Deconstructing the Journal

By Callum Brown

I was told by my physiatrist to keep journals during my time in depression, I still don’t know why. I re-read these journals several times, and lent it to my group to read also, so they could try and understand what I was going through, as I was trying to create a script. Now 2 years is a very long time, and a very long story to tell, but cutting it down into 2 minuets whilst trying to make the narrative and characters understandable and relatable is a very hard job. When we decided to do this as a film I was a little scared about dipping back into the darkness, but I was also exited to tell my story, however now I felt trying to make this into a 2 minute film was going to butcher it, but I sat down and wrote it over a few weeks none the less.

Deciding what part to use, combine or discard is a very daunting task, every time I edited it down I felt like I was throwing pieces of my life away, like they never happened, like I went through that for nothing, this was me getting to involved and dipping into that place again, I could feel it, I knew I just had to get this over with and the rest of the process would be easier, I hope. However my decision relied on what would work on film, what parts I could tell, and what were sometimes the hardest parts. Often I would read a section and it related far too much to a friend, and that part I could not tell, as I simply didn’t have time to build more than one character realistically, so I decided to stick with telling my story the best I could in the time frame, and using the signature moments that told it best.

With so much more to tell it’s almost a shame to discard so much, and even the script I have written I feel will be far too long. I do intend to make this film in its fullest if I ever have the time and budget to make a full feature, as I think I easily have the material, characters and events to make it a very in depth look at depression and self harming. With this film I was simply have to accept that I will try and tell this story in a much shorter time frame, I was interested by the first 10 minutes of ‘UP’ as they managed to tell a incredibly emotional tale of a lifetime in only 10 minuets. I have completed a script I am happy with, although with more time I know it can be better, but with the requirements given I think it’s the best it can be.

I found the script very difficult to write, I even found myself calling myself 'x' as I still find it hard to completely come to terms with all that I did, I decided not to use any dialogue, as through my research I have discovered that it often makes a story more emotional if you simply tell it through imagery and sound.