Walk The Dog

Walk The Dog, the fictional tale of a young woman (Leah) who wishes everyone away, is based on my own experience of battling a period of declining mental health. Drawing upon feelings of emptiness, confusion, monotony, responsibility, anger and apathy I felt at the time, writing Leah’s story helped me examine and process my own problems, as well as my attitude to issues of abandonment and attempted suicide in my family.

These thoughts and feelings are not unique to me but are universal experiences sadly common to many people the world over, however it felt pertinent and personal for me to turn the script to screen, to make my short film debut encapsulating the journey of despair and delight, wishes and regrets that I had been on.

Being my first fiction film, I found the production and post-production processes a huge learning curve. One difficulty was marrying the demands of screen storytelling, such as clarity and consistency, with the subtly odd and confused world the film creates. Leah lives in the real world of greenery and sunshine where bullies sometimes speak the truth and sometimes good people don’t do enough to rectify a bad situation, but as the audience we experience the world through Leah’s eyes. As someone battling her own mental health issues Leah’s view of the world is skewed; noisy, intense, muddled yet routine and devoid. Some of the elements scripted and shot to highlight this blurring of the two perspectives, such as characters using props they had previously discarded, ended up looking more like continuity errors than purposefully crafted direction, so most of them ended up not making the final cut of the film.

Another difficultly was the use of subtly and symbolism. As a writer and director I love intrigue and don’t like to spoon feed audiences everything, thus giving viewers room to interpret or imagine things for themselves. However, I’ve found that on screen it’s very easy to be too subtle and have some of your backstory or characterisation missed. I wonder how many audience members will notice that there are no knives in the kitchen or that Rachel doesn’t wear a school tie due to the dangers they could present her? And how many people will clock that Leah feels alienated from her mother as Rachel is clearly the favourite with the mother wanting to brush Rachel’s hair despite Leah’s hair needing to be brushed? Will anyone pick up on the symbolism of the dog leash and the emotional restraints Leah places on herself? Much of this subtly and symbolism is still in the film but did I do enough as a director to point to viewers toward them?

Another frustration is one typical to all film productions I imagine, and that’s constraints of time and budget. Initially I had envisioned Walk The Dog to be a much longer story that further explored the relationship of Leah and Rachel and expanded on the role of Levi and The Man in the woods and his mysterious prophetic conversation. I would have also liked to explore more themes such as mental health and religion, but time and money only go so far so I had to keep the story and production to the bare elements of Leah’s story.

Where I feel the film has succeeded is in capturing a brilliant performance from lead actress Amy Lunn as Leah. Amy perfectly evokes the feelings of monotony and emptiness as Leah mourns her formerly happy family, and Amy soon turns those emotions to delight and eventually despair when Leah realises her wish for a world free of her sister, her family and responsibility is ultimately empty. I feel Amy’s ability to portray the regret that Leah harbours over her dealing of Rachel's attempted suicide whilst contemplating her own future on the beach are deeply moving and believable.