side piece: Short takes

A young director and a short-form video platform have teamed up to make people feel myriad emotions in 30 second haikus

Sudha Pillai

Director K.M. Chaitanya’s 30-second horror filmSleep, which was released last week on Firework, the short-form video platform, has now become a conversation starter. Chaitanya is a Bengaluru-based filmmaker. His first feature filmAa dinagalu (Kannada) won the Filmfare Awards South for Best Director and Best Feature Film and fetched him the Best Debutant Director award. He went on to make other commercially and critically acclaimed films such asSuryakaanti (it was also the first film in South India to be shot in Uzbekistan),Aatagara, Aake and Amma I love you. Chaitanya was commissioned by Firework India to make a series of 30-second films (Sleep. Genes. Stuck.)from different genres. At first, he was daunted by the concept and worried whether he’d be able to convey “anything at all” in such a short time. In the end, it was the “beauty of the short format” that made him to embrace the project.

“30-second films are like a Haiku where you say a lot in few words that have multiple meanings. I wanted to make a film that could be interpreted in different ways by the viewers.”

Right from the beginning Chaitanya, who was earlier an ad filmmaker, was determined to make ‘proper short films’ and not ad commercials. “I wanted to use minimal music and camera movement, and keep it real,” he says. Scripting of the films took the longest time — more than a week for one 30-second script. The fact that Firework India gave him complete freedom helped. “They had no conditions. And they were patient as I grappled with conceiving it.”

Short vs long

What is the singular difference, other than the obvious, between making a full-length feature film and a 30-second film? “In a two-hour film where we tell a person’s life story, we try to make the audience feel that the film is less than two hours. We speed up the narration using action, camera movement, music and brisk pacing of the scenes. In the 30-second format, the challenge was the opposite. I wanted the audience to feel that they watched a film longer than 30 seconds.” He also says, the shorter format doesn’t allow time for characterisation or to build sympathy for characters. “To build relationships in 30 seconds is a struggle. Also, the actors are used to emoting without the constraint of time. The editor is used to holding a shot for a few extra seconds so that emotion can register on the screen. Here all of us were conscious that we didn’t have the luxury of time. To make the visuals register, to emote within a short time and to ensure nothing seems hurried was great learning. This format is like a high-intensity workout. It taught me to respect every second of film time,” says Chaitanya.

The young director believes that there is an increasing demand for shorter formats of storytelling. “People don’t want filmmakers to waste their time. Viewers want new and crisp storytelling. Apps like Firework will exponentially increase that demand and also push filmmakers to experiment and innovate with these formats.”

Chaitanya is elated by the response to his films. “People have interpreted the film in their way, which is most satisfying to me as a filmmaker. Filmmakers are constantly asked ‘What do you want to convey through your film?’ I feel that is an outdated question. For too long we have tried to spoon-feed audiences. Making meaning in cinema is a negotiation between the maker and the audience. Good art is about creating something that can have multiple interpretations by the audience.”

Firework is a short-form video platform that’s available as a free video-sharing app on both IOS and Android.

Firework India began operations in the country in October. Their Original Series’ also include the now popular reality/docu-series on actor Rajeev Khandelwal. On why did they choose a director from down South to make a 30-second film series,. Sunil Nair, CEO of Firework, India says: “We believe that there is so much talent in this country and it isn’t necessarily confined to Bollywood.” Now, that is refreshing!