research
Importance of Research
One of the most important reasons why researching about one’s coursework, its genre, similar short-films, is so important because it is a prime aid in streamlining one’s ideas and solving the jumble of thoughts that I had in mind. We were initially genuinely confused as to what genre to choose for our short-film, what equipment should we use to shoot it, how would we edit our film as Adobe Premier was a completely new software to us and we did not want to repeat the editing mistakes we had made in the preliminary projects. However, all the research depicted below, assisted us in finding an answer to all those thought-provoking questions and helped us produce a solid final project.
Why did I choose ‘Short-Film Package’?
The prime reason to choose such a time-consuming and tough to execute brief of ‘Short-Film Package’ was due to my inclination towards them. I am a person who can spend hours watching 5-7 minute long short-films, but I hardly get the time to watch a 2 to 3 hour long feature film. Hence, I started developing a liking for short-films as they keep the audience enthralled with fast-paced action and complex yet simple plots and screenplays. As soon as A2 started, I was pretty clear on choosing this brief as producing a short-film had become a dream for me. However, what I did not realize is how much time, energy, hard-work and sleepless nights go in making a mere 10 minute short-film. Its scale might be small but it is way more intricate than 10 minutes of a feature film because one has to commence, develop buildup until the climax and show the end of a plot just under 10 minutes.
My 5 Favorite Short-Films
It was quite tough to choose my 5 favorite short-films, however, I did short-list my favorite ones. Below you can read the plot summaries of each short-film. It is quite noteworthy that there is a wide range of short-films, spanning films from France to India and further away to America as well. This shows the globalization of media that has made different media texts available to us, thousand of miles away from the countries where they are being produced from. Moreover, my choice of short-films shows a sharp inclination towards the genre of psychological thriller and drama – this being the reason for the genre of our final project, described ahead.
L’accordeur (2010)
This French short-film, ‘The Piano Tuner’, is a piece of art. It revolves around a pretentious blind pianist who faces stage-fright and just right before his performance his anxiety takes over his mind that he acutely tries to evade. He fails to win a piano competition after which he develops such as blind person’s mask that allows him to infiltrate into his customer’s privacy. However, in a mysterious turn of events, he ends up seeing things he should not have as it results in him witnessing a murder through this infiltration.
Whiteout (2015)
This is an American tense, well-crafted short-film in which everything is shot from the perspective of the back-seat of a car. It revolves around a suspenseful car-ride when a young couple encounters a bizarre, old man wandering in a snowstorm, they have to make a decision if he needs help, or if he has more evil intentions. The limited space of the back-seat creates a claustrophobic effect as the main characters battle in an unconventional way in this enthralling short-film.
Mahi va Man (2014)
This was an Iranian short-film, ‘The Fish & I’, based on a man and his goldfish, however, it had a solid impact on me. It showcases the life of a blind man who seems to be doing his daily chores such as making tea. While he is watering his plants, his phone rings and his hand hits the fish-bowl next to the plants and it shatters into pieces. The chaos that follows in quite rousing as he injures his hand while searching for his goldfish on the kitchen floor. He then blocks the drainage pipe and fills his kitchen with water using a plastic jug. In the ending scene, his goldfish comes swimming under his hand as he sits on the floor in despair.
The Defector (2018)
This short-film is set in 1967, the peak of the Cold War, when the Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt, mysteriously disappeared. While there were many conspiracy theories about his disappearance, this excellent short-film sets out true facts and keeps the audiences enticed in its intrinsic screenplay. Being highly interested in Politics, I found this short-film quite interesting as it shows Bolt in a power struggle as his spymaster makes him aware of the Reds in his administration. The action and story that follows is based on subjective truth.
Cólera (2013)
‘Cholera’ is a Spanish short-film that creates a state of panic and confusion as a group of angry villagers are ready to go to any extent to fight off and remove an outside threat to their village – that is an epidemic, cholera. This is a single-take short-film that makes it more interesting to watch as the camera uses the tracking movement to capture the restlessness of the villagers in this acute situation.
Genre of our Final Project – Psychological Thriller
This is a hybrid genre, in simple terms, is a thriller narrative highlights the unbalanced and delusional psychological states of its characters. We chose this genre because it includes a mixture of other genres such as drama, mystery and action. Moreover, when we began our research about the genre of our film, all 3 of us were highly captivated by short-films that had the same genre. They were able to keep us on the edge of our seats as we did not know what to expect ahead in each film. However, what we also knew was, creating the same effect through our short-film was not an easy task as showing the mental states, distortions, issues even of a single character are really hard to show – let alone create an impact on the audience through them. Moreover, when we were discussing our favorite feature films, we realized that a number of them were psychological thrillers such as Rahim’s favorite, ‘Gone Girl’ or Ariyana’s, ‘Joker’. As soon as we started discussing the topic of our final project, we naturally had fulfilled a couple of literary devices compulsory to be present in such a genre, such as a narrator and an unexpected plot-twist.
Our Inspirations…
These short-films, although, do have different plots, screenplays and actors, however they do share one similarity – the genre of psychological thriller. There are various reasons why these films inspired all 3 of us. This is because of the beauty of this genre that makes your heart skip a beat and makes us sit on the edge of our seats. Each scene, each shot has something different in store for the audience and no one can know what to expect. These short-films make us experience danger without actually being in it – it causes an uproar of adrenaline rush. The unknown facts and information in most one of these make us excited. They possess ends that we did not see coming and the characters develop a deep bond with the audiences. In simple words, they are interesting to watch.
For instance, ‘Cólera‘, although is a single take film, however, it keeps the audiences enticed in its nerve-wrecking action and suspense. On the other hand, ‘The Girl On The Train‘, poses for the audience an open-ended question – ‘What did she see?’ – that forces one to watch this mind-blowing short-film with immense thrill and suspense.
Survey Questions
Surveys are highly important before one starts the pre-production of any media text. They are a vital and the most reliable method to get real feedback from the potential audiences and a band of people whether they would be interested in the media text or no. When we asked questions about their favorite television show nowadays, the highest number of votes were for ‘You‘ that is a psychological thriller. This shows their positive experience with the genre. Thus, the survey was the only way we were able to determine if we have a sufficient audience for our genre and short-film. The questions and results for our survey are shown below.
Q1: What is your age?
Q2: Are you a fan of psychological thrillers?
Q3: What is your favorite movie genre?
Q4: What is your favourite movie?
Q5: What is your favorite show?
Q6: Do you like mind blowing plot twists?
Survey Results
PLANNING
Importance of Planning
The fundamental purpose of planning before we began with our production was in order to determine the most appropriate way to convey our message to the target audience, highlighted by the survey results. Planning our project helped us to synchronize our project and decide upon the mise en scène, cast members through screen-tests, for instance. This helped us to identify our goals, avoid missing our set deadlines, divide the work amongst each other, create a bond as a team and ultimately, produce our short-film successfully.
Production Logo
We had planned it way before we began our final project that all three of us should name and make a logo for our production company just like New Line Cinema, Dharma Productions or Six Sigma Plus Productions. Hence, Rahim Tarar used Adobe Photoshop to create a logo for our production company. On the other hand, after mutual suggestions, all three of us agreed on the name suggested by me. ‘RAS Productions‘, is an abbreviation of the initials of Rahim, Ariyana & Safee.
Our Final Logo:
Other Options:
Our Inspiration:
Mise en scène
Costumes
We used modern clothing mostly associated with the 21st century and the 2020 decade because our film is based in the year 2025. We also used props like a laboratory coat, stethoscope and a surgical mask because of the viral outbreak in the narrative and to prove that the protagonist is also a doctor!
Mise en scène
Lighting
Initally, we had planned and even used one LED Light, the one Ariyana is holding in the picture for the 2nd scene of the short-film. However, as the scene did not turn out the way we wanted it to, hence, we had to reshoot the scene. As a result, one of the major changes we made, we decided to use natural lighting throughout the short-film instead of a LED Light. One major reason for this was the unnatural feel that it was giving to the short-film and contrarily, our narrative required a more raw, fierce and natural feel and lighting.
Mise en scène
Props
Cast Members
Rahim Tarar
Rahim Tarar is playing the role of ‘Rahim’. This character is played by our Media Studies’ group partner. After conducting multiple screen-tests, all three of us decided to give this role to him as no one other than him could connect with the role as the screenplay was written by Rahim. He intricately visualized all the scenes in his mind that could have only been executed by a dedicated person as him. His character required certain skill-sets to play protagonist as he had to express his distress as a brother and doctor that loses his sister to the deadly epidemic. Rahim perfectly resonated the emotions needed to play this character that made him land this role!
Fatin Faisal
Fatin Faisal is playing the role of ‘Ariyana’. This role revolves around the female protagonist in our short-film. Calling this role as a supporting actor would not entirely be false as the screen-time of ‘Ariyana’ is relatively limited. We needed to find a strong character for this role who can express a range of emotions such as happiness, loss, sadness etc. She is shown as Rahim’s sister and he is infact, searching for her during the whole short-film. Once again, after many screen-tests of girls aging between 10 to 16 years old, we short-listed Fatin who perfectly fits the character description of ‘Ariyana’!
Ayaan Alam
Ayaan Alam is playing the role of ‘Rizwan’ who is the caretaker in the short-film. This character is an intriguing one. He works for Rahim’s family and is his trusted confidant. For this reason, Rahim leaves Ariyana with Rizwan to take care of his house and to protect Ariyana, but when he comes back, both of them are nowhere to be found. However, a few years later, Rahim gets a clue about his sister’s where-abouts and finds out that Rizwan saved her and took her to the medical camp of ‘Resistance’, which he now administers. This was a plot twist on our narrative and we hope this character makes an impact!
Pre-Production
Script
The protagonist (Rahim Tarar) lost in his hallucinations unable to tell what is real and what is not, finds himself amidst a journey to find his sister (Fatin Faisal), once he receives a transmission of her still being alive.
Once he has reunited with his sister, the protagonist is shown being stuck in a loop of hallucinations and thoughts when in reality, he is the one infected.
Tarar, is in a medically induced coma under the impression that he thinks his life still goes on while his sister takes care of him.
Screenplay
Written by: Rahim Tarar
Story Board
Made by: Ariyana Rimmal
The creation of the Story Board was on a website called storyboardthat.com and Adobe Photoshop CC 2019. The reason why Ariyana used a website to create the story board was due to the fact that when we printed the story board and used it while filming our project, it was easily understandable due to the easy description of scenes and images. During the preliminary tasks when we drew the story board, it was not very helpful due to Ariyana’s lack of artistic talent and the confusing images that she drew that only she could understand, hence the use of a website seemed most appropriate while carrying out a group project.
Mood Board
Made by: Ariyana Rimmal
The process of creating the Mood Board was different and intriguing as it was the basis of deciding what kind of an aesthetic we wanted for our project. It was created on Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 and the images were extracted from Google. The overall idea of the film was dark, gloomy and dull as its genre is a psychological thriller. There was a need of dark colors with shadows, along with min-bending images which would go on to become the basis of the inspiration we used while editing our film on Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017.
Character Description
Made by: Safee M. Khawaja
Screen-Tests
Read Through
Before we began shooting our short-film, the cast members and the crew met twice to read the script and screenplay together. This was quite helpful in breaking the ice between cast-members and it also gave me sufficient time to think who the shots would be composed to show particular scenes. Moreover, the actors also got a grasp over their lines and as they say, ‘Practice makes perfect!’
Camera Equipment
To shoot my AS Level project, I used a Canon 600D, however, for A2 project, all of us mutually decided to use the camera of iPhone 11 Pro. This new and modern phone is compatible, has excellent camera and sound quality, is easy to shoot with and saved our time. We easily transferred our videos and images onto our laptops using ‘Airdrop’ feature of Apple products.
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