Jessica Sandida Lyngdoh, a fourth-semester student of Masters in Mass Communications at NEHU, and her crew recently won two awards for their debut short film, The Waking, and an ad film on condoms, which was part of a project in college. The young director and the team members tell Heather Cecilia
Phanwar how Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams inspired the psycho-thriller film, the challenges and the awards. Excerpts:
What is the film The Waking about?
The Waking is a psycho-thriller that was conceived from Sigmund Freud’s ‘Interpretation of Dreams’. It is a story about a 12-year-old boy named Chris who accidentally kills his sister Kim… The 11-minute film weighs on blurring the lines of reality and dreams into a ball of confusion; purposefully suspending the viewers on questioning whether Kim is still alive or dead.
How did you come up with the concept?
Tracing back to how the film was created was when my production team was cramping in a car on a stormy day. Ideas were flashed, added and modified while brainstorming on my notebook. As you know, we can only produce and generate ideas after being inspired from a person, subject or thing. We were fascinated by the work of Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense. Initially, the narrative story was built from a day to day experience where Chris absorbs most likely things that he is unaware of. These unconscious memories are collected and stored to form dreams. We wanted to portray Chris unconsciously consuming sight and sound of violence, cry, suppressed emotions with his sister, where these subconscious recollections form a singular dream… We wanted to reason out by showing why he had such a dream towards the end. But since the concept was too predictable and literal, we came up with the concept of playing with ‘time’ in the film… Clearly, this film is not meant for entertainment.
How many of you worked on the project?
There were four of us who worked on the shoot who are Nangkha Longkumer, Smita Das, Prakash Mardi and I. There were three others who had helped us with holding and carrying the equipment and they were Success Sangma, Vincent Wahlang and Christina Taipodia.
How did you get selected for the award?
(Smita answers) As far as I have understood, other competitors had pretty good content but what stood out for our film is one of the jury members mentioning the concept of non-linear editing techniques as well as the use of the Go Pro as a Point-of–View prospective.
What was the cost of making the film?
It was a zero-budget film.
The film made us think even though it was just for 11 minutes. Do you think you will get the same response from the audience?
Somehow, yes. We knew how the response would resound because when we made the film, we made sure what our objectives would be, how we want to affect the viewers and how we choose to deliver the story. As you know now, we wanted to confuse the audience, we wanted to create an air of questions but mainly we wanted to make them craft and piece our film together after they watch it. So far, we have tested on various small audiences before its release and the same calculated response as we had planned and thought of had met.
Tell us about the visuals, the way of editing…
The first visual shot that appeared, which is the POV (point of view) shot was taken to appear as what the character sees. The character is unknown to us. So at that moment we already are building suspense in which the audience begins to wonder who the character is. There were no cuts in between except a long take. This also has to do with building suspense because humans are always eager to know more. This can make them leap in towards the screen until their questions are answered. The GoPro was also used in the funeral scene to create tension and uneasiness for the viewers. We applied frontality, where actors are in direct contact with the viewers to displace and reposition them in the very ambience of the funeral scene.
Regarding editing, time in film can be stretched, manipulated and controlled and by this advantage, we created a plot that would make the viewers to think, to arrange the puzzle we put forth in the montage editing and also for them to form their own opinions at the end of the film. By cooperating flashbacks, fast forwards, reversed scenes and flashback within a flashback, our aim with the concept is to fool the audience, create transitional jumps and blur out the lines of reality and dreams especially. The colour and sound of the film was done to suit the mood and the theme. The first font color that came on screen was red to represent blood. We stuck to pale green on most parts of the film.
Tell us about the condom advertisement.
The Cotton Candy Condom Advertisement was about a woman delighting herself with eating cotton candy. The concept is selling the product by using cotton candy as a symbolic object, linking its traits with the product itself. Meaning, cotton candy has a tasteful flavor and what happens when it’s in your mouth? Its layer thins out, like “nothing is there”. Same applies to the product where its unique selling point is that it’s thin to the skin. Sensualising the scene makes it easier for the audience to have a quick understanding of the connection between the two.
Why did you choose to make this ad?
Marvin Kharmalki and I chose to make this advertisement simply because we knew it would attract the viewers and that it would get us good marks on doing something different.
People are still sceptical about these things in Shillong. What was your plan in making this ad?
Since it was a project in class and not to be put up on screens, we have no plans on commercialising it. But people are people. Some will accept it, some will not. As long as the actor/actress and the producer have an agreement and a licence to screen, there should not be a problem. People with little minds will be given little importance. While your seed is growing into the path of success, these obstacles who criticizes or try to change with their opinions will always be there being constructive or destructive. The question is, how brave are you to break this overly structured society with ideas that would change the world?