Process

Set in the near future, “Process” is a story about identity. Ruben and his daughter Adelaide are two interstellar photographers who travel the stars taking photographs of the alien planets they find. When I wrote the film, my goal was to make a relevant subject applicable in a high concept genre. The films protagonist “Ruben” (Bruce Jones) suffers with dementia an illness that affects millions globally but is rarely represented in high concept science fiction film.

Something which I attempted to incorporate early into the films development was to visually represent the illness and the devastating effects it has on not only the sufferer, but to the family members who have to care for their loved ones. I spent a lot of time researching stories of couples married for years, who had to come to terms with living with a mirror image of the people they had spent so much of their lives with. I took particular interest in the stories of children who had to care for their parents who suffered from dementia; this dynamic of role reversals is something that laid foundation to the screenplay.

I started to explore the concepts and themes of the film by asking myself “What gives a person their identity”. For me personally I came to the assumption that three overarching elements make up a person’s identity. I chose home, memory and family, through linking these three ingredients in a trinity I was able to keep a consistency to the films internal story. These three themes would play a crucial role in the film’s final scene. When we first meet Rubens character, unbeknown to him he discovers a imagined younger version of his daughter, this highlighted the first theme from my trinity memory. Even though Ruben does not remember Adelaide, something in his mind tells him that he knows this child.

Secondly I incorporated the theme of family, by including the scene in which Rubens memory is abstracted in the chair, showing a Christmas scene. Christmas is visually the signifier of family, and I knew this would be the clearest way to replicate the theme of family on screen.
Finally I incorporated the element of home by showing Ruben arriving with Adelaide at the ruins of their former home. At this moment in the film, the trinity of themes come together and for the final frames, Ruben rediscovers his identity, just for a split second. This was my intended pay off for the audience. In order to marry all the three themes I incorporated the camera prop. The camera acts as a representation of the brain and memory. Another reason for choosing the science fiction setting was that I believed that the fact the characters drift through space would replicate the brain and Rubens mental state.

I knew that I could not address this screenplay with heavy dialogue, dementia is a disease that breaks down communication, and it was my responsibility to replicate the communication and the relationship Ruben and Adelaide share visually. The silence of the film, adds to the continued effort to replicate the illness. I knew that the characters had to interact with the props and sets which would be used for the film, an audience needed to see some kind of communication between the pair and have some understanding of their culture. When Ruben and Adelaide plant the shrub on the alien planet, the pair are leaving their human identity on the alien worlds they discover. The plants symbolise Ruben and Adelaide leaving a part of their identities as humans on the worlds they find. The inclusion of the chair in which Ruben sits when he is subjected to previous memories is a direct reference to the electric chair commonly used for executions, this is to represent the “death sentence” a disease like dementia grants.

As a filmmaker I have attempted to bring dementia to a wider audience. I feel by exploring a current and personal subject matter I have created a genre film, which positively represents the struggles faced with dementia.

I hope you enjoy the film,
Scott Feast
Director/Writer “Process”