Eight months, thirty-one posts, one film. The user testing is complete, and the thesis has been submitted. What’s left is to reflect and see where we might go from here.

What the world made of John’s Journey

John’s Journey has been watched hundreds of times since its release three weeks ago, and by the research cutoff, 88 people had completed the user testing questionnaire. They ranged from dementia specialists and care workers to students, family members, and complete strangers who found their way to it via LinkedIn or Facebook. 66% of those who responded had personal or professional experience of dementia.

The headline findings:

  • 55% identified identity persistence as the film’s dominant theme – the primary intended message
  • 71% selected “Despite his decline, John is still John” as their takeaway from the final reveal
  • 79% rated emotional impact 3 or 4 out of 4
  • 91% rated the dementia representation as respectful

Those are the headline figures. But a comparison between participants with personal or professional experience of dementia (66% of respondents) and those without (34%) reveals that across every single measure, the experienced group scored higher:

  • 82% of those with experience rated emotional impact 3 or 4 out of 4, compared to 63% without
  • 53% of those with experience gave maximum emotional impact, compared to 33% without
  • 60% of the experienced group identified identity persistence as the dominant theme, compared to 43% without, and inversely, 40% of those without experience read the film primarily as a story of tragedy and loss, compared to 23% of those with experience
  • 97% of the experienced group rated the representation as respectful, compared to 80% without

The thesis frames this well: it’s not a failure of the film’s communication for general audiences. It’s evidence of how deeply tragedy discourse is embedded in the public understanding of dementia. For people without direct experience, decline is simply what they see. The film argues against that, but for some viewers, contextual framing alongside it might help anchor that argument.

Those are the numbers, but it’s the responses that will stay with me.

“It was about the person, not the illness.”
(Participant 30, family experience)

“In media, dementia is more viewed how it affects the family and not the person who has this condition. This has shown me more focus on the person and keeping their identity intact.”
(Participant 2, family experience)

“It demonstrates that the simple everyday things become a challenge but that even though those skills go, the person still remains.”
(Participant 75, family experience)

“I think it is hard to put dementia and dignity in the same sentence. Hard, but not that you cannot. But the film absolutely represents it for what it is.”
(Participant 83, family experience)

The most emotionally affecting moment in the film, according to 38% of participants, was the care home/memory cabinet scene. Where John’s world has contracted to a single room, but his possessions are with him, and they still say who he is. One participant, when asked which moment affected them most, wrote:

“All of them, having watched my mother’s decline and death.”
(Participant 15, family experience)

The badge

The Institute of Advanced Motorists badge is the film’s central visual device. It stays in full colour as everything around it desaturates – John’s world draining of vibrancy as his Alzheimer’s progresses. The badge holding its colour is a metaphor for his identity.

47% of participants correctly identified the badge as a symbol of identity persistence. 31% didn’t notice the colour device at all, and yet 71% still rated the visual metaphor as effective. That inconsistency is one of several interesting findings in the thesis: a cinematic device need not be consciously registered to work. It can operate emotionally, below the level of analysis.

The badge’s symbolism goes beyond the film. During production, an incident occurred that reinforced exactly why I wanted to make this animation in the first place. Dad’s IAM badge went missing from his locked memory cabinet. It was returned, but the incident is a clear illustration of what happens when the people responsible for someone’s care don’t understand what their belongings mean to them and to their families, not as possessions but as part of their identity.

That’s part of what John’s Journey sets out to address. When the manager at Dad’s care home watched the film as part of the user testing, the significance of the badge was realised – what it represented, and why its removal mattered so much. The manager sought permission to use the film for staff training. That response, from someone positioned to change how carers view the people they look after, is everything.

The Beta presentation

The Beta presentation went well, as far as I can tell. At one point, though, one of my slides showed a photograph of Dad watching John’s Journey. I had been strong, determined and resilient throughout the production process, but seeing a photo of Dad watching his own story, well, that broke me! I got choked up. Dad’s not really verbal these days, but he sat and watched the animation I made for him, and he watched it twice. For my supervisors, it was plain to see just how much this project matters to me.

Beyond the testing group

Since the film’s release, it’s been shared further than the original testing group. It’s now been viewed by students on the Postgraduate Certificate in Person-Centred Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester, and it’s slowly making its way further afield thanks to a network of dementia care contacts that I have steadily built during this project.

A film made by one woman in Blender on a MacBook in a home office in Cork, watched by postgraduate dementia students and professionals in this field. That still doesn’t feel entirely real.

The cinema

On 21st May 2026, John’s Journey will make its big screen debut at IMC Dundalk as part of the DkIT Animation Showcase. It’ll be my first time meeting my peers and some of my tutors in real life, which is exciting, and also a little scary – the screening, not the meeting!

What this was actually about

One of my clearest childhood memories is of a day spent with Dad making an animation, nearly 50 years ago. I drew the scenery, the characters, and the props. He shot it with me, frame by frame, in his home darkroom. An entire day’s work for six seconds of cinefilm. Dad showed me what animation was that day, and this project has completed the full circle.

This wasn’t just a brief or a module task – it was a film about seeing my dad slowly fade into a condition that the world treats as an erasure. He is still here, his identity persists, he is not a set of symptoms; he’s my dad.

What’s next

The thesis is done, the film is out, but John’s Journey is not over.

What I’d most like to see is the film finding its way into formal dementia care training programmes. The research suggests it can do something useful in those settings.

If you work in dementia care or education and you would like to integrate John’s Journey into training, please do get in touch. I’d love to hear about the impact of my dad’s story.

Dad showed me what animation was; this is my gift back to him.

Where to watch

John’s Journey is available to watch on YouTube.

And finally…

A huge thank you to everyone who made this journey possible: my MSc project supervisors, Peter Morris and Michael Connolly at DkIT; Dr Ronan Lynch (DkIT) for his tutoring, advice and guidance; Martin White for his time and musical talents in creating the incredible score; my user testers – your feedback was informative and invaluable; and finally, to those closest to me, for sticking with me through my months of absence from real life. While this was a ‘solo’ project, you all played your part, and I couldn’t have done this without you.