Hello world!

I’m finally back into the field of videography.

For this assignment, I chose to explore the idea of the ‘Seen and Unseen’ in the world of memories. 

IDEATION

The theme of the seen and unseen was honestly one of the trickier things I have done. I thought about what could be seen and unseen and thought of memories – how sometimes we remember the events but we don’t remember the specific details, how we remember what happened but we don’t remember who we spent it with. It was a profound concept but I wanted the script to be simple and poignant, like nothing too ambitious (as feedbacked).

I decided to let this film be more of a cinematic study of obscured characters.

 PRE-PRODUCTION

You can read the full script here clicky click

Shot List

Call Sheet

To see my marked out script (my personal notes of beats, sound effects, motivations, camera move and editing notes) click here

I started with the script and considered something simple. Why would a character want to forget? I thought long about all the past experiences I wanted to forget and realized they are usuallylinked to some form of loss or something unpleasant. I re-opened a closed door of things I’ve lost and, considering the constrains of my resources, decided to explore the memory of a relationship forgotten.

I realized to let the male character be the antagonist, as with a faceless character we lack a sense of human-touch and thus it is so hard for us to sympathise. I took this further by making him sound harsh and brutal, justified by being woken up at night (because who is happy being woken up). And thus, the perfect unlikable character was born.

I re-watched one of my favorite film, In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai to study the way they portrayed two unseen critical characters of the movie, you can read my research here.

Director’s Notes

PRODUCTION

The day started with the most difficult shot, which was the long dialogue shot along the corridor. I ran through the lines and motivations with my casts and guided hannah on the dramatic beats to shift the camera forward and back. It took about 8 takes, but I’m glad I managed to get it done with my team.

After that it was a relatively straightforward shoot. I opted not to use any additional lighting as I was relatively satisfied with how the space was lit. I wanted to focus solely on the cast and their acting while entrusting Hannah to get good shots.

I was grateful that my cast and crew were very observant to minor details such as the placement of props, eye line, little gestures and reactions.

Final outcome

POST PRODUCTION

In post-production, I layered dialogues and added the telephone conversation in to establish the moment. I also did some minor color grading to set the mood of the film.

To see the review of the final film click here.