Other ways to contribute

If you find leaving the house or having visitors too difficult I am more than happy to do phone/skype interviews. Or you can write an email and I will get an actor (which might just be me…) to read it out.

If you don’t want to be filmed then you can still contribute ideas….

1) In general, what I should include in my documentary – i.e. what you as a sufferer think would be useful for people to see.

2) My lecturer suggested I film myself to show what a good/bad day with FM actually looks like. So now I have to keep watching back videos of myself – so embarrassing! What sort of things do you all think is important to include here?

3) I also need to think about how to visually show difficulties to really get the point across to non-sufferers. Basically anything that isn’t just talking about the disease. Here are some possibilities:

– poems about or inspired by ME/CFS/FM

– personal photos or home videos – to show the difference the disease has made to your life (then and now)

– or (as suggested by a contributer) photos of things (especially small things) that make your life difficult or easier – e.g. not having a seat at a bus stop)

Anything that shows how you look vs. the reality of how you feel – trying to portray an “invisible illness” is a bit of a challenge!

Any ideas – send me an email!

anna.westland.14@ucl.ac.uk

role of contributers

Someone asked what I’d require from participants, so here’s what I said:

Ideally (and I know this isn’t going to happen!) to…

a) film a few people going about their daily lives, showing difficulties they have that maybe people wouldn’t expect/understand (getting out of bed, going shopping, opening jars) – I think showing this visually would help non-sufferers understand the problems better than just talking about them

b) follow them to support groups or treatments – partly to try and show how sufferers are trying to live normal lives and partly to show how they have improved (it’d be nice to have a happy ending)

c) interview them (and family/friends) about the illness, how it has affected them, how they have (hopefully) overcome some of the problems they’ve faced

M.E. and me documentary

Hi everyone!

I’m a Master’s student at UCL and am taking a course in documentary filmmaking. We were told to choose a subject that was personal to us, so as a sufferer of fibromyalgia, I decided to make a film portraying the difficulties faced by ME/CFS and FM sufferers, and also the perception of this disease by the public and health care practitioners.

I’m looking for subjects with the disease – I’d like to observe your day to day lives, and talk to you about the problems you’ve faced and (hopefully) how you have overcome some of them.

The film will only be seen by my lecturer and other students in my class (unless all participants want to make it more widely available!).

If you’d like to get involved or have any questions, send me an email.

Thank you!

Anna

anna.westland.14@ucl.ac.uk