It is that time of the year when are allowed to pitch films for the final project. I had a couple of ideas in the back pocket for while now and in today’s lecture I got to share it with the class and get their feedback on it. Before coming up with ideas we were asked by our HOD; what we want to achieve with our final project e.g., use it as a pitch for a TV series or make a film that you want to send in to festivals etc. Since everyone is opting to create a short film, I thought why not take this opportunity to make a pilot for a children’s tv series. However I did ideate other ideas as well.
Idea 1 – Light and Shadow Further Development
The initial idea was to further develop my practice 1 concept of light and shadow and to make it a full fledged film. A quick recap of what the story was; The story depicts a battle between two sides, 1. Officials (army, police, black ops etc) who are depicted as Light vs. A shadow army, 2. Civilians (lights) vs. Shadow army. The story begins in an apocalyptic world and the two sides are about to face off. In a gory match, both sides are have tremendous losses and in the battlefield two soldiers (one of light(civilians and officials) and other of shadow) are left pointing guns at each other. Just as the sun rises and the shadows starts to disappear. It is revealed that the shadows figures were in fact bodies of officials and civilians. For the civilians, the officials were seen as evil shadow figures and for the officials ,the civilians were shadow creatures. In a way, the story is about how people have lost humanity and are blocked by worldly restrictions and over shadowed by greed and power etc.
Although I love the concept but the problem with it remains the same that it is too ambitious and 3 mins of time will be doing injustice to it. So I don’t know for sure but will see what I can do with it in the future.
Idea 2 – Meethay Chawal ( Sweet Rice)
Meethay chawal i.e., Zarda means sweet rice and it is a dish popular in Pakistan. Meethay Chawal is derived from the traditions that is common in Pakistani villages. Whenever an old person dies, as tradition meethay chawal are distributed at their funeral.
The story starts on a rainy day. People are coming and going in a small cottage. We see that a funeral has taken place and we track the crowd towards a room when an eight year old is sitting alone, dressed in white eating “Zarda“. This is when his obsession with meethay chawal starts on the day his grandfather dies. The next day he goes to a parchoon (a small convenience shop in the neighborhood) shop to get some things his mother has asked. There he befriends an old man who resembles to his grandfather. He gets to know of his obsession with sweet rice and the both bond over them. He tells him stories in exchange he gets to eat all the rice that he can. One day the man and the boy get in to a fight and don’t see each other for days. One day the door bell rings and an unknown person brings meethay chawal to the boys home and says that they were sent to him as a token of apology. He accepts them and eats to the brim only to later find out that he had died and were distributed as part of the tradition.
The reception of the story was unanimously positive and I also believe that if executed right it can turn in to something beautiful that can be sent to festivals. Fingers crossed.
Idea 3 – A mockumentary comedy set in a Primary School
The series is set during lunch break, when the child get vivid imaginations, exaggerate a lot of stuff and are engaged in various schoolyard politics. Primary school seemed like a perfect setting for this because of children of this age bracket (6-12) have very ambitious ideas. In those 15 minutes a lot can happen especially when the teacher is not around.
After taking a vote the ideas 2 and 3 were the favourite ones.
In a tutorial with the teacher later on, we further dissected both ideas. While idea 2 was good, we felt that it needs a longer run time to justify the premise and concept, while would not be possible this time. While Idea 3, can be something very nostalgic for everyone and people can relate to the adventures.
Arsalan Awais 