Ahmed Sarym Sajeel - AS

Hello Readers! As this journey comes to an end, I present to you the answers to my Creative Critical Reflection questions in the following links to Google Drive: Q.1  https://drive.google.com/file/d/158rMHb6CQ9Y5PWM9KRkonSOuXWCdWoS8/view?usp=drivesdk Q.2  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GRPHvJ6925R9bCZBLJnFDLFkClOdOfW6/view?usp=drivesdk Q.3  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BSof0zFOSDb_mqYP-rWA6qMkv_CrWQjz/view?usp=drivesdk Q.4  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u0BqEdcEaiHJXi00FJF-rgMdBPVttWCs/view?usp=drivesdk

Hello Readers! The part I was personally most scared of arrived when we sat down to edit our movie opening on Adobe Premier Pro. It was a grueling but very interesting process since our film was very interesting to work on in terms of how the scenes came together as well as the color palette. However, what was a very tedious yet rewarding process was when we attempted rotoscoping and masking animation as means of transition for the parallel editing in the opening sequence where our protagonist is dancing in the shower and is simultaneously transported to a peaceful place in his head, sitting on a swing.

Hey Readers! Happy to announce that we wound up shooting within two days, with no need for reshoots thankfully. We only had one scene to shoot on the second day, albeit it was a complicated one at that – the opening of the film where our protagonist is fully dressed in the shower and has lost himself to dance, transported to a parallel reality. However, Fatima and I brainstormed on how to go about filming this particular scene and we chose to add a lot of movements, making the camera hand-held shaky to exude a sense of discomfort. More than that, we wanted to experiment with camera angles and filmed with a tilt and attempted at rotating the camera to 180 degrees for greater impact and an intimate look into the character’s twisted headspace.

Hey Readers! So we began filming, finally, after extensive research on our genre and the subject since it was a sensitive topic to delve into, and owing to our pre-production and the fact that we were fully equipped before stepping foot on set, we completed the entire filming within a day, except for one scene. Here is a picture of us inculcating lighting and a dolly-in shot to Mustafa’s face in the dining table sequence. And here’s a celebratory selfie after we wound up filming the final scene outside the school, one can spot our team – Zainab, Zunain and Fatima, and our very talented cast – Mustafa, and Kamila Aazeen. We then also met our voiceover artist, Hareem Farooq, who like I had earlier mentioned on the blog is a popular actress in Pakistan, to inform her about the progress of our opening. Here one can spot Fatima, our cinematographer, Hareem, Zainab, the producer and our very own Kamila.

Heya Readers! This was the part I was most excited about as we had to design a very dramatic yet realistic look for our protagonist, which was being essayed by Mustafa Babar. What we had in mind was Johnny Depp’s eye makeup in Edward Scissorhands (1990), which was basically baggy and had very prominent dark circles. As one can see in a picture below:   So when we got to set, our exceptionally gifted makeup artist, Zainab had a conversation with the entire team as well as Mustafa himself to start doing the makeup, particularly for the eyes and the lips, to make him look depressed and alienated. And finally, we had the look we wanted and we were ready to film!

Hello Readers! So we finally decided upon our cast of some very talented individuals, firstly we casted Mustafa Babar, who is a renowned teenage YouTuber here, in Pakistan, for the protagonist’s part. We then got a hold of Kamila Aazeen, who has modeled locally, for the character of the other woman. For the parents, our teammate Zainab helped us cast Muhammad Ali Hyat as the father and Ayesha Hyat for the mother’s part. However, what we found most exciting was when popular actress/producer, Hareem Farooq agreed to do our voiceover, narrating two of Rumi’s poems that we had selected for the opening. Before we even began filming, I went over to Hareem’s office to record, here is us all smiles after the job was done. This also helped us in coordinating our shots as to what word of the narration would befit what scene for greater impact on the viewer.