What inspired you to make this film?

As a person having experience with OCD, it was really important for me to make this film. The topic has always been of great interest to me, and portraying it in this form felt like something I had to do. In a way it tells a complex story with the devil of course being in the smaller details.

What was your goal in portraying OCD in this film?

On the one hand, it felt important to create and show what OCD looks like, which is - if remains undiagnosed - usually getting worse and worse. As each compulsion gets repeated more and more and takes a lot of time, by the end of the day the person suffering from OCD gets into this loop from where it might seem impossible to get out. Beyond that, our film follows a very specific rule, the same as the mental illness does; as the protagonist's condition worsens, he repeats everything even more - and so do I, as filmmaker. Every scene is shown in exactly as many shots as the number of repeats - so basically, OCD starts overwriting the rules of the film. The minimalist cinematography and the 1:1 aspect ratio also try to place the viewer closer to the events of the film. The idea of the character and the many different languages was also a great way to show how the issue is global and makes no exceptions.

What was the filmmaking process like?

'Daily Routine' was shot within one day during the epidemic, with a quite small budget. The crew consisted of a few key people only and we had to wrap by the time the curfew started in the evening. The day before we had a few hours to practice the shots with DOP Máté Dobray, but the key to it all was a very precise script. Shooting day was a rush but we managed to get it done in 12-13 hours. For me it was a great experience to be able to film again after the long months we had to spend indoors. At the end of the day the film was done thanks to the help and dedication of the fantastic crew who did their best to create this vision of mine.

How are you hoping this movie will reduce stigma or raise awareness when it comes to OCD?

First I thought people would realize very easily that the film is about OCD, but the test screenings proved me somewhat otherwise. Although OCD is considered to be a well-known disorder, there are many who still don't have an idea of what it is, let alone how serious it can be. I hope that as more and more people learn about the true forms of OCD, less will joke with sentences like 'that will so trigger my OCD'. I also wanted to show that OCD has many faces, it's not just checking doors or counting to 100, but it can be a part of any everyday activities.

Do you have any future projects in store?

I will not abandon the topic of OCD anytime soon. As 'Daily Routine' focuses merely on compulsions, with our next short film we at Team RoRo will dive into the realm of obsessions, trying to show the many potential fears someone with OCD might have. Intended to be an experimental animated short film, it's being developed at the moment. It will be part of our team's next minimalist but ambitious project, titled 'Project 100'.

What inspired you to make this film?

I made this film at the National Film & Television School. I am really fascinated by how we think and behave, the absurdities of our minds. Intrusive thoughts aren't really talked about, and whilst they can be funny and weird, for some people it can completely take over.

What was your goal in portraying OCD in this film?

I chose to make a story of a girl who experiences puro OCD, a form of OCD that is less known about. Intrusive thoughts, generally unspoken of, are something we all experience. My intention was to present these thoughts, often bizarre, taboo and funny, in a way that we can relate to, and to then reveal the more serious and distressing nature of the problem for Layla. I also wanted to really get across the internal thoughts, as they might be experienced, through the use of mixed techniques, contrasting physical textures and sound.

What was the filmmaking process like?

The film is stop motion animation, with some small segments of live action. I worked with a team of students at the National Film & Television School, each specialising in a different field, and a lot of people who came to work on it for periods of time. Stop Motion takes a long time. The whole process took about a year, and during the shooting we aimed to get 4 seconds of animation per day.

How are you hoping this movie will reduce stigma or raise awareness when it comes to OCD?

My intention was to create something that represented the truth of OCD as it’s experienced, whilst also being relatable. It has been really fascinating to me to see the interest the film has had since being on the festival circuit, and then being released online.

At the first film festival screening I was part of a film-makers Q&A. Rather than being purely about the creative and technical aspects of narrative and film making, it became a discussion around mental health, on stigma and on treatment.

I was asked to give a presentation for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and have since had the film used in training for psychiatrists. It was also presented by the UK OCD charity, Triumph over Phobia. And it has been promoted as a film that accurately depicts what it is like to live with OCD, by OCD UK and OCD Action.

I’ve also been contacted by individuals who have OCD and have seen the film. One has shown the film to family, tutors and friends, as a way of explaining what it is she experiences, and said it was the most accurate depiction she has seen.

Do you have any future projects in store?

Yes, I have since directed a short live action film about the experience of the pandemic, which is currently in festivals. I am now writing and developing some new ideas.

What inspired you to make this film?

Well, I was diagnosed with OCD in the middle of 2019. Once that happened I was in a lonnnnng process of counseling. And my OCD counselor asked me one day “if you could personify your OCD, what would it be?” And I responded with “Myself. A more anxious and frantic version of myself”

I really wanted to produce a short film that represented a lot of what I was feeling and characterize OCD as a sort of “imaginary friend” that tortures you… in every decision you make.

What was your goal in portraying OCD in this film?

My main goal for portraying OCD in JUST DRIVE was to make sure that it felt like my own experience. That it was something that would NAG the main character with what would be seemingly innocent concerns all the way to literally being ACCUSED of wanting to kill someone.

I really wanted it to feel funny without taking away from the actual seriousness and pain I’ve felt with OCD.

What was the filmmaking process like?

It was a TON of fun. I asked a bunch of my friends that were local filmmakers to come out for 2 days and help make it happen. It was a fun and challenging process. To not only make something that represented OCD well, but also was funny and entertaining.

How are you hoping this movie will reduce stigma or raise awareness when it comes to OCD?

I really hope that this project will help people to realize that OCD can be over small things, BUT it can be HUGE intrusive thoughts that feel utterly torturous. I really hope people start to see that it’s not just “being clean” or “being neat”. But it’s anything and everything that is rooted in some kind of fear… for me at least it was always a fear of loss or harming someone. That’s a BIG deal!

People silently suffer with this all the time and the media often uses it as the brunt of a joke. So, I hope that this film uses humor in a way that sheds light on the seriousness of OCD. And not just, exploit someone’s mental illness.

And I hope it encourages people. That they see it and can say “dang! That’s totally how my mind works! Maybe I have OCD?! I should go get help!”

Do you have any future projects in store?

I’ve got a handful of projects. Some of which deal with mental illness/awareness and others that are just outright ridiculous comedies. I’ve got a short comedy sketch I’ll be releasing this month that probably has NO long lasting value to society (haha) but I think it’s hilarious.

What inspired you to make this film?

The very first incarnation of “For Want of a Nail'' was a short story that I wrote under the title 'Compulsion', in response to recognising that my ritualised routines and compulsions were becoming more elaborate and time consuming, with the associated Intrusive Thoughts similarly gaining strength. Writing the short story, and then later adapting it into a short film script, was a way for me to steal back some power from my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. At that point I had kept my OCD completely secret from everyone who knew me, and so writing “For Want of a Nail'' was a chance to begin talking about it for the first time in my life. In hindsight I'm able to recognise that the symptoms started exhibiting themselves when I was 8 years old, so the journey with 'FWOAN' came along after more than 20 years of keeping my experiences with OCD totally secret.

What was your goal in portraying OCD in this film?

I've always been very keen to put the reader/viewer in the shoes of the protagonist, which is why my writing is very 'sensory' in many ways, and in the case of “For Want of a Nail'' it was an opportunity to put the viewer into the headspace of someone who has OCD, to get a private tour through someone's day dealing with the condition, being let into their thought processes. All too often when OCD is portrayed on-screen the condition has to be reshaped or edited to fit the TV show or film style of the project. With 'FWOAN' it was the other way around, and I wanted to translate it as faithfully as I could (within the budgetary and production constraints of a short film, naturally), so that the audience would come away with a better understanding of OCD, while also getting to enjoy the film in a broader sense. I can't be doing with dreary, hand-wringing dramas, and I always like to write characters that have a sense of humour because that's more realistic to how people are in truth – but at no point did I want to diminish the condition itself with mockery. You can tackle a serious subject and have humour parallel to it. I wanted 'FWOAN' to be something that people would actually enjoy watching (or even re-watching), while also genuinely learning something about OCD without it being jackhammered down their throats.

What was the filmmaking process like?

Working with Ali Causon (producer, Oakhill Productions) has always been great as she understands and respects the material and saw the potential in it. She was looking for a writer who was keen to collaborate, and that was exactly what I wanted to do, not just sell it and move on. I was afforded a great deal of involvement, which is not typical for many writers, and a key part of the creative process in developing the script was to have a fruitful creative partnership with the Director. I was involved in the process of choosing Lucy Joan Barnes to be the director of 'FWOAN', and she too 'got' the material and respected it, but was also able to bring some perfectly pitched ideas to the table that suited the script itself and allowed me to find new areas to explore on the page. Lucy had previously directed a short film about dementia which, particularly through non-chronological editing, was able to put the audience into the world of someone suffering from that condition – and that was just the sort of approach we wanted for this film. Making the short film itself was a real pleasure, a team effort in a friendly environment, working in conjunction with the charities Mind and OCD Action as part of the process. Ali, Lucy, and myself have found that we make a cracking little creative trio, and that has been the most rewarding aspect of this entire project.

How are you hoping this movie will reduce stigma or raise awareness when it comes to OCD?

When I was growing up OCD basically didn't exist as far as I (or most people) was aware, so I grew up thinking that I was faulty and somehow broken or 'not right' because of the Intrusive Thoughts swirling about my head, my social anxieties, my compulsions and so on. On the extremely rare occasions you ever glimpsed something in the 'OCD ballpark' on-screen, it was either so distorted from the actual reality that you simply didn't recognise it in your own experiences, or it was disregarded as 'quirkiness', or it was even outright mocked. Sometimes I would see something that rang true to me, but always in a context that made me feel more anxious about my OCD, more ashamed, even more keen to keep my lips sealed and hide it as much as possible from anyone around me.

Nowadays there's far more access to information, it's probably not that easy to go for 20 years not knowing what is causing the trouble inside your head, but despite all the talk of 'representation' and 'understanding' and so on in the media (about all manner of things), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is still hugely misunderstood by the public – I've lost count of the number of times I've seen the phrase “I'm so OCD” or those utterly garbage How OCD Are You? 'quizzes' on social media. There have been a couple of more accurate examples of OCD on-screen in recent years, but even those only offer a tiny glimpse at the condition, which boasts such a wide variety of insidious methods to control and bully its host. So I hope that “For Want of a Nail” will give viewers a better insight into what OCD is, how it affects the person suffering from it, and how even those closest to the sufferer can be completely oblivious because they've been kept in the dark.

Do you have any future projects in store?

I am working closely with Ali and Lucy on adapting the “For Want of a Nail” short film into a television series, which we are now actively pitching to broadcasters and financiers, who have expressed a great deal of interest and positive feedback to the scripts and pitch that we have put together. Naturally, there's only so much you can pull off with a short film and a modest budget, so our intentions for the TV series are larger and will let us take a different and more expansive approach to the material, allowing us to show OCD on-screen more accurately and more deeply than it has ever been seen before. Follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/fwoan) and via the Oakhill Productions official website.

What inspired you to make this film?

I applied to direct this film as soon as I read the synopsis, the sensory nature of the writing and the core of the story grabbed me straight away.

The protagonist Marty instantly appealed to me, his exterior at first came across as slightly unlikeable, but as soon as you knew what was going through his mind, you understood and felt empathy for him.

Having recently directed my own non-linear short film on Dementia, the subject of mental health has always greatly interested me. As a society we fear what we don't understand and my mission is to help people understand and therefore break the taboo around this subject.

Members of my family and partner suffer from various mental health conditions, and I've always wanted to shine a light on this subject and make people more aware and understanding of what people dealing with these conditions may be going through.

I myself have ADHD, and I've managed to find directing or producing work with this.. in fact, I feel it makes me better at my job because I've learned and adapted to use it to my advantage.

What was your goal in portraying OCD in this film?

To not make it like every other film about OCD, I was adamant not to have lots of close-ups. This film is about Marty's internal struggle and I wanted that to be shown through the composition of the shots.

You'll notice the viewer is made to feel like "Voyeur" at times and this is completely intentional, I want people to see what goes on behind closed doors, and all the thoughts going through Marty's mind. As a team, we all wanted to show how someone dealing with a mental health condition has adapted to hiding it.

Ali, Nick, and I were very much on the same page from the start, and very clear how we wanted to tell this story. As a team, I think we're very lucky to have found each other because we pretty much agree on most things yet each of us also always has new ideas to bring to the table, can't ask for more than that really.

What was the filmmaking process like?

Fun, Loved every second. Shot over 4 days with a fab crew, and it was great having Nick and Kasha our adviser, their knowledge and advice on set was invaluable. I would often turn to them and check they felt the expressions or feeling of the scene worked, if they didn't then I would go again or adapt the direction given.

How are you hoping this movie will reduce stigma or raise awareness when it comes to OCD?

I'm hoping people will discover that OCD is not just about washing hands repeatedly, it's incredibly complex and affects many people in different ways. It's frustrating to see so many people using the term "that's so OCD" or "I'm a little OCD" without realising what it’s truly like to deal with OCD on a daily basis.

If someone goes away and searches for more information from reliable sources such as OCD action or Mind and learns more about OCD and other mental health conditions, just one person.. then I've done my job 🙂

Do you have any future projects in store?

We're currently working on pitching a TV series. Marty, his story, and how we tell it has evolved greatly. Watch this space

I'm also working on pitching a readaptation of a Shakespeare play that focuses on the mental health of the lead protagonist.

What inspired you to make this film?

I was looking for a script and writer to work with for the next Oakhill Productions short film and posted a competition-style open call for collaborators on social media. Although I was not looking for a script that specifically focused on mental health, after reading FWOAN just a couple of times, it felt like a natural follow-on to my previous short about PTSD.

The character, Marty, has a great sense of humor and makes me laugh. I relate to him on a friendship level and if any of my friends were struggling in ‘real life’, I’d want to help.

What was your goal in portraying OCD in this film?

As a Producer, my ultimate goal was to show an honest portrayal of OCD without using stereotypical traits. Many times when OCD is shown in the media or on TV, there is a lot of focus on cleaning or hoarding aspects…. but very rarely on the cause of rituals or the internal struggles. Coined phrases such as ‘I’m sooo OCD’ just because you like to clean or have a specific preference for how you do a particular task, have been accepted for too long. But I believe it’s just a lack of education about OCD causing this thoughtlessness. With films like ours, I am hoping we can raise awareness.

What was the filmmaking process like?

Educational. We worked closely with the charities OCD Action and Mind and during research and development, we ran a workshop with volunteers from the charities and actors to help us better understand and learn from those living with OCD.

We enlisted the support of Kasha Khan, a volunteer from Mind to join us on set as an advisor and continued to work with OCD Action at every stage. We couldn’t have done it without their support!

How are you hoping this movie will reduce stigma or raise awareness when it comes to OCD?

FWOAN draws on real-life experience, although not autobiographical writer Nick lives with OCD himself and has channeled his experiences into the script as well as drawing on others to get a more rounded overview.

Marty talks to the audience, engaging them and he’s funny! By combining the information within the context of a drama, with the release valve of appropriately targeted humour (we never laugh at OCD – those with OCD can recognise the absurdity while suffering the consequences – and Marty deploys humour as a coping mechanism) It allows the viewer to laugh with Marty removing some of the burdensome weight of the subject.

Do you have any future projects in store?

The most exciting project is the development of the short film into a TV Series… Nick, Lu and I have been working together since completing the short film and are now in the process of pitching the concept… watch this space!

Check out Frederic's interview with Vimeo at Staff Pick Premiere: Inside the anxious mind of "Ruben Leaves".

Renjit is currently on shoot, so please read more about his film process here, Renjit Shekar Nair makes directorial debut with short film 'Keedanu'.

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