About this project

A Good Death.  It’s a puzzling phrase to the uninitiated, but those familiar with it understand its gravity. This phrase is used by healthcare providers, doctors, and patients themselves to quantify the choices towards the end of a terminally ill patient’s journey. 

It is not enough to provide the best medical care. This is but one component of three areas of choice: Pain and symptom management, education about death and its earthly aftermath, and completion of any significant goals, including resolving past conflicts. A good death must also incorporate effective choices in the areas of emotional and spiritual care.

The film intends to show how hospice care affects the quality of life for the terminally ill, their family and friends.  Several hospice patients from traditional, spiritual, and prison hospice care programs, will be followed through their last days. 

•First, each hospice patient will record an ongoing personal journal of their thoughts and feelings.  They will be provided a consumer HDV video camera to use at their disposal.  Concurrently, I will extensively interview each patient and their family members. 

•Second, to completely understand all of the medical decisions and their ramifications, I will conduct interviews with each of the patient's care providers, doctors, and nurses. 

•Third, to acquire a greater understanding of hospice care, I will interview hospice and patient rights advocates.  Relevant hospice care and related issues, such as the different forms hospice care can take, will be brought to light and explored. 

•Finally, to see how hospice has helped the family cope with the passing of their loved one, I will follow up with each patient's family for several months after the patient's death.

We have started production and have been following one patient thanks to a $5000 Texas Production Fund grant, but in order to complete the project we need your help to raise the money to complete production. 

The money raised will go towards production costs such as the cameras for each patients personal journals, travel cost for interviews, equipment rentals, and crew expenses. Any money raised over the goal amount will go towards post production costs.