Story
An internal struggle with moral compass in a teenage pregnancy situation.
Theme
Sometimes what you feel like is the right thing to do, may not be.
Process & Research
I wanted to do a story about internal struggle. Because I feel that all of us always go through moments that we wish decision making could be easier.
I wanted my 2 characters to represent two parts of myself – the logical and illogical one, essentially the one who thinks with her emotions and the one who makes rational decisions.
So I intended the 2 characters to be based on the 2 opposing voices in your head when you need to make an important decision.
Logical one – Personal persona
Illogical one – Joanne
It started off like this, but as the story progressed further into my thought process, I realised that the scenario of teenage pregnancy could bring a very controversial view of what’s logical and what’s illogical to do.
Hence, I wanted to bring along a deciding factor that would allow the audience to also understand the “me” character a little bit better and ultimately the decision that she makes.
Characterisation
Juno (whom Joanne is inspired from):
Character -Interior – biography:
Juno is 16 years old when she got pregnant by her friend, Paulie Bleeker.
She considers an abortion but on the way to the clinic, she met her schoolmate who was protesting against abortion by herself.
Juno decides to leave after her schoolmate shares with her how the baby’s fingernails have already started forming inside her. She decides against abortion and also starts looking for families who wish to adopt a child.
Character – Exterior:
Goals/Needs: She wanted to find a good and loving family capable of taking good care of her child.
Professional: Student.
Personal: Juno finally accepts the fact that she is in love with Paulie. They get together in the end.
Private: A very free spirited person who goes with the flow of life. She has a very chill persona and she tackles her problems one step at a time. She is guided based on her logical side more than her emotional side.
My Personal Friend (who also inspired Joanne’s situation):
Her personal story with teenage pregnancy:
She was unwilling to abort the child as it was approaching two months when she first discovered she was pregnant.
She had started to really experience the symptoms such as the strong food cravings, lactation and also, her hormones started to kick in maternal instincts.
With her scheduled appointments with her gynaecologist, she was more and more sure with the fact that she wanted to keep the baby.
Quote: “I can feel him/her being a part of me already.”
One BIG problem with the situation was the father of the baby. He was not dealing with the pregnancy very responsibly and instead, his mother was the one who suggested that she would take care of the baby.
He was unemployed and did not do anything much to prove that he wanted to keep the child.
Without the support system from him, she decided to go ahead with the abortion.
Character – Exterior:
Goals/Needs: Wants to find the correct decision as to whether she should keep the baby or not. On one hand, she doesn’t want to abort because she feels connected to her child but on the other, she knows she can’t keep it for the sake for her and her baby’s future. I think she also wants to find comfort in her decision making.
Professional: Student.
Personal: Bad relationship with father’s baby.
Private: She often uses her emotions to handle situations more than using logical reasonings.
Mother
Character -Interior – biography:
My mother is 45 years old, and she is currently a General Manager in a IT company. She is a single child, who supports her mother, who single-handedly took care of her when she was young. Her parents got divorced when she was 16 years old, and it’s always been her and her mum since then.
She’s a straight A student who graduated with a degree from NUS. She then came out to go into tour guiding where she met her first husband (my father).
He was 9 years older than her, and they got married hastily for they wanted to get a house together. They had 2 kids, with a 3 year gap between them.
Eventually, things weren’t right and they got divorced. She moved the family (her 2 kids and her mother) into a flat, while she dated another guy and often stayed over at his place.
After she transitioned from tour guiding to getting to the IT company, she was suddenly told she had to be sent abroad for a few years to handle the company business from there. So she left for 5 years to Hong Kong, while her family continues to stay in Singapore. They only saw her during the holidays.
She eventually fell in love with one of her colleagues who was working in Hong Kong as well and they dated and in the end, they got married and came back to Singapore to reunite with the family.
Character – Exterior:
Goals/Needs: To build on her family relationships.
Professional: General manager at IT company.
Personal: Divorcee. Currently remarried, and living with her family consisting of her mother, her daughter and her 2 sons (one from the previous marriage, one with her current husband).
Private: Very headstrong and independent woman. Career driven in the beginning so as to provide for her family and she was also unsupported by alimony. Now she sees more value in working on her relationship with her family.
Story
I painted the scenario of Joanne’s mother as one that was absent throughout Joanne’s life.
I wanted to make it seem that it was the reason why Joanne decided to go for the abortion, because she doesn’t want to end up like her mother who was absent, for the child.
You can say that this is somewhat inspired by real life experiences, where I have first hand experience of not being really close to my mother because she was initially always busy with work. And most of all, this made me feel like I personally would never like to be an absent mum as I would like to be involved in my children’s life.
During my own personal discussions with my friend during that period of time, we talked about how she would support her baby if she were to have it. And she said she would have to work very hard to be financially stable for the baby, which would involve a lot of time, and she would need to have her own mother or her mother-in-law take care of the baby. This meant that she would eventually be an absent mother in this scenario.
I think the elements of my friend and my mother’s influence can definitely be found in my story.
Storyboarding
Initial script:
I thought of an interrogation scene when I was thinking about this story of internal struggle. And I am strapped in a chair, forced by my alter ego to make a decision I don’t want to make.
My alter ego comes from a voice seemingly in front of me, but it’s just an overall voice. The voice inside my head screaming at me to make a decision soon.
Which is why I felt that an interrogation scene might be the best to portray that.
Final Storyboarding
After the critique session, I wanted to introduce an alternate way to tell the story (as recommended by Ru Yi).
In this story, I wanted to situate the setting in the girl’s bedroom. Because in this setting, you can see the hints for her age.
For example, the walls will be plastered with boy band posters and fairy lights hang from her bed frame. She will be seated on her bed with floral print bedspreads, wearing an old school t-shirt with fbt shorts.
All these misc en scene details will bring the idea of the pregnancy announcement to one that relates to teenage pregnancy because it hints at the girl’s age and interests. This also allows us to introduce the character and also present some evidence (or lack thereof) that hints at her at her relationship with her mother. Perhaps at her beside, sits a photo of her and her family such as grandmother and brother but not her mother.
Her mother is contacted through a phone call to be informed of very important information, and it’s a very unstable connection because she is overseas. That shows the physical distance between the two characters already, and perhaps on their relationship as well.
Joanne’s mother is also seeming very busy with her work and is only basing the conversation off the idea of it being potentially important, if not she would just hang up and do her work.
Because of the inability to hear what Joanne is saying because of the poor connection, it shows a even bigger distance physically and emotionally between the two characters as well. Emotionally because her mother is not bothered to try to listen to what important message Joanne has for her. She is instead more concerned on how she is already late for her meeting, which proves her priority of work over her daughter.
To tie this back to my character development, Joanne is definitely one who is afraid of work commitments taking over her time that she can spend with her children. This fear is rooted from how her mother treats their relationship, where she often compromise over work.
Joanne realises that if she were to keep her child, she would have to work hard like her mother, not being able to spend time with her own children, which ultimately tips the scales of the decision made to be abortion.
Overall, I wanted the audience members to feel for the character Joanne and also pose the question to them:
Was it a right decision she made?