The best parts of our documentary journey were the 2 days we completely set apart for shooting our cinematics. We had several things planned for our shoot. Although we couldn’t execute all of it, I am glad we overdid it on the planning aspect (although we started off reaching for the stars, we managed to capture the moon) We made the most out of our limited schedule and brought to life our 2 main characters, The Painter (Fatima - Director) and The Catalyst (Alvin - Editor). U

In frame Alvin : Posing while still being 'The Busy Bee' The process of getting the clutter of hours of footage in interviews and another few hours of cinematics into a sensible 8 minutes of horror documentary content was another horror in itself. Our Sound Guy was hard at work collecting sounds to tie our footage together and also creating the blog that was required for our assignment. Rolling between what was said by our dear interviewees and connecting the pieces with the

Chaotic but the best weekend ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our Catalyst : Alvin Completely dedicating our time towards the shoot of our major cinematic elements. These two days 21st and 22nd November have been hard in terms of catching time and shots. While we shot the whole catalyst sequence and the painter acts, the major chunk of your documentary started making sense now. We did have a lot of different ideas and shots in mind t

Catching our train of thoughts We've wrapped up most of our interviews, but one major interview still awaits. Over the past few days, we also had intense discussions on what elements we could add for our cinematics and what storyline should flow. We still are having different directions, as of now for the parallel storyline, but we will carve out a path soon. Juggling between assignments has definitely scattered our thought process, it feels like we're walking down an endles

Look Back : Have you seen the mask guy behind you? Our first interview was originally scheduled for the 4th of November,  but a few hinderances took place and we had to postpone it to 5th Nov. Even though the schedule got tighter and the editing time was super short, we still managed to pull it off, all thanks to our teamwork. A huge shoutout to Alvin , our editor and cameraman, for being incredibly fast and efficient, he made the entire process look smooth, even though we kn

Under the blood red moon Now we shall be gathering energy for the upcoming hectic week and month. Cheers to a ton of distractions but we head there anyway. We have started scheduling out our interviews and have begun contacting them and keeping them in loop. All we have to do now is 'sit down' and genuinely think deep into the questions that we are going to propose to our interviewees. And definitely keeping the rubric as our passport document to board the flight. Fatima has

After presentation scenes The Roughcut crew has been working on the presentation, the dark horror theme - to be dressed up as the same vibe as “Hackers” for our presentation day tomorrow. Let’s see what tomorrow holds. Our subject is still un-identified, around whom our story would revolve we have to sit and discuss in depth as to who is that going to be as they will be the backbone of our story. The bibliography and researches are also quite helpful - Goffman’s idea on perfo

A lavish feast hosted by Fatima Alongside the celebrations, and creating special moments - Thanks to Fatima for hosting!!!!! We had our shift in focus for the first assignment, the Roughcut Crew has been gathering momentum for the upcoming pitch. This is where we’ll lay out our roles and our storyline that we’re building together, trying to be completely raw and real. While our initial priority was to finalize the interview questions and begin the mock tests, that part has be

Director Fatima displaying her character analysis We’ve been diving deep into the flow of our storyboarding, exploring how each scene would link to the next and especially how we would put forth the message that we would like to convey. At the ideation level we are aligned and clear. While there are still many more connections to categorize under our sealed boundaries, now that we think about the juggling lives between perfection and imperfection. We have started shaping and

At home We are slowly getting there by working on the initial steps of breaking down how the script would look like and gathering a few pieces from here and there jotting down how living the “perfect” lives has just become a burden on our shoulders and we as humans are unable to figure our ways out of this loop. The Roughcut crew has finally settled down on merging the authenticity with all the imperfections which totally carries more value than looking and acting the same pr

At the Mall of the Emirates The Roughcut crew  met at the mall, for some window shopping but also to stitch together the threads of our brain cells. It was chaotic at first we had one sentimental topic about how sharing ones emotional state is important which leads to a better well-being and sanity. Ideas popping in and leaving the page.. then our AD , Alvin  gives a pause lets not think only in one direction first. It was indeed a choice of collectively formulating a durable

At University of Wollongong Dubai A frog in the pond to a seal in the sea. A little break between our lectures, the Roughcut crew walks down to the food court tossing around a handful of baby ideas the little spark in us growing just enough to stir the creative pot. The Baby Ideas IND VS PAK - not the cricket match but the brotherhood The Forgotten Fathers - close yet away from family Let’s Talk - the abused stays silent (The War of Silence)

Day 1 at Wollongong with The Roughcut Crew We were on a roll from day 1 as ideas were pinging and ponging off of each other. Trying to find a common ground was not easy, but once we did, we all went out until we had the best possible result.

Al Ain's Art Being done with the interviews, our crew was beginning to feel like we had our narrative all over the place. Every moment with every interviewee and the countless hours of travelling to multiple places just to get those interviews had led up to this very overwhelming moment of getting it all together. But we never let that stop us from bringing our ideas to life. We speed up the process of having to sort through hours of interviews that had to be cut down to 5 sh