the C300. Originally we had intended to shoot with the Sony EX3 but after hiring it out we realised that there was a 5.4 crop sensor on it which made lenses inaccurate for practicing with. Since Al and Jacob's priority was brainstorming and practicing ideas for framing, we chose to shoot with the EOS 7D. Callam acted as Thea, Charlotte acted as Yanna whilst I acted as Perlah. The shoot lasted until 4:00PM which was one hour earlier than expected.

From the previsualisation shoot we learnt the following:

1) Orientate the crew to the location

The crew managed to arrive at the location on time and without many issues. Most of us had paid £16.50 for a return journey from Farnham, which is expected of  location within Greater London. The commute between the station and 9 Colbrook Avenue was quite a long 15 minute walk, so we will definitely need to consider hiring a car out to transport our equipment for the bigger shoot.

2) Decide if the location was appropriate for the story. 

We found that the location was appropriate for the use of the living room. The scenes in which Thea and Perlah were involved seemed to suit the house well, however we found that the scenes with Yanna's involvement seemed a little bit out of place. Particularly because the house doesn't seem to match their lower-middle class status. We realised that the scenes where Yanna and Perlah are involved only required a kitchen and bedroom. Jacob and I offered our houses as an alternative location for these characters however we have yet to decide if this is appropriate, when the second draft of the script gets released.

3) Help brainstorm the lighting and camera options for the shoot at the location.

This was primarily Jacob and Al's responsibility and I will leave it to them to blog about this in-depth. However, from what I witnessed Al and Jacob were constantly discussing potential angles whilst keeping certain things in mind such as "not crossing the line," or how to depict dialogue or conflict.

When Charlotte was not acting she was given the opportunity to create notes on the soundscape present in each room. She also made note of the ambient lighting and potential issues that could be present for her.

4) Execute the script to see if the plot and character progression were okay. 

During the previsualisation shoot we saw a few issues with the character progression between Yanna and Perlah, as it seemed like mother and daughter were not close at all. This makes Yanna's death difficult to sympathise with since the story is primarily based from Perlah's perspective.

We weren't entirely sure about the approach towards Yanna's death, as it seemed too sudden. We felt the need to explain it more. It was decided that we want to use the heart as a visual metaphor to help explain this absence or presence of life.

On the other hand the relationship between Perlah and Thea was extremely close, which we really liked. We made note to keep that intimacy between the two characters however we felt that apart from the beginning there should be minimal physical interaction between Thea and Perlah. Besides that, their scenes helped us learn a lot more about Perlah.

I've relayed our feedback of the first draft back to Sam. We pressed on this idea of making Yanna more relatable as a character, and suggested that she is passionate and strong emotionally but has a physical ailment (such as a leaky valve or some other cardiac issue). Sam and I agreed on having a second draft completed for November 10th, so that we may present it for the assessment.