Fiction Adaptation (Poem Background and Visual Ideas)

For You Dear 

Friend // Anthony Anaxagorou

Background

For you dear friend tells the story of a broken character going through a wave of dark emotions like Loneliness, Self Loathing and Depression, but is told by someone (Anthony) that seems to have a connection with this person in the story. 

Throughout the poem these themes are touched on in manners that evoke questions in the mind of the reader. e.g. :

• Why does this person feel these emotions? 
• Why are they so detached from the “light” and so drawn to the “darkness”?
• Who is this person? Is it someone particular? 
• Could it be anyone?

The poem features a number of juxtaposing in words. Such as:

• “I know what it's like to wash your face and still feel dirty.”
• " I know what it's like to be loved and still feel hated."

These literary devices will be of good use when trying to bring the contrasts in this poem to light visually. 

My thoughts on the poem 

My understanding is that this poem is metaphor for what we become as we grow older. As a child there is a love, nurture and freedom that is guaranteed. But unfortunately this privilege wears off when we form into adults. Love is no longer guaranteed and all the feelings someone impacted on our lives when younger, we now have the task of impacting on ourselves. We become fully aware of things we were oblivious to and in a way it creates an opposite mind and being from that in an innocent child.  We become coins and have two sides, presumably one that is dark and the other light. In the case of the person in the poem the darkness seems to have taken over trapping them in an infinity of black and instilling in them the inability to see the brighter side in anything. I feel as though this character has gained nothing in all their doings and has only lost a piece of his or her self each time.

Visual Ideas
After a lot of brain storming and wider research I decided i want to adopt a certain look for my piece. I quite liked the image of a girl in the middle of the frame, a lot of distortion and symmetry. Because the poem features juxtapositions between good and bad, light and dark etc I want to replicate this effect in my visual by using colour to contrast between scenes. One can light and nicely coloured, with brights, warm lighting, subtle camera movements etc. Whilst the other will be washed out and gloomy. not highly saturated and dark imagery to really emphasize on the contrast in the words of the poem.

I found some pieces online and others that I love to show an example of how I expect my colour grading to look. In these images you can see a clear difference, in the colours, the set, lighting and frame size etc. I really like the way they played with their visuals. They both evoke feelings that you cant get from dialogue alone. The visual pieces really compel you towards the story thanks to colours, moods etc.