Aiman's Blog

As much as we loved shooting day 2, we still faced some difficulties.  One of them was obviously the park being a public place. We had almost no control of people being there and we did not have the place all to ourselves. There were often people in our frame in the background and we had to find a vacant, isolated tree.  As we were relying on the natural lighting, and as plentiful as it might've been, we could not really control it. We had to go according to its direction and make sure we found appropriate spots. 

 Time lapse of us working on day 2, recorded on Frame lapse. 

  This might have been my favorite day of the project so far. I scheduled the shooting on Friday, January 20th, while keeping in consideration everyone's availability. As co producer, I was supervising the logistics and scheduling. I discussed with Moiz his availability, and discussed his costume. I took out a suitable time frame from his schedule and on Friday, after school, we went to the park for shooting. I had also been mindful of the weather forecast while scheduling, because we obviously could not shoot on a rainy day.  The weather was pleasant and the circumstances were favorable. We briefly scouted for a suitable tree that was in a vacant spot, and had appropriate natural lighting.  We shot the establishing shot first; Haseeb, the cameraman, Haseeb, climbed up a tree to record a decent shot.  We shot from several different angles. We asked Moiz to try out several different expressions. I told him to keep his chin tilted down slightly. We liked that particula...

  Since Centaurus is a frequently visited and popular mall, we faced a major issue; many cars in the background. People coming and going, parking their cars within our frame, or driving away. This highly interrupted and damaged the continuity, for instance, there was one car in the background of a particular shot, and in the next shot, a completely different car was parked there.  Another unforeseen difficulty that arose was that the most important prop, the knife that I had originally prepared for the final shooting, we had kept it in Zuha's bag, as it was likely to get damaged in mine. Unfortunately, Zuha had left that particular bag at her residence. The residence was about a 40-minute drive, and we did not have much time on our hands. We checked multiple stores at the mall, hoping we can find a toy knife that could be used instead of the one I had made. We couldn't find it so we used one of the spare knives I had made for rehearsals. They were in my bag already. They were ...

  T ime lapse of us working on set. Recorded on Frame lapse. 

  I scheduled the shooting of the second scene on the 18th of January, and we all agreed to film that first because it seemed appropriate considering the availability of Zainab, our actress. We also had agreed the date and time with the authorities at The Centaurus Mall. The time slot we had requested from Mr. Kashif Butt was 1 pm to 5 pm. We left from school around 1:30 and arrived at the shooting location around 2:30. I had arranged the transportation for the females, whereas Haseeb provided transportation for the male crew and cast.  For security purposes and adult supervision, I had asked my older brother to accompany us and stay nearby.  We were allotted a specific basement (B2), where we could shoot. This floor was mostly empty, and so we all went to find a suitable spot to park the car. We used Haseeb's (family) car as the girl's car. Haseeb parked the car at an appropriate spot (he is over 18 and has a driver's license), and we had agreed to that specific slo...

  Since we had decided to use an underground parking rather than a bedroom, we needed permission to shoot.  We had decided to go shoot in the underground parking of The Centaurus Mall, a well known mall in F8, Islamabad.  We asked the help desk to give us the phone number of the mall authorities that we needed to talk to in order to get the permission to shoot. We then  asked our media studies teacher to first call them and discuss it with the marketing director, Mr. Kashif Butt.  I, along with Haseeb prepared a rough draft for the permission letter. We checked in with the school administration, and asked them to produce us an official letter. Haseeb met with Mr. Kashif Butt, and got the permission approved.  Here is a scanned copy of the formal permission letter. 

  On the 17th January, my group members and I had decided to loosen a little bit, and we agreed to give our actress, Zainab, a break, as our prior rehearsal had been quite a success. The actors had gotten comfortable and developed chemistry.  After my Media Studies class, I was free, and so I reached out to Moiz, who was also fortunately free. I asked him to rehearse and then Moiz and I rehearsed Scene One first and then proceeded to rehearse scene two. Since Zainab was not present, I asked Mahnoor Aleem, a friend of mine, to temporarily replace Zainab as Sarah, so at least we could still strengthen Moiz's performance. Moiz and Mahnoor both cooperated and the second (unofficial, informal) rehearsal was also quite a success; with Moiz's performance improving drastically.  Photo credits: Minahil Salman.  Before the rehearsals, explaining to them what to do. 

I arranged timings that suited both our actors, me, and my team members. I introduced the actress, Zainab to the rest of my crew, and to Moiz, the actor. I guided Zainab regarding her dialogues and lines. I discussed dialogue delivery with her, and I also allowed her to improvise a little so she would be more comfortable playing the role.  Then my group members and I, along with the cast members, rehearsed and practiced. We did a few screen tests with Zainab. On one occasion, we asked Zainab to act. The camera was in front of her, but we had not told her that the recording was on. She acted and that was a fun experiment, because we were able to capture her raw expressions, without the demand characteristic arising. Me giving Moiz the cue on when to proceed.  Pictures taken by Zuha Imman. 

 Weather Forecast and Risk Evaluation The shooting is projected to start in mid January. So we have to plan on days that are not foggy, and shoot mostly during daylight hours for the outdoor shooting.

  Our final cast comprises of Moiz Khan as Ali, the lead actor, and Zainab Mahsud as Sarah, the female character.

  We found four potential actresses for the role of the female character, Sarah, who is murdered by Ali.  Our first candidate was Mahnoor Aleem. She is a friend of mine, and a classmate. We had talked to her as early as November. But she was not free and available during the days of our shooting.  Our second candidate was Alishba Jalal. She is also our classmate and a fellow Media Studies student. But we had to  cancel casting her, due to some unforeseen reason on her part. Another candidate we talked to was Anabia Sadaf, a friend and classmate. She was very cooperative and good to work with, but did not seem as the most suitable candidate for the role. The fourth candidate we auditioned is Zainab Mahsud. She is an old friend. She is also a Media Studies student at Westminster school. We believe she seems the most suitable for this character. I asked her and briefed her regarding the character and narrative. She not only agreed to act but also made herself available ...

 Audition And Analysis Thursday: I found another boy, Mirwais Momand Khan, that seemed suitable for playing the role. He is also from our batch in The City School. I confirmed with my group if we  should audition him, and they agreed. I invited him to the Friday Auditions and screen tests too.  Friday: Haseeb and I met with Mirwais, and we then explained to him the role and asked him to play out the first scene. He did, and I gave him the same tips I had given Moiz. Haseeb also explained and guided Mirwais regarding the role, and how he was supposed to act. Although he seemed exactly the way I had envisioned Ali, and he cracked his neck very effortlessly and naturally, the way Ali does, however, he was lacking certain factors. Haseeb believed that his face seemed too innocent to play an antipathic murderer. Later, when Zuha was available, I introduced her to Mirwais as well, and we repeated the audition. I instructed him the same way I had instructed Moiz. Zuha also ...

 Audition and Screentest. Friday was a productive, fun, hectic and stressful day. We were supposed to audition the 2 candidates for the lead role.  We first worked with Moiz. We explained the role to him again, thoroughly, and asked him to play the first scene for us. We briefed Moiz on how Ali is supposed to act initially, and how he acts when his personality switches.  Credits: This picture is taken by Misbah Arshad, a friend and classmate of ours.  Here are pictures of us observing his initial attempt.  For a first try, he did quite well, however, he somewhat lacked the creepiness required by the evil personality within him.  Since our narrative and character demands creepiness and eeriness, it is supposed to have a similar vibe to Tim Burton movies (or shows). I had seen a clip of Jenna Ortega, who plays Wednesday Adamms in Wednesday. She said that Tim had asked her to tilt her chin down and "look through her eyebrows" to achieve the eerie look....

  This is the link to the storyboard that we are going to follow while shooting the opening sequence.  We made this on Canva.com. https://www.canva.com/design/DAFXbaD2J-8/AW8iFXXYCeh9UvVJ_F0XFg/view?utm_content=DAFXbaD2J-8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

  Here is the schedule I made for the following week, which will be kind of busy and hopefully productive 16th January: Rehearsals (and screen tests) 17th January: Rehearsals 18th January: Scene 2 Shooting 19th January: Rehearsals and working on acting for scene 1 20th January: Scene 1 shooting 21st January: Discussion of editing and sound 22nd January: initializing editing.

 My group members, Haseeb, Zuha and I started working on the storyboard together, during our media studies class.  Afterwards, Zuha had to leave for her next class, so Haseeb and I continued working on the (original) storyboard.  I completed the rest of the (original) storyboard later at home.  We used Canva.com to produce the storyboard, using a premade template. We decided to use camera after coming to the conclusion that none of us were any good and drawing by hand. Canva also allowed us to explore numerous animations to create a storyboard which resembled what we had envisioned. 

 We discussed the script and shared it with our teacher. He suggested slight changes in the ending.  Following our discussion with our teacher, we had a group discussion. We all agreed that the footage is likely to appear more cinematic if shot in a parking rather than a bedroom. Moreover, we also saw that the parking would make the story-line more creepy and eerie. It would also be a mild use of conventions.

  We had to change the location for the "confrontation and (potential) murder" scene, because we were supposed to shoot it at the house of one of the group members, but it was not suiting our required timings, and we also felt like an underground parking would provide a more eerie mise-en-scene.  We found The Centaurus Mall's underground parking as an appropriate location to shoot. We are yet to formally get the approval to shoot here. (Photo Credits: Zuha Imman)

 Auditions; Planning and Analysis Our main character is an unusual, and difficult character. Playing a character with neurodiversity requires and demands a lot of skills, specially considering he is a Dissociative Identity Disorder patient. This was honestly a part that I was rather nervous about, but it turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the project. We wandered around school, and asked people if they'd like to act for us. We picked school to find actors first because it would ensure suitability for everyone. However, most people rejected because either their schedules did not align with ours, or they thought the role was too difficult and specific.  This part was rather fun for me because it was one of our first adventures as a group, and more importantly, we socialized a lot, and it built our confidence and interaction skills as media students.  On day 1, we seeked and discovered, and auditioned a few people. The first one was Khawaja Hamza Ahmed. He studies ...