Script writing - Media brief

Scene 1 

Act 1

Exterior

A Busy Market

 Day

A vista shot of a busy market area's birds' eye view will form the establishing shot of the film. The focus on consumerism will be highlighted by a zoom in on the various shops in the market. 

A mid shot of a fruit seller on a footpath stall will be shot; his expression sleepy but energetic as he awaits customers.

A low angle shot of a blacksmith welding, thawing and melting iron will highlight his vivid expressions as he tries to protect himself from the rays of the drill; a shortcoming of not having safe costumes to wear.

An eye level shot of a poor mother holding his child with a pitiful expression on his face will signify poverty in the country. Her hair sticky and rough like ropes wearing muddy clothes will highlight her limited collection of clothes.

The high angle shot of a cobbler repairing shoes will highlight his concentration and effort as he glues the soles of shoes together. 

Act 2

Interior 

A Small Room

Evening 

Jamal is studying in the very dark room in the very corner. He is trying to study while his family of ten, laughs and chats away.
JAMAL: 'what is metabolism? It is the chemical process occurring.....'
(looks up and annoyed, shakes his head in disdain; starts over)
JAMAL: 'It is the chemical process that...'
(the suddden noise in the room disturbs him)
JAMAL'S MOTHER: 'You are such a riot. Don't you realize that your brother is tying to study? Are you blind? Give that to me.'
(A cackling joker goes flying in the air and falls helplessly to the floor.)
SURRAYA: (crying) I did not do anything now.
(Jamal gets up, walk to the toy, picks it up, goes to Surraya, and holds her hand and his books and lantern)
JAMAL: (then quietly says) You shouldn't be so biased.
(He walks out of the house.)
Fades Out. Scene changes. Same Act
Scene 2
Act 2

Exterior

Outside The House

Soft Daylight

Surraya is playing with her broken doll and Jamal looks at his sister with an admiring smile. His book in his hands, he caresses Surraya on the head. Surraya looks at her brother.

JAMAL: (lovingly) You may play as mush as you want while your brother studies. 
(Surraya, too young to understand, simply smiles and gets buys with her doll again while Jamal, smiles.Sighing, he 


Act 3

Exterior

A Plot

Morning

The students on the platform look at each other as they think before taking an initiative. The teacher repeats her question)

TEACHER MARIA: Give me 3 words that have the vowel 'a'?
(One hand raises up. A second one follows and three more follow lead. Teacher Maria tries but with a cheerful smile decides)
TEACHER MARIA: OK. I'll give you all a chance.
(points in the extreme left direction)
TEACHER MARIA: You will answer.
STUDENT 1: (hesitates) Ummmm cat, bat, sat.
TEACHER MARIA: Good. Come on class lets repeat after him. 
(whole class repeats in chorus)
TEACHER MARIA: OK now I want 3 words that have the vowel 'e' in them. 
(chooses a student at random)
TEACHER MARIA: You may answer.
STUDENT 2: set, bed, let
TEACHER MARIA: Good. Lets repeat, class!
(the class repeats in chorus)
TEACHER MARIA: Now, I need 3 words with an 'i' in them. 
(points to the back)
TEACHER MARIA: You seem to know the answer.
STUDENT 3: (stands up) sit, bit, lit. 
TEACHER MARIA: Lets repeat. 
(the class repeats in unison)

Act 4

Interior

A Small House

Night

The boy in a very serious expression is trying to put strands in the bracelets as the light goes out and the boy struggles to make a manual circuit. Flashback of his father hitting him for not bringing back home, enough money from begging. Flashback of a car's backseat that has a science project with a manual circuit in it.

Act 5

Exterior

A Public Park

Afternoon

Four young girls dressed in shalwar kameez, walk around in a park holding a placard saying, 'Give Charity' and cardboard boxes with a tagline saying 'Sunrise Community Management. Not for Us, but for the Others' are going to people in a group asking for charity to be donated towards a good cause i.e communal assistance for the special children and the needy people.'

Film Treatment

Project: Possibility Pakistan

Opening Sequence
A busy bazaar in the centre of Lahore, vendors on the footpaths, children begging for money, a blacksmith moulding metal, the loud voice of the vegetable seller in the early morning; all represent the very basic sources of earning money in Pakistan, a generally third world country of the world. Being poor should have affected them, but it hasn’t. Old and a little too tired, they all must be. But their expressions are camouflaged. Tabla instrumental in the background is sufficient entertainment for them to feel refreshed and happy.

Scene 2
Load shedding has made the puny room look even darker. A small lantern in the very corner of the room directs light on Jamal, a young boy who is trying impossibly hard to study. Ten people make the room a little too noisy as they laugh and chat, oblivious of Jamal’s resilience to study. But a chubby lady of 40, dressed dirtily with sticky hair, is observing her son with pride, but her eyes twitch with annoyance as they look at Surraya, a young girl of only 3, who, unaware of poverty, the country’s economic conditions and load shedding is playing innocently with a cackling joker. Unable to hold for long, the lady stomps to Surraya and dragging her across the room, lashes out all her anger at her innocent play in an unnecessary fury. Jamal, perturbed by the chaos in the room, looks up and feels sorry for her sister as his mother gives preference to him over her. Walking to her mother, he takes the cackling joker from her hand, and gives it to Surraya.  Holding her sister with one hand and the lantern and his books with the other, he walks quietly out of the house.

Scene 3 
The pavement in the plot outside the house with children sitting on the ground in broad daylight looks like a temporary set-up for education. The young friendly teacher dressed in red looks very cheerful with spectacles and primary books. Her fingers have whitened with chalk and look rough. However, relaxed and determined, she asks a question from the black board and allows her students to answer. Five students raise their hands and look at her in anticipation. She understands their enthusiasm to answer, hence gives everyone the chance to respond. And they are all correct. Happiness pervades and nervousness breaks down, and the students now feel more comfortable in the environment. Their determination to study is not only commendable but is outshone by their dirty but straightened clothes and oily yet combed hair with a desire to be like the educated class that their employers belong to.

Scene 4
The sun is setting. A soft gloom fills the sky, giving it a beautiful hue. The vendor selling vegetables in the Sunday bazaar makes his last transaction and puts the money in the metal tin on his side and shakes it for weight. His till for the day is heavy. He has made sufficient money to take something home for his family. Pushing his cart forward, he walks home and looks around for a fruit seller or such. Citing a hawker, he calls on him to stop. Dragging himself fast with the heavy cart, he reaches the vendor in time. Selecting the most luxurious fruits of all, he pays the vendor with a full smile on his face. Content with this transaction, he walks home, already imagining his family’s joy.

Scene 5
A young boy of not more than 10 years old is busy concentrating on the thin strands of thread and the equally small-holed beads, striving to get the thread through them to finish his 98th hand-made bracelet. He has to complete a bunch of 100 bracelets by tonight, or else his father would beat him for the fifth time this week. His hands shiver with the thought of it alone. His eyes water but his pace doesn’t slow. A series of uneducated abuses follow the unexpected end of the candle’s wicker. ‘That was the last match that I had. What now?’ He can already feel his father’s angry lashes on his already injured back. Determined not to fall for the same punishment again, he feels impatiently for any source of even the minutest light but there’s none. Feeling for the contents in the box on his side, he eventually finds a wire. Thinking hard as to what a wire can conjure as light for him, an idea strikes him; something that he had once seen on a student’s project in a car when he used to beg on traffic signals.  Digging deeper in the box, he blindly finds a small bulb and a wasted battery cell that he had sieved from the waste disposal boxes outside the katchi abaadi that he lives in. Connecting the wire, the bulb and the battery cell, he is able to make a small electric circuit successfully. Smiling at his accomplishment, he now has a scientific method to outdo not only his father but the bitter tentacles of load-shedding, too.

Scene 6
This pleasant Sunday morning is a welcome to a new morning full of hope. Today, the markets are closed. No young children begging for change, no young girls with multiple ear piercings, no disturbing sight at least in the main bazaar but the traffic jam at the Cavalry Ground is a rude interruption to the otherwise peaceful day. But this traffic jam is another happy surprise as two young boys and three girls roam around the jam-packed cars with a box in their hand. A box saying, ‘For Charity. Our Under-Privileged Siblings have a Right to be Happy.’ Finely dressed in casual clothes, they look educated and their cheerful expressions, their cause and their support hold a lot more significance of their view towards change, towards revolution; of actually looking beyond the obvious, of being something more than what is inside the box.

Closing Scene
(Will be a graphic collation of all the scenes and the concept behind each scene will be highlighted to give a summarised conclusion to the film.)

Name and logo for production

Before making my production's logo, I searched many existing logos on Google and came across some very creative ones from where I derived my own idea. Here are some of them :



Second step in the designation of our production house was to construct the logo. To form the basis of our logo, we researched other logo designs. The common elements found in almost all the logo designs was the availability of a creative name and not a very formal one, and the availability of some signifiers of film production i.e an eye, a reel, a camera, a shot board, etc. For example:

                                                                                                                           

 Having obtained an idea about how our production house' logo may be designed, I searched for an inspirational logo which would help me in constructing a logo that fulfilled both my demands to:
a) be creative, and
b) hold some sort of indication of a film company logo

This is what best suited our preferences:

This logo somewhat met my needs because it is creative, it holds a symbolic camera on a tripod in the background and is not only simple but  also has graphics in it whereby the collation of a camera design and a persona subjugates the concept behind the distribution company's name 'RUN' very finely.

I then Came up with an  idea of making e logo consisting of a camera in it and keeping it simple.
Though y first creation got rejected by teacher but here's its construction:

Since the logo title, 'Yellow Paint' does have a very cliched feel to it, we decided tomould the title into 'Yel-lo Productions' which may even give the effect of a production house that has rights over films produced under the invisible banner of 'creating awareness' and of 'educating people about their rights'.

This is what we came up with:

The idea of using the marquee tools for the construction of a camera was inspired by the logo of 'RUN' productions while the name was inspired and moulded to give it a significant impact with relevance to the theme of our short film. We have used the 'Orange LET' font from www.fonts.com  after testing with various other fonts like

 Having tested various fonts, we shortlisted 'bubbletea' and 'orange LET' and somehow when we tried either of the fonts with our graphic, 'orange LET' simply jelled in. Bubbletea, on the other hand, looked a bit too crowded in and didn't enhance the 'yel-lo' so well.

And this is how, after much trying and testing did we come up with our final logo design.