Bereavement

The Five Stages of Bereavement
Denial - Where the person refuses to accept what has happened. They continue to deny that they have lost their loved one forever and pretend that everything is how is was before their loss.


Anger - The person may blame other people for their loss and become increasingly agitated. There may also be strong emotional outbursts of rage where objects are thrown around or smashing of mirrors and photo frames to try and get over the loss.


Bargaining - With either themselves or with God. We try to take away the reality of what has happened and so we try to make a deal to rewind everything back to how it used to be.


Depression - Often the most difficult stage of bereavement to deal with and one that most people will go through. The person may feel dazed and confused along with a feeling of numbness. They may also burst into tears at any given time due to the overwhelming emotions. Other people may feel the need for an attempt so suicide because the are without the person.


Acceptance - When the individual realises that they must carry on without that person no matter what happens and that they aren't coming back. Energy and goals will return to the person and they try and carry on with their lives.

Moodboard - Despair, Loss and Isolation



Moodboard showing images which represent Despair, Loss and Isolation
 By Lorna

Despair, Loss and Isolation
Despair also known as hopelessness, is the feeling of no hope, that something can't be resolved or is inadequate and far beyond the point of optimism. The pattern of thinking is one of being in trapped misery.

Despair can take someone to a whole new place and level of depression. They don't feel any encouragement to go out or do something. Most people in despair will be in a place where they feel comfortable; for example their bedroom. More often than not people wish to be alone and away from the rest of the world.

The thing that can trigger despair is a trauma in someone’s life or an overwhelming loss of something close to a person.

A dark room is one of the most common signifiers for despair. The room has low key lighting and gives the feel of isolation. A small ray of light breaking through the curtains could signify hope. We are hoping to use this visual image in our short film.

About losing a loved one

Death and grief

*People react both emotionally and physically to death and grief. The feelings we usually associate to loss are sadness, worry, fear, shock, unprepared, confusion, anger and emptiness.

*Some people find they have trouble concentrating, sleeping and eating.

*People lose interest in activities they used to enjoy and often turn to alcohol.

*The intensity of grief may be related to how sudden the loss was and how you felt about the person.

Acceptance

*Acceptance is when a person agrees to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition without attempting to change it.

Bereavement

*The five stages of grief are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

*There is often a Numbness along with the mourning until finally the person lets go and accepts.

Treasuring Memories

*Treasuring the moments you shared with the person, for example remembering the places you went together with the person.

*You can remember a person by keeping items that belonged to them.

Personal Possessions which show the relationship between the two sisters could include:

Necklace - A heart shape to represent the love between the two sisters. Could be a necklace inscribed with their name(s).

Journal - Personal diary entries which could tell the story of the two sisters through one of their eyes. A note inside the journal apologising to the sister about a fight that they had.

Rose - Slowly withering and dying. Connotes the death of one of the sisters. No one lives forever.

Teddy bear - Sesisitive side of the lead character. She hasn't quite matured enough to accept her sister's death.

Camera -  This shows still moments of memories that are precious. It can connote the memory and the mind, by the things contained inside of it.

Good times in the past give you hope

*Past memories encourage the person of the good times they spent with their love one that’s passed away and it gives them the hope to carry on.


*Talking about the person can help accept the death of the person by avoiding the death of the person by not reflecting on them at all.

*Also, when a person loses someone they could consider looking up to the sky. This could represent the person looking towards brighter days despite the loss of a loved one.

1.     Alienation- Tend to close themselves off from everyone, since they fear further pain and rejection.

2.     Forsakenness- Individuals feeling alone in their time of greatest need.

3.     Uninspired- Unmotivated to do anything creative or enjoyable

4.     Powerlessness- One feels incapable of navigating one’s way toward desired goals.

5.     Oppression- The individual feels crushed or emotionally overwhelmed.

6.     Limitedness- Individual feels deficient, and lacks the right stuff to make it in the world.

7.     Doom- they feel as if their life is over.

8.     Captivity- can’t leave something because of the feeling of attachment.

9.     Helplessness- feels as if they can no longer live safely in the world.

Research into our Chosen Genre - Drama

Conventions and Narrative Structure of a Drama
Emotion - A very important part of a drama is the emotion which is projected onto the audience. If the audience is affected then the drama has done what it was intended to do.

Within any drama there is always different conflicts such as:
Man vs Self
Man vs society
Man vs Nature
Man vs Technology
Man vs Fate

Freytag's Theory - Freytag's Pyramid
Gustav Freytag was a Nineteenth Century German novelist who saw common patterns in the plots of stories and novels and developed a diagram to analyze them.

Freytag believed that every drama can be divided into five major acts or parts. These were known to be: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and finally Dénouement. They are also known as a Dramatic Arc.

Exposition: At the beginning of a film the exposition provides the background information needed to understand the story. Following the exposition is the focal conflict or problem which the story is based around; although this may not be clear until further into the film.


Rising Action: The initial conflict becomes more complex as other smaller conflicts become noticeable. These conflicts make the road of the protagonist more difficult and deters them away form reaching their goal.


Climax: The key turning point within the film where something could progress the story further or go terribly wrong. 


Falling Action: The point in which the climax is reversed and the conflict starts to diminish slowly.


Denouement: Also known as the resolution of the film where the conflict is finally resolved. The word denouement was derived from the French word 'denoer' which meant "to untie". More often than not this is the ending where the protagonist is better off than they were when the story was first introduced.

Freytag's Pyramid

Our short film will be using Freytag's Theory and it will be based around a young girl who overcomes despair.

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Each of these films are examples of dramas.

Brainstorms

(Above) The Wordpress Photo of the Year 2009. This photograph was our initial starting point. We used it to help us think of a suitable theme for our short film. Below is a brainstorm of themes which we have come up with based upon the image. It generated a lot of dark theme ideas such as sorrow, fear, despair, depression and poverty.

Defiance - Our initial theme was going to be defiance. To stand up against authority such as the government or the police force and to have your own say is a very powerful thing and we thought this theme was a good starting point.

Our chosen theme is Despair. Above is a brainstorm with our ideas about despair. From this brainstorm we decided that our chosen genre will be a Drama. 

We had a collection of things which could have gone wrong to the character including an illness, disability, family breakup,loss of family member/friend/partner, addiction and foster parents

We are thinking of creating a short film involving a young girl who loses her best friend and falls into despair but picks herself up in the end and looks to the future. We are going to use close ups of props which are very important to our main character. These include a teddy bear, a necklace, music box and journal. They will help tell the story of the two best friends.