A design documentary about everyday life as a heart patient. Part of a series of three films about heart patients, with Kent and Fred.
Debra is a persona based on 9 interviews with heart patients in San Diego, conducted by Philips Medical Systems in Seatle. In the design documentary Joan, a heart patient from London, responds to a letter the filmmaker has written in the name of Debra. Joan compares the experiences of Debra with her own daily life.
The film uses performance techniques: Joan talks directly into the camera to the fictional heart patient Debra. Joan and I shot the film in two days. We recorded several takes of each response until we were both happy with the result.
Design documentaries Debra, Kent and Fred were used by a multidisciplinary design team at Philips medical Systems in Seattle, to develop more engaged intuitions about the everyday life of heart patients as a source of information and inspiration for the design process. I published about the three films and how they were used in a paper for DIS2006.
The total length of the design documentary is 10 minutes. The clip shown here is 2 minutes.
This project was commissioned by Philips Medical Systems North America in 2004. Scripted, directed, filmed and edited by Bas Raijmakers in collaboration with Joan Simpleton, a heart patient living in London.
