Story-telling Unit: Research into suicide, depression and character development.

It's really important in drama films to have realistic characters that react to situations in ways that the viewer can find believable. I have learnt from personal experience that films with characters in that perform acts that are greatly "out of character" can either be fantastic (and can lead to some amazing plot-twists and story-development) or absolutely terrible, and can ruin a characters likability. Therefore, I have recently been doing quite a bit of research into typical traits of depression and suicidal people.

I have used the internet to find a few websites which detail the symptoms of depression as a disease, as well as some of the common causes of depression and what can trigger it. I have found that a lot of cases of depression are caused by difficulties in life such as:

• Money troubles.
• Drug and alcohol addiction.
• Relationship problems.
• Loneliness.
• Unhappy work-life (Or lack of a work-life.)
• Bullying.

This research has given me a wealth of information to work with, as well as given me some reasons to make my films main character; Lucas feel suicidal. For the purposes of my film, I have chosen to make Lucas feel suicidal for several reasons, including the repossession of his car, loneliness, a recent loss of a job and lack of money (also a potential alcohol dependency). I believe all these problems when added together would be enough to cause somebody to feel extremely depressed in real life- perhaps even suicidal.

I originally wanted to call the suicide hotline; "Samaritans" so that I could actually speak with somebody that works with suicidal people in person so that I could get information on the condition of depression that way, but I understand the organization is extremely busy, and I wouldn't want to take any of their crucial time given the circumstances.

All in all, I think my research has given me a lot of information to work with. I feel like I have gained a small understanding of how suicidal people see the idea of ending their own lives (a form of escapism) as well as how I want my character Lucas to react in social situations, particularly with the secondary character; Jess.


I have also recently been generating my own ideas about why Jess would be so interested in assisting Lucas with his problems, and convincing him to not be so hasty when it comes to ending his life. My immediate idea was to have to two form some kind of romantic relationship over the course of the short-film, or have the Male/Female relationship being the reason for Lucas ultimately deciding to keep himself alive, but since then I have decided that is not the route I want to take with this film.
Typical Hollywood storylines tell of a damsel in distress being saved by a strong male character, and in my film we will see the exact opposite. The male character will be the weaker character in need of saving, while Jess- the female character will be the strong, independent character that has problems of her own, but is managing to deal with them. Since my film will already be ignoring the typical damsel in distress storyline, I have decided it will also ignore any potential love-storylines too. This will lead to Jess's motivation to save Lucas to be more about her sense of humanity as opposed to any particular attraction.