23. Casting Chaos: here we go again12th June 2023
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Fadilma, Our main lead, just dropped out of the project three days before the shoot, so now we are down an actor. We had Zahra planned to substitute for Zoya's role if need be, but Emil's character deserves someone more dramatic, so Miraal (an old friend) agreed in the concise period. She also has a Canon EOS 750d we can use to shoot so I can live out my fantasy of being an aspiring filmmaker who uses an actual camera.
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The only concern for me is the switching from filming on the phone to a camera and its footage quality; from the sample videos I have seen on YouTube, it seems reasonable enough to shoot on. Aside from that, I worked in a drama competition at our previous school, so I know she is a great actress, and to my surprise, she also takes drama as a subject.
Introducing: Power of contractsI also drafted up a contract and then emailed it to our actresses in order to have written permission for using footage featuring them for our CIE AS media project film opening. I added clauses of Release, ownership and Confidentiality to protect our project from encountering any issues later on in our post-production if the actresses suddenly want to back out for any reason.
Rija and Miraal both got back to me a little later than anticipated but now beholden with the power of contract, nothing could sabotage our project.
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21. The universe is against us1st June 2023
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Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. This past weekend has been Meral's Multiverse of Madness, with all my life events overlapping on one weekend, and our planning to shoot our film opening was insufficient. Since we had a last-minute transportation problem, I spent half of my day calling in favours with friends to pull off this shoot just to be humbled by fate (I had a whole rant here, which I have removed for the sanity of myself and yours).
Unfortunately, our leading actress, Fadilma, fell sick and could not continue with the shoot. Hence, we will shoot this another two weeks later due to our upcoming exams. (Update: Fadilma had to drop out of the project due to a clash with the new date of the shoot) |
20. We are indecisive, Overthinkers11th March 2023
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The script has undergone some slight changes over the past three weeks, as we had time to get critique from our peers and rethink our choices. Thus, I finally present to you, parchayian (with the last minute changes).
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19. Risk assessment ReportNoor Ul Emaan
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14. Story board20th May 2023
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While making the storyboard, I got a little carried away. I started off by making it on paper, slowly convinced my friend to lend me her ipad during classes and ended up making the whole thing on procreate. Procreate allowed me to use grid lines without them showing up in the final storyboard as well as color my images as well.
The amount of time this ended up taking me was way more than I expected that I'm just thankful this is done in time for shooting the opening.
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13. Sho(o)t -me please- list17th May 2023
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Thanking past Meral for being sensible and making this quick reference sheet for me that was easily accessible to view while making this shot list. I also found the shot list template on Film sourcing which was extremely helpful and thankfully saved me a lot of time from making one from scratch.
https://www.filmsourcing.com/advanced-shot-list-template-free-download/ |
9. Mise-en-scène8th May 2023
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Locations:
Fields Old Lahore: Sheesh mahal Alamgiri gate Badshah e masjid Gali surjaan Singh Sabeel wali gali Lahore Heritage Club Lighting: We are mostly relying on the free best source of light, the sun itself. In order to keep our budget in control we decided to shoot in daylight instead of having night scenes in the script. At Lahore Heritage Club, we won't have much control over the sunlight so I will take my study lamp with me to plug in there. Props: We will use an antique '70s fountain pen (borrowed from our actress's father), my crusty old ink pot that has not seen the light of day since middle school and a piece of parchment (DIY). Edit: Lahore heritage club has the 70s marshal radio that we need. BINGO
Outfits: The 1970s fashion trends in Pakistani women clothing seems to be colorful shorter kurta's in length with shalwar's. Since we didn't have a very extensive budget for our outfits we decided to work with what was available in our actresses wardrobe (or mostly know as their sisters). Makeup + Jewelry:
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8. WE DID IT5th May 2023
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Alas, we shan't not have to repeat this task
The script has honestly been the most hardest task overall since ideating again and again got us stuck in a constant loop of everything being "not good enough" from our perspective. Here we are months of hard work later: ![]()
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7. Digging deeper23rd April 2023
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I watched this entire documentary in order to get a deeper insight as to the events of political rioting across Pakistan against the results of election leading up to martial law being declared. So let me explain the storyline in terms of the timeline of actual events.
Zoya being underage to vote would show her desire to vote to show her interest in politics. Also, Emil's dialogue of "No, we barely snuck back in, just wait a few days. Besides the conditions are quite uncertain nowadays." would hint to the political instability in the country. We would be changing one major aspect and that is adding grief of losing their father. It would connect to the extreme political rioting prior to the martial law in which their father lost their life and also add some level of emotional connection to the viewers in the way this fact is revealed.
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Transcription:Hello listeners, and welcome to Meral Zahid's voice note. I'm not going to act like I didn't already record this on my laptop. It sounded too bad for a 2023 audio, and it's disappointing that even AI couldn't save me. I have decided to redo it on my phone's audio recorder, and so hopefully this works. Yeah, let's get to our topic of discussion that is how to end our film opening. So for the ending, you probably have seen my blog and all of the ways it has been going around and we have come up with multiple ideas, but none of them seem to stick. So for the final ideas that we have, we have narrowed them down to two. It is ending the scene on Emil as she is writing in her diary about the day of fifth July, 1977. The martial law is announced, and we are basing our entire film opening on that day. She's writing in her diary, recounting the events. She's talking about Zoya. And then suddenly she is into her writing. And then she just pauses for a moment when she hears scuffle outside her house and she looks outside the window and suddenly we hear gunshot and we see her expression as this happens. I mean it does create enigma as to what is happening. We know there was a lot of political instability, rioting during those times so we could talk about that. However, I think the gunshot thing is too cliches and we definitely ran out of ideas. I don't think we should do this, even though I was the one who came up with the idea, taking inspiration for my first idea that I had about the dark academia-esque thing. You can read it on my research page, I believe I have it. For the second option we have adding the part that she's not writing in her diary instead she's writing a letter to her dead father. This is like how she copes with his death... And so the first dialog that we have of the mother is. That means come here and turn off this song for your dad comes home. I think this is really important that we acknowledge the fact that she's writing to her dead father and that's how she's coping and for her mother that she's like... And this shows some mental health issues that her mother is facing and she is in denial about their father's death. We would be changing Zoya's dialog as to asking her mom for permission about going to her friend's house. So for the girls, it shows these three women who are grieving at this point of their father's death. One is completely in denial, their mother. And the second one is rejecting the death, Zoya, and she's exerting her energy in another way. She's too young and she's just ignoring this fact. She is also facing denial in her own way. For Emil, she feels completely isolated because her sister and her mother are completely in denial. They have not accepted that fact. So she doesn't have anyone to turn to. She writes a letter to her dead father as to cope with all of this trauma and stress. That's when we hear somebody entering the living room. Since she is in her own room where she's writing her diary, we would just hear like muffled sounds of dialogs being exchanged and that would be added in post-production. And so her mom calls her out to greet this new person. And there we see a sense of burden and she's like taking a deep breath in like... And she's just like, We'll get through this. And then... We'll get through this. I want to show through her physical language, body language I meant. I want to show it through her body language. And so we will just see a back shot of her entering this room with a stranger. We don't know who this stranger is and why she is so not ready to meet this person. That would be creating enigma as to who is the person behind the door that we do not see. As she leaves the room, there is a back shot and the door closes and the screen fades to black and the title is displayed there. You can obviously tell I am a little more biased towards the second one since that is more drama-focused and more realistic in a sense. It doesn't rely on a gunshot for Enigma like such a cliché. It instead bases itself on its storyline, and it has emotion and layers that people can connect with as to what actual drama should be like. So, yes. And now I'm going to convince my friends and team members to hopefully agree with me. Thank you for listening to my thoughts and hopefully this turns out well. I am scared, but I am also excited as to how it turns out. However, now I have to update the storyboard. But that's fine as long as I'm happy with the results. Have a nice day. |
6. Script: The bane of my existence20th April 2023
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After multiple sessions with Noor and Zahra about the script, I started writing the script. We decided to keep our dialogues in Urdu and embrace our native language. The Urdu version will be sent to our actresses so they can prepare for their roles.
The translated script will be added as subtitles to our film opening. |
Translated Script (English) |
Original Script (Urdu) |
My mom also told me some stories of her grandmother the other day, ones that I never heard before, so I started bombarding her with questions which ended up with us sleeping at 2am in the morning. Some information relevant to our film opening I got was that listening to music and watching movies with parents wasn't as common back in the day as it is now, my mom had to sneak away with her sister to watch films. Taking inspiration from this recounting of old times, I decided to add the line "Turn off the radio before your dad comes home." (except the dialogue will be in Urdu). I told this to sir and he validated my point, so yes that was indeed true. (Idk, how I would live like that) I honestly love how the script turned out, however there are still some flaws in it and I know we can improve it. The focus of the film opening drastically shifts from the girls desires to their late father, although it does add drama to it, it still fails to shed light on the historical events of the time and I want our film opening to do just that. Admittedly, this is not the time to be having a writing block, yet still I have it anyways and banging my head against a wall right now couldn't do me any favours. So instead, I decided to ask for help from my team members. The last diary monologue is the bane of my existence right now. I cannot figure out how to portray how the oppression led to a revolution amongst women to ask for their right of choosing their own paths than it being defined by patriarchy and these set rules whilst also adding enigma to the opening. Things to work on in second draft:
P.S We still haven't decided on the title, although we did have a discussion on it. For now, I decided to name it "پرچیاں" which means shadows, representing how the women were expected to live in the shadows of men, to bend their dreams and ambitions to be quieter, obedient and sophisticated wives, daughters and sisters. As told from the society, to stay away from the real world shut of in a "چار دیواری"(4 walls), hidden away. They weren't expected to be the ones to make the bold steps they could only walk in the path of a man's shadow. While working on the script I also went through the Spotify playlist and chose "O Sharabi Chod De Peena" Song by Sabri Brothers for our film opening, released in 1976, it perfectly encapsulates the lively vibe of the girls that we want to capture in the film opening. It's melody juxtaposes against the speech of Zia Ul Haq declaring martial law, and would help emphasize the shift in tone of the film opening to a little more tense and serious while still keeping the wholesome feeling to it. Also, the repetitive beats in the song would also allow syncing the filmed clips to it. Aside from that I chose the exact clip for Zia Ul Haqqs speech I want to include in the film opening. This planning would, hopefully, allow me to be a lot less stressed in post production. We also really wanted to add a reference to "Hum dekhenge" poetry by Faiz since it had a huge impact during that period and continues to be relatable even in Pakistan's political situation nowadays, but due to it being written an year after martial law being declared, including it won't be historically correct unless we include a flash forward. Here are the links to the files incase technology fails me:
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5. Naming our child7th April 2023
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Despite having a meeting, we have decided to keep the project untitled since we are indecisive perfectionists and will not settle for anything less than perfect for the title since a name for a movie is part of the "make it or break it" feature, it is a reflection of the entire film.
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4. Logline24th March 2023
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Our teacher told us that now that we have our idea, we need a logline to sell it. The main goal is to capture important elements of our screenplay into a concise one line teaser, so enticing that it hooks the listener into reading the entire script.
I decided to research loglines of multiple movies in order to have a clear sense of what a logline should look like, before I come up with our films logline. From what I observed, logline length usually varies from 25 - 50 words as it describes the movie plot.
Two star-crossed lovers fall in love on the maiden voyage of the Titanic and struggle to survive as the doomed ship sinks into the Atlantic Ocean.
During her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, Diana Spencer, struggling with mental health problems, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles.
Jo March reflects back and forth on her life, telling the beloved story of the March sisters - four young women, each determined to live life on her own terms.
The film follows the most tumultuous years (1946-1950) in the life of one of the world’s greatest and most controversial short story writers, Saadat Hasan Manto, and that of the two countries he inhabits – India and Pakistan.
An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maid’s point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.
Looking through these logline, it gave me a sense of clarity and since up till now, we had only come up with our film opening idea and a rough concept, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to explore what happens further in our film.
After experimenting a little bit, this is what I came up with:
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3. Mood board + other inspiration5th March 2023
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Initially, I made this Pinterest board individually, but since my team ended up loving the its visual style, we decided to make it collaborative, so that they can also add their input in as well.
In order for our film opening to be historically accurate, it was important that the music chosen was of the right time period. Luckily, I found this playlist on Spotify and so without wasting any time I started listening to it as I wrote the script. The audio captures the vibe of the era perfectly, allowing me to visualise the final outcome in my head weaved together by the music. The script was definitely inspired by this playlist to immerse myself in the time period after tons of research, allowing me to now act as if I were the Jo march in this story. (Writing is not my forte so expectations were kept to a minimum :/) |
Duo to Trio5th March 2023
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After mid-term, three new students joined our Media Studies class, and by then, we had already made unofficial groups. Zahra and I were the only duo left, as the other groups had already invited the new students to join them. However, we believed we could still manage with just the two. Our teacher thought otherwise and suggested that having another member in our group could be helpful. Following his advice, we approached Noor and asked her if she wanted to join us. She agreed, and we officially welcomed her to our group.
So, now our group consists of Zahra, Noor and I. Indeed, three is a magic number🔮. |
2. Production companies28th February 2023
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Every film needs a production company, so I took on the task of finding the perfect one for ours. The time I invested exceeded my expectations as I went into full research mode. I searched multiple production company logos to see which one would be fit for us. As an excuse, I rewatched Pride and Prejudice from the start because it's for our project.
As a science student, my brain came up with the perfect equation to solve for our film opening name using simple input, a word in the blank, output, and check if the vibe matches. That's mostly how I solve MCQ questions, lol. (can you tell I haven't slept while working on this?) ______ entertainment ______ pictures ______ films I narrowed it down to: Solis entertainment Stellar Films in association with Bendel films in association with Voux films I chose Solis and Stellar since both are Latin for sun and stars. It represents my obsession with astronomy and also fits well with production companies. We liked Stellar films better, so I downloaded Blender to start working on the production house logo. I took inspiration from the regency and original film logos appearing before the opening scene. ![]() The software seemed a bit complicated and I knew if I didn’t start learning it now i might end up putting it off, so I started and slowly understood the functions with a help of a tutorial. Whilst trying to learn I totally forgot that we chose stellar films, and started working on solis entertainment logo. I was halfway done when I realized but it’s fine since it was just practice and helped me create a better logo, although it did take me multiple days.
Since It took me an insanely long time on our first production company, I decided to stick to a software I was more familiar with, Canva. I was able to come up with two versions, however I am not sure if I like them. The font I used was Afrah and in the crystals background one I used a glitch effect to create an A24 logo resemblance and for the other one I kept it clean and simple.
I might end up discarding them both and use text on our actual filmed material instead since that will give us more time to incorporate our actual footage and transition to starting might be smoother, but we'll get to that in post production.
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Zahra finished her research and after going through all of it, I decided to dig a little deeper about the regime of Zia Ul Haqq.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's hanging ordered by Zia Ul Haqq in 1978 after declaring martial law was an extremely important moment in the history of Pakistani politics and for the the people themselves as they grieved the loss of their leader. In order to satisfy the people, General Zia started islamisation campaign and took support from the ulemas. Under his dictatorship, patriarchal and feudal forces were reinforced and women were oppressed. The more orthodox class of society were encouraged to speak openly under the power of state. This meant people openly saying that women should stay at home and avoid working in public places. This not only meant stopping women from working in a government or private sector job, but even meant preventing them from taking part, say, in sports, the arts or any other activity where males were in the audience. Martial law time period also gave rise to Faiz ahmed Faiz's poetry, as he wrote "Hum dekhenge"( Translation: We will see) disapproving of Zia's rule which later became a cult like chant when Iqbal Bano sang it in front of thousands of people wearing a black sari (which was banned under Zia's rule) as a sign of rebellion. After we all researched , we unanimously decided that our film opening would be based in 1977-1980 time period, showing Zia Ul Haqq's rise to power. |
1.1 FINALIZING OUR IDEA
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Brainstorming ideas had taken a long time with us trying to strike the balance between preserving part of our desi-ness and making something original. After many calls between me and Zahra with her being my constant support, I came up with multiple ideas which needed to be narrowed down. We both didn’t want to do a thriller for our film opening since it's extremely cliché and honestly, I am more of a drama person. So we started exploring more drama and now I know that my favorite Genre has always been light Drama which includes many of my favorite movies such as the devil wears Prada, princess diaries, confessions of a shopaholic, legally blonde, clueless, and crazy rich Asians.
Inspired by our obsession with drama we settled on historical drama since living in Pakistan we are constantly reminded of the past and how the partition has led to presently a free state. With a story of partition in every household, I also grew up with one of my great-grandmothers, that has stuck with me since childhood. We wanted to bring accurate representation to the situation in Pakistan after partition and the difficulties of being a woman during that time period. Inspired by my love for Greta Gerwig's 'Little women', This specific quotation from the movie pushed me to write about Pakistani women, to bring representation to the Historical fiction genre even if doing so might seem irrelevant to others.
As of right now we haven't decided what exact time period the film is set in, so Zahra will be researching on 1950s-1970s Pakistan, to see how women were impacted during this time under rule of Zulfikar Ali Bhuto, Ayub Khan and Zia Ul Haqq. |