Pyjama Girls - The Story of ‘Pyjama Girls’_Production Diary 1

’The idea for my first short documentary movie came simply, from the street. When I visited Ireland for the first time, I was totally shocked (and shortly afterwards impressed) by girls dressed in clothes they would normally wear in bed or around the house. They became my favorite subject to think about when I was walking the streets of Dublin.

Shortly afterwards I went to see a contemporary retelling of ‘Playboy of the Western World’ by Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle at The Abbey Theatre in which all the controversial tastes of today (like pyjama girls) were represented.  

I was thinking that it would be a great subject for a documentary. I was so curious where the trend might have come from and what (if anything) the girls were trying to say. Were they somehow demonstrating against the world or was it just fashion?

I was debating the idea for a while in my head when one day one of my friends just told me to do it.

So I started to develop the idea on paper. Under the working title ‘Pyjama Girls - Freedom or Fashion?’ I organised two contacts who agreed to be in the project, as insiders to the world of ‘pyjama culture’. Bit by bit, I started to imagine what we would see in that doc and what I wanted to achieve overall. In the meantime I found another 6 characters willing to act in my documentary film. I wrote my second script, happy that everything was going smoothly and easily.

12 people in the class had each put forward an idea for selection. Mary Carroll’s and mine were eventually selected as strong stories and ‘doable’ in the 5 minute time frame.

The Crew were selected:

Producers: 1st Kiara Murphy,  2nd Caitriona Conlan;

Camera Person: Rene Satsi;

Camera Assistant: Caitriona Conlan;

Sound: Julie Cadogan;

Boom: Jimmy Wynn;

Director: Justyna Seniuta.

All the pieces were in place and the game had begun.

Everyone was in a great mood and so excited about the joint project. After our first production meeting all the tasks were divided, and quickly afterwards problems started piling up. Our lead character refused to answer the phone and eventually disappeared altogether. Other chosen girls were very difficult to contact.

We decided to concentrate on a single character - she was the most interesting and excited about the project overall. 5 minutes is not a long time, so we decided to concentrate on one or two locations and characters, exploring the subject fully through them.

Justyna Seniuta’

On the photo: ‘Pyjama crew’, from left: Julie, Kiara, Jimmy, Rene, Justyna, Caitriona is missing.