Monday, August 30, 2010
mY tHoUgHtS !!
A woman since history is an image of fertility, her womb is thus considered sacred. But this idea has become so strong and embedded in our minds that we tend to overlook the other side of the coin. My story is a journey into the mind of a woman who feels incomplete, empty and claustrophobic in the life she is leading. She carries the blame of being infertile. It’s a blame she is not responsible for but the world likes to tag her with the term infertile. By profession she is a doll maker and thus the story is told through her dolls. In reality she is completely helpless, but she is in control of these dolls just like a puppeteer who controls his puppets through the strings. She relates to them and narrates her tale through the dolls like a puppeteer narrates his story through his puppets. At various points in the story her visualizations, hopes, dreams and flash backs are narrated through the dolls. Her in acceptance in the society is always there as the world till date looks down upon a woman who cannot take the family forward. Throughout the film there is a delusion between what is real and what is a dream. So it could be visions of a traumatized mind and its maternal longings alternately it could also be a story in which she adopts a real baby and the doll becomes a metaphor for the child.
I managed to reach this concept after much research and much help from various people. My earlier story though on the same lines was becoming very linear. I realized much later how I had taken certain aspects in the film for granted. Like her finding the adoption house, the happy ending I was trying to project made the story a little superficial. I like the twist I am bringing about in my current concept. The ending now is ambiguous and the audience doesn’t get to know if she really adopted. I prefer the open ending, because that way I become less preachy and I do not want state anything. When I had visited an adoption house namely shishu madir, I discovered the complexities of adoption. Even if it a solution to a major problem, but the problems do end at that. I have read articles on parents who adopted and had a tough time to get to their children to accept them. Many of the children who are adopted are chosen at a particular age, and that is for a reason. The younger they are the easier it becomes for them to adjust into the new surroundings. The children get so very adjusted to the routine they follow at their adoption home that it becomes almost impossible for them to suddenly adapt to a new home. The change needs to come very slowly otherwise it could psychologically affect the child. Even for the new born, they get accustomed to the timings they are fed on and the kind of food, also the smell of their clothes and surroundings so much so that it becomes a problem if this routine is suddenly changed by the adoptive parents.
I realized that in my previous story line may be I was projecting adoption an easy solution to infertility which in all actuality is not. It is a solution no doubt, but this solution comes with its own set of responsibilities and challenges for both, the adoptive parents and the adopted child. Though my movie is about pre adoption rather than post adoption but I do not want to sell adoption as a rosy solution.
New script
Scene1/ setting-inside her room
Shot-1
Lighting: evening light
Camera: close up shot of the family album
Action: she opens the album.
Voice Over: Grandpa and grandma, I can’t imagine they ever looked like kids. They were always old for me, as if born that way. That is mamma, in my grandpa’s hands. So young and fragile. She was the favorite child of my grandparents amongst all the brothers and sisters.
Action: she moves her hand slowly on the photographs and then turns the page
Vo: ma and pa…. Picture perfect!
Action: turns the page
VO: That’s me behind pa. daddy’s daughter.
Action: page turn
VO: this is me and him, our wedding pictures. It was a beautiful wedding. (Voice becomes sad now)
Action: She turns the page..and the album is empty now.
VO: 5 years to our marriage and still these spaces are empty, just like me.
Shot2- Cut to - she is stitching dolls and as soon as she finishes making a pair, of a mother doll and a child doll she stuffs some cloth into the clothes of the mother doll (making it look pregnant). She glares at it for a couple of seconds, trying to see herself, through the doll.
Shot3- Then she looks at the child doll and caresses it and kisses it. Just when the doll comes alive and calls out to gauri “ma”. Gauri very surprised at the same time thrilled to bits.
Shot 4- Cut to shots of she having a picnic with the doll
Shot5- she combing her hair
shot6- towards the end she is playing around with a toy. . (The doll will do everything like a child does. It wouldn’t be like a mute doll, but will become an animated doll with all the appearances of a doll but behaving like a child. )
Shot7- The toy then slips out of her hands. She bends to pick it up and that’s when reality strikes her. She sits straight and realizes it was all a dream. She looks at the doll which is now lying around like an object and
Shot8- with all her fury and disappointment she throws the mother doll on the floor.
Shot9- Camera captures the mother doll. It falls with it’s head facing the floor and after a few seconds it starts weeping like a human, how gauri once must have cried. (Audio- sound of a woman weeping)
Scene-2/ Setting-inside her doll shop
Shot1- Downward pan from the sky till the window of her shop. She keeps the doll on the rack and sits down at the counter looking outside the window, waiting for the customers.
Shot2- Flash back
She is sitting inside a bus. Two women are sitting behind her. One says to the other. Meera your delivery date is due. You must take care of yourself and most importantly keep yourself away from all the evil eyes, especially of the ones who could not be as lucky as u.( looking at gauri)
It will be a tight shot, of gauri in the bus with two women sitting behind her. The two women will be blurred and a little vague visually but it will be clear that they are talking about gauri. Gauri’s expression of embarrassment will be captured mostly.
Shot3- Cut to- flash back- she and her husband at the hospital looking disappointed. (there will be a voice over of the doctor who tells the couple that gauri cannot conceive.
Shot4- Left pan of the camera- she is standing in her room seeing her husband go away with his luggage.
Vo- (in a man’s voice) you smell of the medicines now and remind me of the barrenness, something that I want to forget forever.
Shot5- The shot merges into the present and she smells her clothes and her body, with a tear trickling down her cheek.
Shot6- Suddenly the door opens and a small girl enters the shop. To gauri’s surprise this girl looks exactly like the doll she dreamt of before. The girl asks her to put some money for charity inside the charity box. The girl shows a newspaper cutting, advertising ‘ fund collection for the adoption house’. Gauri glares at the advertisement for a couple of seconds and then looks at the little girl, who by now is staring at all the dolls in the shop.
Shot7- Gauri smiles at her and puts some money inside the box, along with that she offers the same doll child to the girl. The girl becomes excited to see the doll which looks like her itself. She hesitates a bit but then takes the doll and runs out of the shop.
Gauri looks back at the advertisement kept on her table. The newspaper cutting merges into the next shot.
Scene3/ inside her room
Shot1-Merges into Into an album. Camera zooms out a bit and we see gauri is putting in new snaps of her and the same girl whom she adopted.
Vo: I learnt that Anahita suffered from a weak heart, one of the reasons why she was left behind by her birth parents and also why she didn’t get a family till now.
Shot2-Cut to- gauri and the daughter sitting at the porch of their house on a bright sunny morning. Gauri is combing her daughter’s hair.
Shot3-The camera follows gauri’s hand as she keeps the comb down and then the camera captures the comb only which now is a toy comb, with the yellow plasticy strands of a dolls hair.
VO: it was as if we were meant for each other. Both suffered from heart aches…. but not anymore.
This infusive deliberate confusion in the story as the entire sequence was a flight of gauri’s imagination or has she adopted a child in real life.
Shot-1
Lighting: evening light
Camera: close up shot of the family album
Action: she opens the album.
Voice Over: Grandpa and grandma, I can’t imagine they ever looked like kids. They were always old for me, as if born that way. That is mamma, in my grandpa’s hands. So young and fragile. She was the favorite child of my grandparents amongst all the brothers and sisters.
Action: she moves her hand slowly on the photographs and then turns the page
Vo: ma and pa…. Picture perfect!
Action: turns the page
VO: That’s me behind pa. daddy’s daughter.
Action: page turn
VO: this is me and him, our wedding pictures. It was a beautiful wedding. (Voice becomes sad now)
Action: She turns the page..and the album is empty now.
VO: 5 years to our marriage and still these spaces are empty, just like me.
Shot2- Cut to - she is stitching dolls and as soon as she finishes making a pair, of a mother doll and a child doll she stuffs some cloth into the clothes of the mother doll (making it look pregnant). She glares at it for a couple of seconds, trying to see herself, through the doll.
Shot3- Then she looks at the child doll and caresses it and kisses it. Just when the doll comes alive and calls out to gauri “ma”. Gauri very surprised at the same time thrilled to bits.
Shot 4- Cut to shots of she having a picnic with the doll
Shot5- she combing her hair
shot6- towards the end she is playing around with a toy. . (The doll will do everything like a child does. It wouldn’t be like a mute doll, but will become an animated doll with all the appearances of a doll but behaving like a child. )
Shot7- The toy then slips out of her hands. She bends to pick it up and that’s when reality strikes her. She sits straight and realizes it was all a dream. She looks at the doll which is now lying around like an object and
Shot8- with all her fury and disappointment she throws the mother doll on the floor.
Shot9- Camera captures the mother doll. It falls with it’s head facing the floor and after a few seconds it starts weeping like a human, how gauri once must have cried. (Audio- sound of a woman weeping)
Scene-2/ Setting-inside her doll shop
Shot1- Downward pan from the sky till the window of her shop. She keeps the doll on the rack and sits down at the counter looking outside the window, waiting for the customers.
Shot2- Flash back
She is sitting inside a bus. Two women are sitting behind her. One says to the other. Meera your delivery date is due. You must take care of yourself and most importantly keep yourself away from all the evil eyes, especially of the ones who could not be as lucky as u.( looking at gauri)
It will be a tight shot, of gauri in the bus with two women sitting behind her. The two women will be blurred and a little vague visually but it will be clear that they are talking about gauri. Gauri’s expression of embarrassment will be captured mostly.
Shot3- Cut to- flash back- she and her husband at the hospital looking disappointed. (there will be a voice over of the doctor who tells the couple that gauri cannot conceive.
Shot4- Left pan of the camera- she is standing in her room seeing her husband go away with his luggage.
Vo- (in a man’s voice) you smell of the medicines now and remind me of the barrenness, something that I want to forget forever.
Shot5- The shot merges into the present and she smells her clothes and her body, with a tear trickling down her cheek.
Shot6- Suddenly the door opens and a small girl enters the shop. To gauri’s surprise this girl looks exactly like the doll she dreamt of before. The girl asks her to put some money for charity inside the charity box. The girl shows a newspaper cutting, advertising ‘ fund collection for the adoption house’. Gauri glares at the advertisement for a couple of seconds and then looks at the little girl, who by now is staring at all the dolls in the shop.
Shot7- Gauri smiles at her and puts some money inside the box, along with that she offers the same doll child to the girl. The girl becomes excited to see the doll which looks like her itself. She hesitates a bit but then takes the doll and runs out of the shop.
Gauri looks back at the advertisement kept on her table. The newspaper cutting merges into the next shot.
Scene3/ inside her room
Shot1-Merges into Into an album. Camera zooms out a bit and we see gauri is putting in new snaps of her and the same girl whom she adopted.
Vo: I learnt that Anahita suffered from a weak heart, one of the reasons why she was left behind by her birth parents and also why she didn’t get a family till now.
Shot2-Cut to- gauri and the daughter sitting at the porch of their house on a bright sunny morning. Gauri is combing her daughter’s hair.
Shot3-The camera follows gauri’s hand as she keeps the comb down and then the camera captures the comb only which now is a toy comb, with the yellow plasticy strands of a dolls hair.
VO: it was as if we were meant for each other. Both suffered from heart aches…. but not anymore.
This infusive deliberate confusion in the story as the entire sequence was a flight of gauri’s imagination or has she adopted a child in real life.
mY tHoUgHtS !!
A woman since history is an image of fertility, her womb is thus considered sacred. But this idea has become so strong and embedded in our minds that we tend to overlook the other side of the coin. My story is a journey into the mind of a woman who feels incomplete, empty and claustrophobic in the life she is leading. She carries the blame of being infertile. It’s a blame she is not responsible for but the world likes to tag her with the term infertile. By profession she is a doll maker and thus the story is told through her dolls. In actuality she is completely helpless, but she is in control of these dolls just like a puppeteer who controls his puppets through the strings. She relates to them and narrates her tale through the dolls like a puppeteer narrates his story through his puppets. At various points in the story her visualizations, hopes, dreams and flash backs are narrated through the dolls. Her in acceptance in the society is always there as the world till date looks down upon a woman who cannot take the family forward. Throughout the film there is a delusion between what is real and what is a dream. So it could be visions of a traumatized mind and its maternal longings alternately it cud also be a story in which she adopts a real baby and the doll becomes a metaphor for the child.
I managed to reach this concept after much research and much help from various people. My earlier story though on the same lines was becoming very linear. I realized much later how I had taken certain aspects in the film for granted. Like her finding the adoption house, the happy ending I was trying to project made the story a little superficial. I like the twist I am bringing about in my current concept. The ending now is ambiguous and the audience doesn’t get to know if she really adopted. I prefer the open ending, because that way I become less preachy and I do not want state anything. When I had visited an adoption house namely shishu madir, I got in terms with the complexities of adoption. Even if it a solution to a major problem, but the problems do end at that. I have read articles on parents who adopted and had a tough time to get to their children to accept them. Many of the children who are adopted are chosen at a particular age, and that is for a reason. The younger they are the easier it becomes for them to adjust into the new surroundings. The children get so very adjusted to the routine they follow at their adoption home that it becomes almost impossible for them to suddenly adapt to a new home. The change needs to come very slowly otherwise it could psychologically affect the child. Even for the new born, they get accustomed to the timings they are fed on and the kind of food, also the smell of their clothes and surroundings so much so that it becomes a problem if this routine is suddenly changed by the adoptive parents.
I realized that in my previous story line may be I was projecting adoption an easy solution to infertility which in all actuality is not. It is a solution no doubt, but this solution comes with its own set of responsibilities and challenges for both, the adoptive parents and the adopted child. Though my movie is about pre adoption rather than post adoption but I do not want to sell adoption as a rosy solution.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)