{"id":20733,"date":"2021-03-11T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=20733"},"modified":"2021-03-10T11:01:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T19:01:26","slug":"new-short-film-looks-at-camosun-students-experience-with-schizoaffective-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2021\/03\/11\/new-short-film-looks-at-camosun-students-experience-with-schizoaffective-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"New short film looks at Camosun student\u2019s experience with schizoaffective disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last month, the Victoria Film Festival trudged through COVID restrictions by going digital to make 50 full-length films and 23 shorts available online. A quick scroll through the lineup would reveal a face familiar to many who have attended classes at Lansdowne in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow My Brain<\/span><\/i> is a locally made short that documents the recovery story of Camosun Mental Health and Addictions student Cam Webster, 25, who is currently in his second semester and hoping to graduate next year. The film offers a candid account of Webster\u2019s experience with schizoaffective disorder.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt all started less than a month after my 19th birthday,\u201d says Webster. \u201cI got sick with psychosis and I was hospitalized. Eventually, that led to a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, which means that I have symptoms of schizophrenia as well as symptoms of a mood disorder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Follow My Brain<\/em> is a short film about Camosun student Cam Webster’s experiences with schizoaffective disorder (photo by Naomi Devine).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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But this isn\u2019t a sad story. Webster says that the events that preceded his diagnosis took away a lot of the things he loved, but Follow My Brain <\/i>focuses on his recovery.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt was a life-changing event, but I worked through it,\u201d says Webster. \u201cI had to learn how to manage it and find support from my friends and family, but now I\u2019m back in school, I’m back in boxing, and, really, I\u2019m back doing all of the things I love.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Webster says that ever since, he has been passionate about raising awareness and breaking down stigma by showing that recovery is not only possible but expected. For a few years, Webster ran a support group through The Stigma-Free Society alongside Robyn Thomas, who, it turned out, had a background in filmmaking.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cEventually, Robyn approached me and asked if I was interested in doing a film,\u201d says Webster. \u201cI definitely was, so she introduced me to her partners Naomi Devine and Tamara Plush, and we made Follow My Brain<\/i>. From the pilot trailer to the finished product was about a year, so it was a long journey. But it was good. I\u2019m happy with the outcome.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thomas, who is currently pursuing her master\u2019s in Global Mental Health at the University of Edinburgh, says that the goal of the filmmakers was to change the narrative around psychosis, something we don\u2019t really hear a lot about it in the media.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe often hear about things like anxiety and depression\u2014which, of course, is important, too\u2014but we don\u2019t often hear about psychosis, and because of that there are a lot of false assumptions and discrimination around things like schizophrenia, schizoaffective [disorder], and psychosis,\u201d says Thomas. \u201cWe approached Cam because he\u2019s a really inspiring mental-health advocate who has been really open with his mental health.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This was all new to Webster, who says that making his first film was both fun and difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI had never done drama or acting growing up, so it was kind of weird when we did some reenactments because I\u2019m just not used to it,\u201d says Webster. \u201cOverall, it was a really good experience. The film team was very knowledgeable, so they could coach me through it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In order to honour Webster\u2019s voice, Thomas says they basically had him guide the narrative of the film.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cPart of the process that we used was developing 30 questions and [we] put them in envelopes,\u201d says Thomas. \u201cWe gave them to Cam and he answered them over 30 days with his own recording device.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Webster says that the answers to those questions made up the story behind the film.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cTo come up with the script for the film they actually gave me questions that I answered, one a day,\u201d says Webster. \u201cI\u2019d spend about five minutes just talking to a recording device. Then we organized the visuals to add to it. It sounded more authentic and genuine when I was answering by myself with a recorder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thomas\u2014who says people will be able to see the film for free this summer through Telus Storyhive\u2014credits much of the film\u2019s success to Webster being so open about his experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAnd his whole family was really wonderful to work with,\u201d says Thomas. \u201cIt can be a very intimidating thing to invite a group of strangers into your home and into your personal experiences. Mental health is something that affects the whole family, and they were all wonderful in inviting us into their lives and talking about their experiences with Cam\u2019s mental-health journey.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Webster says that Follow My Brain<\/i> offered him a new way to raise awareness and teach things that he wishes he knew\u2014or that his friends and family knew\u2014when he got sick.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFor a while, when I was in the darkness of psychosis, I thought I would never recover,\u201d says Webster. \u201cI just hope someone who\u2019s struggling, or their family or friends, watch the film and it gives them hope, because recovery is not only possible but it\u2019s expected for people with psychosis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, the Victoria Film Festival trudged through COVID restrictions by going digital to make 50 full-length films and 23 shorts available online. A quick scroll through the lineup would reveal a face familiar to many who have attended classes at Lansdowne in recent years. Follow My Brain is a locally made short that documents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20733"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20744,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20733\/revisions\/20744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}