FICTIONAL ADAPTATION: YELLOW RIBBONS

During my planning for the script, I researched into the history of my sonnet (Blog about the sonnet) I found that the Sonnet is often read at Remembrance day services so I googled 'Remembrance day' to try and find some visuals that I could add into the film.

What came up was what I expected, the Poppy is a world symbol for remembrance for our fallen soldiers. It's known everywhere and comes with a great level of respect. However, this is so well know for the memory of our brave soldiers that it wouldn't work in my film. As this isn't the story of a soldier, it's the story of a young girl. I considered mixing the colours of the Poppy in, but the colour red is associated with Blood and this is what the fields of Poppies represent, blood spilt in battle so I don't think this would work for my film. 

I did remember, that when a relative of mine past away from Lung cancer, we all wore Yellow Ribbons on the day of his funeral, when I googled 'Lung Cancer logo' it came up as a Ribbon:

I saw the Yellow Ribbon but mixed in with a mixture of different coloured Ribbons as well. So I gathered that the logo itself was the symbol but I was curious to see why it was Yellow we wore and if it would be intergraded into my film somehow. After searching what the meaning of the Yellow Ribbon was I found this:

Now, this is a snippet from Wikipedia which can't be 100% Trusted but it mentions Ribbons tied on trees related to the slogan 'Support our Troops' and this is what I found interesting. After going away from the soldiers I've ended up going back around.

Yellow Ribbons Tied on Trees

After finding this I did some research and found a Blogger who has written up the History of the Yellow Ribbon. The Yellow Ribbons tied on trees originates from America and is predominately done in America. Apparently, Ribbons have been used as a symbol of remembrance for years. Especially, in relations to soldiers. This theme lead to many different forms of Ribbons being used for decades but it wasn't until the 20th Century where the ribbons on trees came about. It actually came from a popular song "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree". This was released in 1973 and became hugely popular. The song is about someone returning home and the ribbons are a sign of respect from that. This theme grew and grew and reacted the UK as well as other countries of the world. Looking online I found an article by the BBC which talks about the History of the Yellow Ribbon. It was not only used for Soldiers, but it's also been used in a lot of tragedies. Madeleine McCann's disappearance saw hundreds of yellow ribbons tied up in support of the family back in 2007. They became a defining sign of support in the struggle to find Madeleine. There is also a quote in the article:

"Jo Youle, chief executive of the charity Missing People, suggested yellow ribbons brought great comfort to families."

From this, I felt this was perfect for my script. This is such an iconic symbol and would fit in perfect. I need something to be constant throughout the film, something which at the end is almost everywhere and a symbol that the character Stacey is still with us and it still in the world, all around the world and I feel this could work to get that across. A ribbon could be placed ANYWHERE. It can be anywhere at all and you wouldn't question it.