Bruises

Bruises is a short film by Savannah Kityo that I provided script supervision on. Working on this piece, I got to pull from my background in psychology, as it depicts the dramatic monologue of a woman, Loré, speaking to her therapist and relaying the events of the world around her, while avoiding the underlying issue of her avoidance and unwillingness to get into her own trauma. Because so much needed to be implicitly communicated about Loré, Savannah and I took the time to create a full psychological profile of the character. We dissected what building blocks would need to be put in place for a person like this to ensure her character on screen feels like a fully fleshed-out person to the viewer and that her trauma responses aligned with her persona.

Together, we streamlined the narrative and used the stories she brings up throughout the session to shed light on her need to insert and implicate herself in other people’s lives as a way to dissociate from her own. Here, the use of stage directions was imperative to deliver the message that Loré is uncomfortable with being an active person in her life, and not just an observant narrator of others. This took place in things such as her tone of voice varying depending on how personally removed or involved she is with a subject matter, her fiddling with objects or her fingers and her facial expressions to name a few.

You can read more about Bruises and watch an extract below.