Fictional Adaptation - A Change of Plans

With the poem "If we must die" I did minimal research as I was eager to start on with the idea of a epic sacrifice, this was incredibly unwise, Mike spoke to me today about how the poem was written about during the "Red Summer".

The Red Summer refers to the summer and early autumn of 1919, which was marked by hundreds of deaths and higher casualties across the United States, as a result of race riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities and one rural county. In most instances, whites attacked African Americans. In some cases many black people fought back, notably in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The highest number of fatalities occurred in the rural area around Elaine, Arkansas, where five whites and an estimated 100–240 black people were killed; Chicago and Washington, D.C. had 38 and 15 deaths, respectively, and many more injured, with extensive property damage in Chicago.^[1]

Claude McKay's sonnet, "If We Must Die",^[40] was prompted by the events of Red Summer.^[41]


I have therefore decided it would be insensitive of me to carry on with the idea I had, I should have looked into the poem more before choosing it as my final idea.

I do not know how I could portray the poem in an accurate and respectful manner therefore I have changed the poem I will be adapting to "Do not stand above my grave and weep"

The idea I had for the story is as follows.

The day is cold, Owen has is in the Park with Dog, he is laughing and throwing a stick (distinctive stick) for Dog to fetch, Dog ignores the stick and instead chases after Owen, they play for a while before Owen gets a phone call.

They make their way home whilst Owen is on his phone distracted, dog crosses the road and is distracted by (something) he hears a screech and a thud, he turns around then starts barking he runs up to Owen who is laying on the floor unmoving. He sniffs at Owen then whines laying his head on Owen's chest. 

Dog is looking up at door whining, he scratches at the door and sits down, he barks once and a woman comes round the corner, she leans down and strokes Dogs head before opening the door, Dog bounds inside with his tongue out but is met by an empty bed. His face falls and he jumps up onto the bed sniffing before laying down and whining.

The women comes in with his lead and takes him to Owens grave, Dog sniffs and starts to tear up and whine, he runs off and into the woods, he ends up in the park, he looks down at something at his feet and whines again.

The woman is sitting in front of the grave, her hands covering her face as she cries, she pulls her hands away to see Dog with the Stick Owen had thrown in front of him, he nudges it onto the grave and moves over to the women and lays his head on her leg.

I really like this Idea, the main issue is having a dog being well trained enough to follow commands like that since my dogs are not on that level I considered animating the dog by hand. The more I thought of it the more I liked it.

To save time I will animate the dog at 12 frames a second, I tested out the idea of having the video portion as a timelapse to help show the time passing for dog and the woman, however I didnt like how it looked and decided to film it instead.

I made a shot list and my artist drew some designs for the dog, I wanted a specific look and not a cartoon dog so we went through a through iterations before we settled on one I liked.

In terms of sound design I want the video to be almost silent with only the sound effects, I may add a score in if I can find one I like that works but the lack of sound should work in my favour to create a lonely feeling with the audience.