Visual Scripting_Part 02

Hi Again,

After lots and lots of concept art and story beat phase, i started on storyboarding very broad plot points. This was just to see the script in visual form. Simultaneously I was also discussing the script with my writer and re boarding lots of parts.

Here are some of the first few drawings that i had done as a part of the storyboard for the film.

Our script was slowly shaping to what our intentions were. I was very clear about the feeling i wanted in the film, and i left everything else variable. That helped me retain the core but play with all the other attributes to make it better.  With Katerina, my co writer,  it was lots of discussions, debates , agreements and disagreements and with every step we were making things better and better.

At one point I got a script from Katerina, and i was happy with parts of it. And i so badly wanted to change the other parts as i saw it differently.

So I wrote a whole new script altogether. then when i shared it with Katerina, we discussed and came up with another plot totally different to the other two. We realised we lived parts of all three in different sections.
The three scripts were as follows :

• The first option was very very dramatic and real
• The second option was too subtle but flowing
• The third option was very abstract and surreal

As we were very close to the material to judge, we had our two excellent tutors, Paul Bush and Brian Ward to give us some excellent feedback and to our surprises, out instincts about all the three scripts were right.

We went ahead and tried to collate all of it into one script. I took the first go at it and tried to get the parts i liked and put it as one flowing story. Then when i shared it with Katerina, she made things much better and we had our final script in hand. To have the visuals by the side also gave us a lot more clarity in fixing the script. Now we were happy with the script and it was time to go visually.

this part was the beginning of rewriting of the film visually. it was just the start.

More to come!

Visual scripting _ Part 1

Hi guys,

As for the past one year, after i started the blog, i kind of got super busy in making the film, and now that i have finished the film, I thought of coming back and revisiting this blog and continue to document the process till finish line.

So here it is:

Right after the script , i was a bit hesitant to directly start on the story board. So i first started to do lots of concept art representing moments from the script. That helped me to get the most subtle emotional visuals to the most dramatic moments.

I wanted to keep this step free from  fixing on any design or parameters at this point, so that the story can breath and develop more.

Herein are some of the concept art :

as our ending was still being worked on, visual ideas started giving way to a better flow of the story.

More to come! 

Visit to the Senior Centre

After a lot of running around, our hardworking producer Josh managed to get us into an amazing senior centre in Beaconsfield very near to the school.

We all were excited to go and visit them and have a real feel of the space. It was  a brilliant place with  many carers taking care of the old folks there. They were really taken care of. We saw them doing half an hour exercise. Afterwards we got to spend a while with them chatting about their life, their hobbies, their profession, their children  and also their current friends in the centre.

I realised, Data is not just one thing that you get, you also learn mannerism and character. Being with real people helped us feel the space.
With this information we went ahead to incorporate more specifics into the script.

One things we realised is we had to give a hobby to Prakash that is his but also comes out of story. As the tim deals with him and his shadow, light became an integral part of his world and creating that is fire. So matchstick art became a significant element that went with the story. Once we got all the elements of the story that created the event as well as created the dramatic parts, the script felt well integrated and cohesive.

Working on such specifics with Katerina was great!

Now we came to a point of starting to storyboard and doing more visuals.

More to come .
Cheers!
Deb.

Script If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.writing - Elmore Leonard

Hi,

As we all realises, script development is a very essential part of filmmaking. The better you have in script, the film starts on a better ground.

As for us, the versions gave us a very good insight on making our story as simple as we could make t at this point. Sometimes, even if you get things easily, and it might be the correct thing that you need, its important to explore other areas and cross check your achievements.

When we explored many ways to our story, Prakash missed his wife in different ways. Some were subtle and some were on the face. In this way we had two extremes and then we went for getting a balance in our story.

Josh tried to get us in to a senior centre as soon as he could. In parallel we kept working out the script. Working on the story with Katerina, we tried to understand our subject better. Prakash is a guy who is in grief and wants the presence of his wife. He is secluded and has built a wall around him that forces everyone to stay away from him.  In this we realised which of our intentions were to lead the story. As a director, I had to decide.  That was tough. More days went by and i slowly felt i was starting to know Prakash. I tried loads of concept drawings . It helped me look at him clearly.
Slowly thoughts were changing into visuals and anything that did not warm was taken away.

Things started falling into place. I net my drawings to Katerina and she  took it forward and  wrote it in prose. And then i used to jump in again. This process kept it going. Prakash and his world was slowly coming into light. It was a great collaboration with Katerina and we had so much fun thinking around Prakash. Josh was always our fresh pair of eyes and he came up with excellent points that we just could not see.

The three pillars (Katerina/Josh/Deb) . we built the foundation.

After a while we had to go to the specifics.So we answers a whole set of questions of Past/ Present and Personality of Prakash. Working on his quirks and his hobbies made sense as it became a very important part for the story. Going from broader beats to smaller beats, the script was coming together.

With Paul and Brian's feedback, we came to a point where it felt that we should go ahead to visuals.

Script writing is excellent and can be so much fun with such collaborative people.

Lesson for me was, create with passion, criticise with no compassion. thats the way to make films.

More to come!
:)

It all starts with the Idea

Hi Everyone!

This is the first post for the making of our film: Chhaya( which of course is a temporary name for now)

This is going to be an animated short film. As all stories start, this too started with an idea. An idea that i got few years back while working on another film script. So when we started on ideating on our animation graduation film, I pitched the core idea and to my surprise, people(animation directors, screenwriters and producers) got involved quickly and instantaneously.:)

**Prakash, an old man and his grief of losing his lovely supportive caring wife, Chhaya - the idea**

From there on the journey started.

With my lovely screenwriter Katerina and my amazing producer Josh , we developed this idea into a story. With constant thinking, brainstorming and at times quarrelling, fighting (and brief destruction of smaller properties like crushing paper and breaking pencils) we got to a point where our story was working a  little. The way i wanted the story to go, was a challenge , as i needed to find myself in it and also parallel understanding of the character going through the emotions.

After three weeks of constant aggressive re-writes and concept arts we managed to have three versions of the same story.
One came from Katerina and myself, one from Katerina and one from myself. The first version had all kinds of action/ drama/ emotion but it lacked subtlety.
The second one was dramatic and dark.
The third one was subtle and emotional.

With the support of our brilliant tutors- Paul and Brian we realised that there are good things to each of them that we could use.

But we also understood that we needed to understand Prakash and his world. Once we know him better we would know his reaction to situations. Being a director, is like constant creation and then criticising your own creation. Its HARD!!

I took the first go at merging all the three in the right proportion. I thought of bringing the subtleties of version 3 and the darkness of version 2 to version 1. But after constant rewrites and getting it not to work, i realised, i had to take Ver 1 drama and Ver 2 darkness to Ver 3 subtleties.

There i went. It went as a flow. The outline was ready . I sent it to Katerina and then she made some excellent suggestions. She wrote it down as a prose. She is Brilliant!! :)

From there on we kept loads of place holders and made the beats worked. Also our producer, Josh was arranging our trip to a Senior Centre to study their situation.

The next part of out script writing started from there on.

More to come! :)