THE WORST AND THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. THE SHORT MOVIE

THE WORST AND THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. THE SHORT MOVIE

THE WORST AND THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. THE SHORT MOVIE

'Autobiographical narratives are spaces where an individual's private stories are offered for public consumption' (Govan, Nicholson and Normington, 2008).

'The worst and the best days of my life' is the film adaptation of the play 'Gift: and now what?'—the story of a mother and a child living together during the lockdown in London in 2020.

Although the original story is widely autobiographical, I encountered a challenge in adapting the play to the film while keeping fidelity to the source material. Whilst filming, I had to adjust the script to suit the actors who participated in the project: the child's character changed into a dependent grandfather, and, consequently, the mother became the daughter.

The film keeps the Brechtian influence of making the audience think. Using an autobiographically inspired theme of an event shared worldwide by everyone. The theatrical performance and the film make the audience reflect on family relations: how those changed during the lockdown (and possibly how different those interactions are still after the lockdown). I present three main elements inducing the switch of the relations in a household:

  1. The prolonged use of screens by family members.
  2. The monotony/apathy/routine of the lockdown.
  3. The lack of social interaction.

I use this opportunity to expose actions/consequences associated with these elements; for example, cyberbullying, alienation, isolation, and a fall in family interactions linked to family members' prolonged use of screen time. I apply the MacGuffin technique in this film, following the path of one of the greatest film directors of all time, Alfred Hitchcock: the computer is a crucial element for the grandfather, appearing in most of the scenes with it, while the phone, in a relatively distant plane, is for the mother.

The adaptation of the play to the film allows me to research Realism, Stanislavski’s technique, Method acting and the link between autobiographical performances and improvisation while deepening my knowledge of photography in filming and techniques of filming to keep the narration alive.

The film, 'The worst and the best days of my life' seeks the maximum exponential realism possible, employing Stanislavski’s technique and Method acting.

'Autobiographical performance is a distinct mode of working with an emphasis on a self-reflexive, creative methodology which itself has implications for the formal presentation and reception of the work in terms of framing of intimate content' (Govan, Nicholson and Normington, 2008).

In the film adaptation I have introduced the ‘fourth wall’, the audience peering on the events happening in the screen.

Frames are very tight, giving the audience a sense of confinement and making them feel like they are in the same room as the film's characters. The feeling of confinement helps to raise tension in the movie.

The film directed by Harold Ramis, 'Groundhog Day' in 1993, inspires the use of repetition and monotony in the movie. Understanding the audience's external situations of the mother and the child will help those members who had a similar experience to recognise themselves in the film, and those whose experience was different will be able to empathise with the characters. The audience can recognise the use of simple visual notes, which will evoke the idea of monotony and the sense of apathy in the mother's nature and the internal struggle both characters experience.

In the film, 'The worst and the best days of my life', the repetition of the same actions (waking up, making coffee, washing her face) elicits the idea of time passing and monotony.

The idea of monotony induces the idea of apathy in the mother's character and the internal psychological fight both characters, the mother and the child (grandfather in the film), fight on different grounds. On the contrary, the idea of repetition disappears in the play as each character takes turns to tell a story that is not completed (following the style of epic theatre). Each character presents glimpses of an unconcluded situation. The film's audience watches a case with a beginning and an end.

Despite being the film the adaptation of an autobiographical play, not all elements in the film are autobiographical; there is a grey area in between truth and fiction in this film. To create the character of the mother/daughter, I followed Stanislasvki’s seven questions, to determine the previous circumstances of my character, her objectives and obstacles and her relationship with the time/space frame and between her and the other characters. I used ‘the Stanislavski’s if’ to create more realism to the portray of the mother.

Applying method acting, I delved into my own memories, thoughts and feelings to depict the mother’s character: The caregiver who needs to be cared. This character represents the strong broken character, wearing an imaginary mask (please read more about this topic in this link) to give support and reassurance to her father while being in need. Working with the idea of representing two opposite emotions (courage and fear and determination and torment) I set the different spaces where the mother puts on and takes off the mask (in the sitting-room, bedroom, at any time in the presence of her father and the kitchen, the bathroom and her sofabed).

I had the privilege to count with the collaboration of my father as the father/grandfather. My father is an amateur actor, and in order to build the father’s character, we worked closely with memory and improvisation.

I rewrote the scenes with the father in Spanish and adapted them to the new circumstances (not playing a child but a dependent father), keeping an element of shared memory my father could relate to and helping him play his character.

In the film, the grandfather is plain-spoken, allowing the audience to be closer to the character and the situations in the movie.

I used this website, https://www.incredibox.com, to create the film's entry and end video/animations. These videos/animations link the use of new social media apps with acting. These videos/animations represent the interaction with my son, the exchange of knowledge between us and the reinforcement of family relations: The time spent together and the bond between child and mother, using music to channel our internal feelings and memories and to connect.

The play went live on Tiktok. The film was uploaded in different platforms: Youtube, Tiktok and Instagram. Using those platforms to showcase the performance, I link the relationship between new social media platforms and theatre, conveying the idea of the poor theatre, defined by Grotowski as 'theatre is what takes place between spectator and actor', and the diffusion of performances in those social media platforms.

*Find the film here

*Find the script here

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*This is a project for my MA Acting for Stage and Screen at UEL, London (2022)

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