One man, Peyton, tries to piece together the shards of his life as he fights to regain his identity through decades of missing memories. After witnessing his mother die in front of him at twenty years old, his mind buried every memory of her. To reclaim any part of himself, he must traverse his subconscious and uncover the memories he hid deep within. He is grappling with a separation from his longtime wife, fractured relationships with his teenage twin sons, and the alcoholism, anxiety, and insomnia that plague him. As his forty fifth birthday approaches, the same age his father rapidly lost his mind to Alzheimer’s and the age his mother died, the pressure becomes unbearable. With his father now living in a Memory Care Home, Peyton cleans out the attic of his childhood house and discovers boxes filled with composition journals addressed to him in his mother’s handwriting. Each page contains a letter from her, a window into who she was and who they were as a family before tragedy reshaped their lives. With the guidance of these journals and his therapist, each letter brings Peyton closer to recovering his memories and finally learning the truth about his mother and the day she died. As he faces the trauma he has long shut out, he begins to reclaim his life. Will a Mother’s L O V E be enough to save her son long after she is gone?
One man, Peyton, tries to piece together the shards of his life as he battles to regain his identity through decades of missing memories. After witnessing his mother die in front of him at twenty years old, his mind sealed away every memory of Dale, including her face. To reclaim any part of himself, he must traverse his subconscious and uncover the memories he buried deep within. While he searches for the truth of his past, Peyton grapples with the collapse of his present. A separation from his longtime wife, fractured relationships with his teenage twin sons, and a worsening battle with alcoholism threaten every part of his life. As the ticking clock of his forty fifth birthday approaches, the same age his father rapidly lost his mind to Alzheimer’s, Peyton faces the terrifying possibility of losing everything to the same fate. His father now lives in a Memory Care Home, leaving Peyton alone in the childhood house he must clean out before its looming foreclosure.
Hidden in the attic, he discovers boxes addressed to him in his mother’s handwriting. Inside are dozens of composition journals, each page filled with letters from Dale, her deepest fears, her thoughts on life, and her most cherished memories of their family. For the first time, Peyton sees his parents as they were before tragedy tore them apart.
Dale battled postpartum depression after Peyton’s birth and nearly took her own life when he was one year old. Devastated by the idea of leaving behind only a single letter, she dedicated the rest of her writing career to these journals, making Peyton her greatest life’s work. Through the letters and the guidance of his therapist, each entry brings Peyton closer to reclaiming his memories and finally learning who his mother truly was and what happened the day she died.
As he pieces his life back together, Peyton must confront the trauma he has long avoided. Will these letters be enough to pull him from the spiral of self sabotage, alcoholism, and insomnia.
Can he face his demons, repair his marriage, and walk into the Alzheimer’s brain scan he has been avoiding before he turns forty five?
Will a mother's love be enough to save her son long after she is gone.
It all begins with --
Many of us come from trauma, and if you do, you know about memory loss. There are large chunks of my life I cannot remember. The painful moments make sense, yes, but even the happy memories are gone. How does that happen. Our mind, body, and subconscious will do anything to keep us safe. It takes what it must. And once we get strong enough, many of us walk back into that darkness and face those memories so we can finally feel freedom on the other side. Peace. That is Peyton's journey, and it is not far from my own.
I endured trauma and nearly ended my life when I was twenty three. I stand here living a second chance. I cannot imagine never experiencing this next chapter of my life, the best of my soul’s existence. Something extraordinary happened that changed my entire world. It changed me on a molecular level. I had my son, Zatch Robert Crocker.
I am not great at baby books or doing cute things like the perfect Instagram mothers with their monthly photos and detailed milestones. I knew I would never remember to keep it up, and one day I would be angry with myself for not documenting his life and our life better. So I wrote my son letters. I told him what he was doing, his milestones, what we were doing as a family. I wrote whether life was smooth or difficult. I wrote my love for him, the lessons I hoped to teach him one day, and the truth about his loving mother and her sometimes struggles with depression. Many years later, this became the seed of a film.
Our ode to --
This story reaches everyone. If you have a child, if you have been someone’s child, if you love or hate your parent, if you have ever felt lost or out of place, or if you have struggled with your inner demons, this film is for humanity. We watch these characters battle their trauma as we battle our own. And we find hope, no matter how dark the circumstances. Cinema is an authentic break from reality. It lets us live in another person’s skin for a moment. I know what it is to feel alone, using every drug and drink possible to numb the echoing emptiness inside, the brokenness of feeling unloved or separate from your parents. These journals became a tangible promise that my son would never feel that way. I wrote to him in case I ever was not here. In case he was grown one day and lonely across the world. My beating heart on the page ensured I would never be far from him in spirit. Then that heart jumped off the page and into Final Draft, and the bleeding continued. This story poured out of me in seven days. It was written through love and collaboration with the muse. My vision is simple. Defy reality and make the audience live this film. I want them to feel crushed. I want them to laugh. I want tears of joy and sorrow. Dear Son spans every range of emotion. It is alive, visceral, cinematic, and engaging. It is the kind of film where the audience tries to guess what will happen next and still gets knocked off their axis. I remember exactly where I was when I saw The Sixth Sense and how it rocked me to my core. No film had ever tricked me like that. I am the woman who knows the ending of every film within minutes of pressing play. How did it get me? I love that feeling. I remember watching Requiem for a Dream, Girl Interrupted, and Black Swan. Those films were experiences unlike anything I had felt. They stirred the same anxiety and electricity in my body that the characters were experiencing. They were gritty, uncomfortable, sensual, scary. And I liked it. With the ghostly overheads and the editing style that felt like an assault and a seduction, it was intoxicating. I was hooked.
I also remember when I watched "Requiem For A Dream, Black Swan, and Girl Interrupted." It was an experience unlike I'd ever felt before. It stimulated the same senses in my body of ANXIETY that they were experiencing. It was gritty and uncomfortable; I crawled out of my skin and felt engrossed . It was sexy and scary, and I fucking liked it. With these ghostly overheads and an editing style, I'd never seen before. It was better than sex. I was hooked.
Then there was Cafe de Flore, a film that made me cry so hard I could not breathe. It depressed me for a week. It emotionally shook me at my core and made me question my own life. That is what I want to do with this film. That is what I will create with Dear Son. I want the audience to feel every emotion a human can feel. It will be beautiful. It will be overwhelming. And it will leave them changed.
E S S E N C E:
"Black Swan, Requiem For A Dream, Memento, The Machinist, The Sixth Sense, & Tree Of Life."
D e a r S o n is universal. LOVE is universal. F E A R as a parent. F E A R as a child. The feeling of inadequacy. Addiction. Numbing. Hiding. Co-dependency. Healing. Growth. Second chances. H O P E. Peace. L O V E. Regret. Forgiveness. R E D E M P T I O N.
D e a r S o n is a wild ride, a whirlwind of life packed into a two hour cinematic experience. It defies reality. It fills you with hope. It makes you believe that you too can begin again. This film is for you, no matter who you are. We will create a film that moves people and stays with them long after they leave the theatre. A film that raises awareness, shatters stigma, and continues my mission to tell stories about mental health and suicide prevention. I want to shine a light on addiction, trauma, and Alzheimer’s, a disease that terrifies every human being on this planet. I want to make a film with meaning and a message, a film that raises funds for charity and inspires us all to live another day.
If you do not have children, it is impossible to explain the love a parent feels for their child. There are no words for the overwhelming, crippling love that takes over your entire being. Nieces and nephews are close, but not the same, because eventually you hand them back and go on with your day. And yes, our dogs are adorable and we are obsessed with them, but it is nothing like breathing life into a human being, fighting tooth and nail to raise them, to watch them grow into an adult. Did we do well enough? Are they happy? Truly, fucking happy? You give money from your own account, the shirt off your back, hours of sleep, youth from your skin, elasticity from your tits. Nothing compares. And then there is our connection to our parents. These indescribable bonds that shape us long before we ever understand them. Mother. Father. Permanently attached. Engrained. We always worry. They always worry. Husband. Wife. The history. Someone who knows your dirty habits and your stinky feet. The person who frustrates you the most is often the person you cannot live without. Mom and Dad. Two people who created a life together. Married or not, you are connected forever through this living being you made. You would both die for your child without a second thought. You cannot explain that connection. You have to live it. And sometimes we desperately want to see the couple make it. I need Terry and Peyton to make it. I want love to prevail in this film. D e a r S o n is about love, and my mission is to see if capturing it is possible. A parent’s love. A child’s love. Love between a husband and wife. Complex, rich, unsettling, terrifying. Deep resentments. Blood connections. L O V E. Can we show that intangible feeling. Can we give sound to what our mouths cannot articulate. Humanity. Connection. Love.
THE DARKNESS
Have you ever been encased in darkness. The kind where you cannot feel or think. Where the air becomes thick and impossible to pull through your lungs. A deepening depression so heavy that the only choice left feels imminent. A suffocating shame cycle. No idea how to fix the damage anymore. A loop of numbing that never ends. Peyton has been living inside that place for twenty four years. Still trying to figure out where the time went. Still trying to understand how he disappeared from his own life. Then suddenly there is light. Something that feels God sent, a raft in the middle of a storm that has lasted decades. The crimson journals. His mother’s breath into his lungs. Her inhale. Her love. Her strength. Pulling him back to his feet. Back into the ring. He has not lost this fight yet.
THE WORLD BEFORE THE LIGHT
I see darkness. I see shadowed, natural lighting. A faded, muted, gritty world. High contrast. Wide and distant frames. Dolly moves that feel stoic and observational. A voyeur watching a man quietly unravel. A descent.
Black Swan. The Machinist. Requiem for a Dream. Mr. Robot. Memento. The Sixth Sense.
Peyton’s psychological breaks, his distortion, his fractures in reality come from insomnia, Ambien, alcohol, and decades of suppressed trauma. He is a ticking time bomb.
THE WORLD AFTER THE LIGHT
And then she arrives. Dale bursts through those journals and breathes life into her son again. Her words crack through the darkness and shift the entire cinematic language.
The world comes alive.
We move.
Handheld. Steadicam. Constant motion. Sun flares, sunset, and color everywhere. The flashbacks are oxygen. The breath we have been begging for.
Tree Of Life, Blue Valentine, Knight Of Cups.
CAMERA MOVEMENT AND TRANSITIONS
This film lives through camera psychology. Every movement is rooted in emotion. Every angle is meant to make the audience feel what Peyton feels. We transition through time using movement, disorientation, and physical camera geography. Example: Peyton is at the bathroom door. Panic on his face. His hand trembles on the knob. As he opens the door, the camera swings over the top of the door frame, circling through the doorway and landing on twenty year old Peyton instead. One continuous motion. No visible cut. Another: Adult Peyton spirals. His mind spins. The camera circles him. On the move behind his head, it shifts, and suddenly the figure standing there is young Peyton. These transitions must feel seamless, disorienting, unnerving, and awe inducing. We want the audience whispering to themselves, where was the cut. How the hell did they do that. Rapid match cuts of all his ages. A flicker of time. All versions of him stuck at the same bathroom door longing for their mother. Everything Everywhere All At Once energy but rooted in grief, memory, and psychological collapse.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
This film demands a cinematographer who understands emotional truth and how to bend a frame around a human psyche. Someone who knows how to weaponize format, aspect ratio, and composition so the audience does not simply watch Peyton’s unraveling, they inhabit it. We will shoot in wide format to emphasize the vastness of Peyton’s internal emptiness. And we will deliberately grow and shrink the frame as his anxiety rises and falls. When he spirals, the world will tower over him. The frame will widen to swallow him whole, making him feel small, insignificant, consumed by the weight of his trauma. As panic takes over, the space stretches, breathing becomes difficult, shadows expand, and he visibly drowns inside the frame. Then, when Dale’s words break through, the frame begins to close in, not as a trap, but as a return to safety. Warmth tightens the world. Light enters. We breathe with him. I see haunting overhead shots that dwarf him. Claustrophobic close ups that trap him. Snorricam to distort the world around him. A visual language that shifts from paralysis to movement, from numbness to breath. The gritty shadowed world of his present mirrors his internal collapse. When memory and love reenter his life, the cinematography transforms entirely. Color returns. Movement returns. Warmth returns. The film itself begins to heal with him.
SET BUILDS AND PRODUCTION DESIGN
This film requires sets that transform physically with Peyton’s emotional state. The Flooded Living Room Built inside a full water tank. Functional ceilings rigged to dump controlled pours. Floating furniture. A connected hallway so Peyton can swim from one submerged room into another before breaking into the bathroom for air. The Rain Hallway and the Ramp Floor Inside his childhood home, rain pours from nowhere. The floor inclines slowly, turning into a playable ramp. Peyton clings to the walls, sliding toward the faceless ghost of his mother. The build must function like a seesaw, lifting and tilting with precision. A wired camera rig slides with him, maintaining proximity as he falls. The Bathroom Door Time Transition Two identical bathroom sets built side by side or vertically stacked. Removable ceiling. Rigging that allows the camera to swing over the doorframe and land on young Peyton without a cut. Perfectly matched lighting, textures, set dressing. Water as a Physical Metaphor Every major sequence incorporates water because Peyton’s entire life was shaped by how he lost his mother. Submersion, flooding, rain, leaks. Water is grief with a pulse.
EASTER EGGS AND THE HIDDEN REVEAL
The film contains a massive hidden truth that must be protected until the final moments. Every department will lay breadcrumbs that feel invisible until rewatch. Dr. Brenner’s Office Secretly Dale’s office from his childhood home. We conceal it through: Paint changes Opposite angles New furniture and window treatments Different lenses and lighting direction False beams and altered architecture Only a second or third viewing reveals the match. We will hide dozens of invisible clues. Repeating props. Objects that move between timelines. This is world building through memory. This is The Sixth Sense and Fight Club energy. A magic trick inside a psychological drama.
PTSD, PANIC, AND ANXIETY AS CINEMATIC DEVICES
Peyton’s inner life becomes the film’s outer language. We will not imitate panic. We will replicate it. • The wide frame expands, stretching reality beyond logic • The world dwarfs him, making him physically small • Edits tighten rhythmically, creating a chokehold • Sound rises in overlapping waves • Breath becomes a metronome • Pupils dilate in extreme close up • Color drains until everything feels airless • Vision tunnels • Silence hits like a punch • Then a single inhale cracks him open again This is not conceptual. This is lived experience. I have PTSD, I know this terrain intimately. And I know how to bring the audience into that state with terrifying accuracy. The film is more psychological thriller than classic drama. Even stillness carries tension. Even love carries risk. Ordinary moments become dangerous because memory itself becomes unreliable. This is Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream through the lens of family, identity, grief, and rebirth. This film will not simply be watched. It will be felt.
My preferred name is "psychological breaks." It is their mind wandering into past memories and trauma that they've long shut out. It's the festering memory of shame you try never to think about. We all have that one thing we try never to think about that eventually creeps in during moments of weakness. It's the most gruesome sight you've ever seen that makes you nauseated to remember. They're flashes, spliced images we try to forget. Some flashes are longer than others. Some memories are less fragmented. I plan to make them feel like they're going inside Peyton's mind, often pushing TIGHT on his eyes and pulling out on the eyes of Young Peyton. Due to Peyton's insomnia and constant Ambien/ Alcohol use, he is trapped between the waking hours of consciousness and a nightmare state of repressed memories. A hearty cocktail of drugs and alcohol keeps the memories at bay until one too many drinks UNLEASHES it all, the NIGHTMARES that haunt him.
A perfect example of a film that executed this effectively is "I Am Legend," another one of my favorites, "Little Fish." Every time Will Smith slept or got knocked out, we learned more about his past and what happened to his family and the world. I want us to be in the present with Peyton while also seeing what formed him from his past. Sometimes it may feel like chaos. Sometimes you might feel like you're floating in the past and the present, but so is Peyton as he regains his memories through these letters from his mother.
I plan to design my own style with Peyton's drug use, incorporating the flashbacks in conjunction with our camera moves. Everything will be intentional and undoubtedly anchor the audience to ride with us. Like the film is breathing, the camera will constantly be sliding and moving with Peyton's movements, so it feels like we are always in motion ON THE JOURNEY with Peyton. Long dolly glides across the room, tracking his movement, then PAN or TILT to finish the move when we run out of track. Always in action, always momentum, the mystery unfolding. Or stoic shots, we wish we could move from, but we're stuck there. We will feel everything that Peyton feels.
I want to layer images to tell two stories simultaneously, being told through their imagery in the same moments. An example of dissolves and cinematography I love is "Apocalypse Now." I will frame them perfectly so both images can be seen simultaneously, the juxtaposition between past and present. In some moments, the man Peyton is and the young man he once was. With every FLASH or BREAK, we discover more and more of the story. A movie that inspires me in their investigative look at memory, trauma, and mental health is "The Machinist" and "Memento."
I want sun-soaked imagery, crystals sending rainbows on the walls. Rays of light shoot through a glass window. I want to show that the world is a beautiful place; our perspective makes it dark. Heavy shadows, bright highlights, and the sun breaks up the darkness. Sun makes what it touches gorgeous. Peyton is hiding in the shadows. But that CANNOT STOP GOD'S LIGHT. So the rays of light burst through the shadows, and haze makes the air feel dense. The sun and all the beauty bring attention and highlight the darkness around it.
I see the world and the film draped in cyan. I will let Jill Bogdanowicz, my amazing colorist magic, thrive and amplify the cyan and teal tones, leaning into the Depressive. Yet LIGHT keeps trying to find its way in! I want STUNNING SUN-SOAKED IMAGERY fighting against PEYTON'S BLUE and SAD PERSPECTIVE in an East Coast bare environment. The essence of "Prisoners" aesthetic, with "Drive" coloring. As Peyton gains health and emerges from the darkness, SO WILL OUR IMAGERY. Living more in the beautiful natural tones, similar to "Her." Dale's warm and saturated color from the flashbacks starts bleeding into reality, and he's regaining his life!
Beauty is everywhere! It's all through our perspective, what we see, and how we receive it. If you are blue, it may look blue. However, the beauty is always there. It takes a change of perspective. Peyton is constantly contradicting himself, so the imagery does too. It all depends on HOW YOU SEE IT. For most of the film, Peyton sees the world from a dark perspective, trying to cut out the light while embracing the shadows he hides inside. The gold and SODIUM artificial light in the darkness adds style and contrast. But Peyton is completely missing the beauty until it smacks him in the face. He then emerges with a perspective change. Peyton is a family man, yet he lives an isolated life. Once again, he contradicts himself. Peyton's emotions will reflect our imagery; if he is blue, we are DEEP BLUE, NAVY, TEALS, CYAN. With POPS of RED. CRIMSON JOURNALS, SCARLET RED CURLS, RED STUDY DOOR.
I want the PAST and the PRESENT to feel completely different. So I want the flashbacks to be shot on film, with rich, textured imagery: grain and beauty. The present will be shot digitally. All colored by Jill.
Making both the past and the present have the same beauty, richness, and texture. Along with different aesthetics bleeding in from the flashbacks, we reach our ending, and the beautiful texture richness is coming into Peyton's reality now. One year later, the ending images will be on FILM as well.
PANIC ATTACKS// ANXIETY I want to use camera moves to emulate the anxiety inside Peyton's mind. I want to GROW and EXPAND on these techniques to make the audience feel Peyton's same discomfort and crippling fear.
Ambien Nightmares// Phycological Breaks I want to show this distorted reality in a new and interesting way. Reality is FRACTURING, and now Peyton is swimming through the house with no air in sight. Water pours from the ceiling, the room submerged in WATER. His younger self stands in the bathroom. His perspective changes into his younger self. HE SHUTES HIS EYE'S and tries to find his way back to reality! But instead, we go further into his mind, and memories are unleashed. He now stands in the past and finally sees what Young Peyton saw and experienced when he found his mother.
Shutter Island's WATER, BLOOD, and ASH are so interesting and unique to this shot and story; it's my favorite moment from the film. This is the best example of reality fracturing and something abstract happening, with so much symbolism. Blood on her hands from the death of her children, her being shot so literal blood from her body, the water flowing that drowned their children. The ash from the lie about her death that he tells himself to endure the pain. Because of Peyton's insomnia and drug use, the lines have blurred between reality, memories, and dreams. We're floating somewhere in between.
Credits:
A Film By Nadine Crocker