Waking up sleeping beauty

The story of sleeping beauty for me symbolises my journey with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I became ill with CFS following my granddad's death. I struggled to deal with my grief and my immune system became repressed.


 Image 1
This was the start of my CFS, the black petals symbolises the grief and darkness that I felt suffocated me. Melatonin the hormone that the body produces to regulate sleep was one of the many tablets that was prescribed to me.

Image 2
At times I felt I could have slept for a hundred years.

Image 3
The wheel symbolises the spinning wheel from Sleeping Beauty. This is also the symbol of the earth's cycle of renewal and rebirth.

Image 4
The light that you start to see in this image is the symbol of healing and overcoming the darkness of grief.

Image 5
Sleeping Beauty is awakening holding the healing light in her hands.

Image 6
Sleeping Beauty is awake.
Hands are seen as a symbol of power, strength and protection. Pink and white rose petals are used to symbolise Grace, gentleness, happiness, purity and innocence.

Waking up Sleeping Beauty plan

For my narrative image I decided to combine the story of sleeping beauty with my CFS.

Plan-

Hands holding rose petals

 White petals for - purity, innocence, security and 'I am worthy of you'

 Pink petals for   - Grace, Happiness, Gentleness and 'Please believe me'

The hands represent healing, they can also be a symbol of protection, power and strength.

I am going to also use a light source for healing. eg candle.

I am planning on making the shape of the spinning wheel out of black rose petals. 

 Black petals show death and farewell.  

 The spinning wheel is a universal symbol of earth's cycle of renewal. It is also the thing that puts sleeping beauty to sleep in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Sleep is our bodys natural way of renewing itself.

I will also include my sleeping tablets and pain killers in one of the images.

CFS

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) causes persistent fatigue (exhaustion) that affects everyday life and doesn't go away with sleep or rest. 

CFS is also known as ME, which stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis. Myalgia means muscle pain and encephalomyelitis means inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. Both CFS and ME are commonly used terms. CFS is a serious condition that can cause long-term illness and disability, but many people – particularly children and young people – improve over time.

It is estimated that around 250,000 people in the UK have CFS.

Anyone can get CFS, although it is more common in women than in men. It usually develops in the early 20s to mid-40s. Children can also be affected, usually between the ages of 13 and 15. 

Most cases of CFS are mild or moderate, but up to one in four people with CFS have severe symptoms. These are defined as follows: 

• Mild: you are able to care for yourself, but may need days off work to rest. 
• Moderate: you may have reduced mobility, and your symptoms can vary. You may also have disturbed sleep patterns, and need to sleep in the afternoon.
• Severe: you are able to carry out minimal daily tasks, such as brushing your teeth, but you have significantly reduced mobility. You may also have difficulty concentrating.

symptoms

There are other common symptoms as well as fatigue, although most people do not have all of them. They include:

• muscular pain, joint pain and severe headaches
• poor short-term memory and concentration, and difficulty organising thoughts and finding the right words ('brain fog')
• painful lymph nodes (small glands of the immune system)
• stomach pain and other problems similar to irritable bowel syndrome, such as bloating,constipation, diarrhoea and nausea
• sore throat 
• sleeping problems, such as insomnia and feeling that sleep is not refreshing
• sensitivity or intolerance to light, loud noise, alcohol and certain foods
• psychological difficulties, such as depression, irritability and panic attacks
• less common symptoms, such as dizziness, excess sweating, balance problems and difficulty controlling body temperature

All information is from the NHS website 

Other Disney films

The wizard of oz -

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the most well-known and commercial adaptation based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Notable for its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score and unusual characters, over the years it has become one of the best known of all films and part of American popular culture. It also featured what may be the most elaborate use of character make-ups and special effects in a film up to that time. 



Mary Poppins -

Mary Poppins is a 1964 American musical fantasy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney, with songs written and composed by the Sherman Brothers. The screenplay is by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, loosely based on P. L. Travers' book series of the same name. The film, which combines live-action and animation, stars Julie Andrews in the titular role of a magical nanny who visits a dysfunctional family in London and employs her unique brand of lifestyle to improve the family's dynamic. The film was shot entirely at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Throughout this film you will notice the bright, dynamic colours that are present in almost every Disney film. 

Walt Disney is known for his use of technicolour, he is always known for the fact in 1928 he made the first animated cartoon with sound.

Disney's Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney and based on La Belle au bois dormant by Charles Perrault and based also on Little Briar Rose by The Brothers Grimm. The 16th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, it was released to theaters on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Distribution. 

When a new princess is born to King Stefan & his wife, Queen Leah, the entire kingdom rejoices. At a ceremony, three good fairies - Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather - bestow gifts of magic on the child. But an evil sorceress named Maleficent shows up and places a curse on the princess - that she will die on her 16th birthday after pricking her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle. Merryweather turns things around by casting a spell that will allow the princess - named Aurora - to awake from an ageless sleep with a kiss from her true love. The fairies take Aurora to their cottage in the woods to keep her away from the eyes of Maleficent, and raise her as their own child, named Briar Rose. On her 16th birthday Aurora meets Prince Phillip, the son of a king whose own kingdom will soon merge with King Stefan's - and falls in love. Maleficent manages to kidnap the Prince and her horrible prophecy is fulfilled when she tricks Aurora into touching the spindle of a spinning wheel created by Maleficent herself. Realising that the Prince is in trouble, the 3 good fairies head to Maleficent's castle to free the Prince. The Prince soon finds himself up against Maleficent's army of brutes, and the power of Maleficent's evil spells - which include a thorn forest as thick as weeds around King Stefan's castle, and a fight against Maleficent when she turns herself into a dragon. The Prince then has to defend himself and get to his love, he does so and wakes Princess Aurora with true loves kiss. 

These images are shots from the Disney film showing the story, the 3 fairies looking over the baby, Aurora meeting Prince Philip for the first time, getting tricked into touching the spinning wheel, Prince Philip fighting to get to his love, waking her with true loves kiss and returning her to the castle where they will get married. 

My idea

What is my idea?
 For my narrative images I want to recreate the story of Disney's Sleeping Beauty but make it more modern.

Studio or location?
I plan to do this on location as I don't think it would work in the studio.

Any props needed?
This is undecided yet as I don't have every aspect of my idea sorted.

Timescale?
The deadline for these images is the 10th February

Technical aspects?
I will be shooting these images using a canon 600D and they will be in colour.

Test run of narrative images

In a group of four we had to come up with a idea for a image that has a narrative and tells a story. Our idea was boyfriend and girlfriend are meeting up, the boy has bought his girlfriend flowers however she found out that he's been cheating on her. So she has a bigger surprise she has a knife that already has blood on. This implies that she's already killed someone, the person he's been cheating with maybe...

However the image didn't work out as planned, it doesn't look real it doesn't look like this is how you'd meet up with your partner. We were also going to photoshop flowers and the knife into the image.