Crying has been a habit of him. The blue feeling waved in, knocking his sandcastles flat. Then what? Was he supposed to construct them again? Get that bucket and spade out and make it pretty all over again? He sat and stared out of the window, no buildings anymore. He let the castles fall, not raising a hand to stop them, because nobody cared anyway. They splashed down onto the couch and soaked in leaving dark splotches on the old fabric. What percentage of water was he anyway? And then what? Then he'd drink another glass of water and start all over again because nobody listened anyway. 

This is the life of every depressive patient: confused, nervous, dispirited, and finding no meaning in life. Apart from the illness itself, their predicament is twofold. On the one hand, people in their vicinity have trouble empathizing with these patients, believing that depression is no different from being emotional, and blaming the patients for not appreciating the lifethey hold. On the other hand, as our team closely examined the common PSAs on subways and billboards on depression, we recognized that most were mere slogans and detached from patients’perspectives, thus failed to convey empathy to the audience. Aiming to lend a hand, our team initiated “Just Listen” project, as giving an ear to depressive patients is the first step toward empathy.

To elicit the most empathy, we design an engaging ambiance with intense external and internal conflict. Externally, we remove the color from the whole scene, and choreograph an apathetic passing-by movement of the crowd, letting the audience see the world from the lens of the depressives; internally, we zoom the camera from full-shot to close-up, along with the distorted crescendo of heartbeats and mime-like captions; we also constantly switch the set of scenes to invite the audience to immerse with the character. Eventually, we resolve the conflicts with the emergence of bright colors and ascending piano chords, drawing forth the final title. The character finally walks out of misery with a kind lead. 

During the creative process, our professions in various fields all contribute to the video production. In terms of filming, Emma drew inspiration from various films to craft the color changes during emotional shifts; in terms of music production, Penny leveraged her expertise in this field to arrange the background soundtrack, portraying the anguish of the protagonist with coldfootsteps and restless heartbeats; in terms of composition, our promising composer Jeffery borrowed ideas of acoustic piano music in game music, using rising arpeggios to delineate character’s transition from pain to relief. 

We didn't halt with mere video work. Most notably, we released our video on platforms that high schoolers frequently use. The reason why we mainly target high school students was that they compose the largest proportion of depressive patients. The Bluebook of National Depression in 2022 points out that 30% of depressive patients are under age, and 50% are still students. Hence, we hope to arouse the most attention from the ones with a shared identity with these patients. Gladly, we received a lot of comments inspired by our video. Here is one left by a parent:“In the past, I could not understand my child, worrying more conflict would take place after my consultation; but after watching your video, I understood her true needs—care and listening.”We witnessed the message of this little film conveyed to everyone that to empathize and listen is never a mere cliche. 

We hope that every tiny world bleached by this illness can be illuminated by a kind hand, just like the boy in the video. Nothing more, just listen.