Parallel Lives
Two boys, same circumstances, different responses. A motion picture exploration of depression.
For our video, we wanted to show how the lives of two individuals can be similar, yet wildly different at the same time. The main message is that while your friends might appear happy when they are around others, it might be an entirely different case when they are alone. From a technical perspective, we decided that a split screen format would be the most effective way to show this, as viewers could clearly see the contrast between the two lives.
In terms of mise-en-scène, we deliberately used the colour of our character’s outfits to visually represent their emotional state — white to represent happiness, and black to represent depression. Based on long-standing myths of colours (white is “good”, black is “evil”), viewers would be able to easily identify the characters even without knowing the context of the video.
In an ongoing effort to utilise the cognitive theories of memory, salience and culture, we decided to set our video in the average life of a university student.
The main reason behind this was the fact that our main viewership was going to be university students, and watching scenes that they themselves have been in would help in capturing and keeping their attention.
To ensure that our material complimented each other, we also included emojis — an element that was used in the first photo — to further emphasise the idea that people can easily create a facade of happiness online. This helps to solidify the message in both pieces, and creates a sense of cohesiveness between our material. Like all our other material, we also included words at the end, and using the persuasive appeal of pathos, it serves as a soft call to action for people to be more aware of friends who might potentially be depressed.
Music by:
Ether — Silent Partner (Creative Commons)
Special thanks to Fabian Loo and Lim Wei Hao as our actors.
