How to handle cancer on screen.

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YaBoyTopher

Active member
I am working on a script i plan to film myself it involves a young woman (20) who gets cancer around the middle of the film, i want this film to be as realistic as possible so even though on some rare occasions people do not lose there hair due to chemo it is rare. So I would like to portray the character as losing her hair for the sake of realism and the emotional impact this could have on the audience.

My question is this, how do i turn an actress with beautiful hair into an actress with no hair. Obviously i cant shave the actresses head (that would be wayyyyy to expensive lol).... so even though i am a little ways away from being ready to film this script i would like to know if you guys have any suggestions for this that will look realistic and not fake...or should i Rewrite the script to be easier to shoot or go the route she has cancer but she is one of the rare that didnt lose her hair.

All suggestions are appreciated...if this is wrong forum for this i apologize.
 
maybe one of those hair wraps that women sometimes wear to hide the fact that they are loosing their hair...

BlueOrchid.jpg


www.headwearetc.com/blueorchard.htm
 
You're probably stuck with hats or headscarves - 'bald' skull caps are difficult to do well and look awful if done badly, especially as I presume there'll be a lot of closeups of her.
Of course, hiding the hair only makes sense if you imply she's got no hair - otherwise a fair proportion of your audience will just assume she likes hats or headscarves. Presuming the actor is too selfish to shave her head for art :) then some verbal reference to hair loss will be a good idea. Maybe she could keep her old hair in a box and morbidly play with it or show it off? For visual impact, she could start wearing an endless variety of crazy hats/headscarves that she asks visitors to bring her.

Or put her in one or more wigs (completely hiding her real hair underneath), which the audience is told/shown are wigs (over a supposedly bald skull), again perhaps she could wear a variety of wigs to amuse herself and symbolise her refusal to give up.

oh, and please, no melodramatic violin music during the 'sad' bits...
 
Yea my first thought was the skull caps but they never look realistic so i quickly dismissed it.

I think the route to take is the wigs/scarves. I will just make it to where she dosent want anyone to see her bald head or something to that effect.

And dont worry there will be no :violin: during the sad parts.

Thanks for the advice guys and if anyone else has any better ideas feel free to share them.
 
one of those headwraps along with somehow putting a lot of makeup on her eyebrows to make it seem like she lost hair there may work.

also what stages of cancer is she supposed to be in?

that makes a lot of difference.
 
What if you did a skull cap, if thats what there called. But then put like.. plastic crap around it. I'll explain.

In films when they do a 20 year old man into a 50 year old oap, eg miss doubtfire. they put the plastic flexi crap around robin williams.

Perhaps you can put that around the skull cap.. again expensive and i have no idea if it were to work or not.

Great thread though, im shooting a pilot later next year and my main character gets cancer.
 
The character who gets cancer is the love interest of my main character... she is a very big part of the story. Her cancer spans her finding out she has cancer and through about half of her chemo treatments.

Sometimes cancer patients dont lose there hair for a month after chemo or not even at all.

This issue has actually given me some serious writers block because everytime i start to write about her i keep wondering how i will pull this off.

I will probably go the route of the scarves and just re-write the moment where she finally allows someone to see her bald head.

Or i may alter the time frame and make her cancer only span surgery and a chemo treatment or two, because that way i can still portray how sick she is and even show her beginning to lose some hair, like she wakes up and finds hair on her pillow that type of thing, but i wont have to shave my actresses head or worry about how skull caps will look on close ups.
 
If you have the budget and inclination, buy a decent wig that matches the actresses hair style. Remove sections of it to replicate partial hair loss. For better continuity, buy 2 or more and have the actress only ever wear the wig, so it will always match, but show the degradation.

I think that since the head scarves are worn by healthy women (and look attractive anyway), showing the "unhealthy" hair instead would be even more dramatic.
 
I've read through this whole thing and if your actor isn't willing to commit to whatever you'd originally written in the script, then there are others who are, and they should be in your film.
 
Hey, remembering back to when this happened to me...

The interesting and compulsive thing is that you can sort of grab a clump of hair and just gently pull it out... I'm trying to remember the moment of total baldness, but can't, but I do remember the temptation to just pull everything out or maybe just take a shower and have it all wash right off. So, I think if you focus on her realization of that, pulling out some hair while it's mostly intact, and perhaps have a scene where she pulls most of it out or washes it off in the shower, followed by headscarves, it might work. You can do a frenzy of pulling in shadow, or through mottled shower glass.

Hey, I'm full of ideas! If it's really a big deal for her, have her wake up with a lot of hair around her pillow. She takes it and arranges it carefully, say, on her dresser. The next day she adds more. Showing only the carefully laid our hair on the dresser, interspersed with normal activity where she wears a hat/scarf, that the pile eventually grows to include all her hair. If you can do this... and pull off, at the end, a single, static, not necessarily close up faked bald shot, I think it would work well.

However, also don't ignore collele's comment... don't necessarily listen, but think about the relationship of the characters, whether she would be revealing herself to him bald, or keeping her head covered in all their on-screen interactions... certainly if she is to be comfortable around the main guy in private, it'll be hard to pull off without a real bald actress; if she doesn't go bald around him, it sorta implies some issues in their relationship.
 
ullanta said:
Hey, remembering back to when this happened to me...

The interesting and compulsive thing is that you can sort of grab a clump of hair and just gently pull it out... I'm trying to remember the moment of total baldness, but can't, but I do remember the temptation to just pull everything out or maybe just take a shower and have it all wash right off. So, I think if you focus on her realization of that, pulling out some hair while it's mostly intact, and perhaps have a scene where she pulls most of it out or washes it off in the shower, followed by headscarves, it might work. You can do a frenzy of pulling in shadow, or through mottled shower glass.

Hey, I'm full of ideas! If it's really a big deal for her, have her wake up with a lot of hair around her pillow. She takes it and arranges it carefully, say, on her dresser. The next day she adds more. Showing only the carefully laid our hair on the dresser, interspersed with normal activity where she wears a hat/scarf, that the pile eventually grows to include all her hair. If you can do this... and pull off, at the end, a single, static, not necessarily close up faked bald shot, I think it would work well.

However, also don't ignore collele's comment... don't necessarily listen, but think about the relationship of the characters, whether she would be revealing herself to him bald, or keeping her head covered in all their on-screen interactions... certainly if she is to be comfortable around the main guy in private, it'll be hard to pull off without a real bald actress; if she doesn't go bald around him, it sorta implies some issues in their relationship.
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You make alot of good points, i like your ideas about seeing the hair begin to stack on her dresser or something like that.

My biggest problem is the big scene where she finally shows someone what she looks like without her scarf/hat this is supposed to be a huge deal to her and i dont know how to necesarily handle it without it looking fake.

I also appreciate your viewpoint collele but on a low budget script i think i would have a very hard time finding an actress willing to shave her head, especially since the character is supposed to be your all american girl type. Maybe i would be able to find someone but i highly doubt it.

I think i will do a combination of the things suggested, use her slowing losing her hair and then switch to Head scarves and things, i may just have to rewrite the dramatic reveal of her head, but as you mentioned Ullanta if she dosent show her boyfriend it kinda gives a bad impression on there relationship and that IS NOT what i want by any means i want the complete opposite.

SO i still have some figuring out to do but i appreciate the suggestions and keep them coming.
 
Maybe you should start the other way... find an actress who's already bald and use wigs for the pre-treatment scenes... dare I say it, you may be able to find an actress in treatment who might bring something special, who might be having trouble finding work due to effects of treatment!
 
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A makeup student I met last weekend was doing latex skin head wigs for her course. Find a special effects make up student.
 
if you only need the full bald reveal for one shot, then you probably can get away with the latex bald cap thing. The longer it's on screen, the longer the audience has to analyse it and think 'hey that's fake' but just for a few seconds it won't be a big problem.
 
YaBoyTopher said:
The character who gets cancer is the love interest of my main character... she is a very big part of the story. Her cancer spans her finding out she has cancer and through about half of her chemo treatments.

Sometimes cancer patients dont lose there hair for a month after chemo or not even at all.

This issue has actually given me some serious writers block because everytime i start to write about her i keep wondering how i will pull this off.

I will probably go the route of the scarves and just re-write the moment where she finally allows someone to see her bald head.

Or i may alter the time frame and make her cancer only span surgery and a chemo treatment or two, because that way i can still portray how sick she is and even show her beginning to lose some hair, like she wakes up and finds hair on her pillow that type of thing, but i wont have to shave my actresses head or worry about how skull caps will look on close ups.
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Hi YBT,

Yes, consider the alternatives then make your pick that supports the mega-theme and synergies between the characters. FYI - hair loss is more a function of the type of chemotherapy (dosage, frequency, etc), not the individual involved. Besides, who says the Oncologist is recommending chemotherapy at all? (there's lots of other protocols)

Anyway, also consider novel out-of-box concepts like filming Extreme Close-Ups, obscured head shots (blocked by folded hands on head, standing under low trees, in shadows, silhouette shot, (hats/headgear) etc so the viewer/audience is unsure if the actor lost her hair or not... you could even film it as though the obscurity implied she lost her hair, only to later reveal to the audience that in-fact she didn't really lose her hair - it was an assumption based on the audience (with the teasing lead by the cameraman). You get the idea, there's lot's of possibilities depending on your objectives...

Regards, Michael
 
when my mom lost her hair in chemo, she was mostly doing the do-rags. She tried wigs but hated them since they made her itch so much & they felt very "fake" to her, like she was trying to hide her cancer. The do-rags were just to keep from scaring the kids when she was out & about. Women are VERY tied to their hair, so whatever they go with, it is not an easy choice. When her hair first started coming out, my mom sat in the shower and cried while pulling it all out in one go because she couldn't imagine just letting it go hair by hair.

But at the same time, make sure that her hair does not become your biggest issue. It's very *symbolic* of the struggle against cancer, but this is still a life-and-death struggle and the choice of hair or death is a relatively easy decision. It's hard for someone to be embarassed about their lack of hair when they're fighting to stay alive, especially when it's such a temporary situation to be in.
 
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