Author: anishkumardharma

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM DIR. DARREN ARONOFSKY

The first thing I have decided is to consume as much content, be it films, TV series, music videos, articles, books, based on drug addiction since it is a sensitive topic and I do not want to portray it inaccurately. Today I watched the film “Requiem for a dream”.

A brilliant masterpiece by director Darren Aronofsky. It tells parallel stories of four characters, all related with each other. The main protagonist is Harry Goldfarb, played by Jared Leto, and the other characters are linked to him. His friend, Tyrone(Marlone Wayans), his girlfriend, Marion(Jennifer Connelly), his mother, Sara Goldfarb(Ellen Burstyn). All these characters are indulged in drug addiction, be it intentionally or unknowingly, and as their stage of addiction keeps progressing, so do their symptoms and the things they do to keep sustaining that addiction.

Darren Aronofsky has used some techniques to tell his story that I would really like to use in my music video. One of them is montage-based editing, which he uses to show a character consuming a certain drug. It is a sequence of fast cuts. I, as of yet, do not know where exactly I would use this editing style in my video. I will decide that later, but I do want to use it for sure.

Another technique of Aronofsky’s that I really liked was the use of a camera rig which attaches to the body. The camera is pointed directly at one of the actors, so close that we feel nose-to-nose with them. As they walk and move, the camera remains stabilized anf focused on their face, while the background shifts. I researched on it and found out it’s called a “snorricam”. I will definitely use this rig. I might rent it or ask around if any of my peers has one and would borrow it from them.These are the scenes from the movie with the snorricam used. I found out that this rig is used in a lot of movies that I have even seen before but never noticed, such as the Hangover and Mean Streets.

I have finally found the perfect song which falls into the hard-rock or heavy metal genre. The song name is “Sober” by the band “Tool”. I have listened to Tool’s music but had not listened to this song in specific before today. I really like it. It’s based on drug addiction and alcoholism. I feel like I could do an even better job with this topic since I am planning on focusing on only one protagonist in my narrative, unlike before where I had planned two actors, a boy and a girl, since it was a story based on a relationship. Working with one actor will definitely be easier. I will start with the initial scripting process as soon as possible, and later get to story boarding and further pre-production.

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Earlier today, my classmates and I got feedback on our outline proposal forms by our teacher. My teacher advised me against using an indian song and suggested it would be a safer option to opt for an english one. I asked him if I could change it now despite being done with the outline proposal form and he said yes. Today I will start looking for more english songs that could go well with the idea of making my video based on a dark/gritty topic.

Song decision

I have been on YouTube, searching for more music since hours now and I think I have finally found the song that could be a perfect fit. It’s an Indian Hard-rock song called “Emotional Attyachar”, which features in Anurag Kashyap’s film “Dev D”. I have watched this film before and I can definitely take inspiration from that and try to make my own version of the narrative, which is about abusive relationships. I have now filled my outline proposal form and sent it to my teacher, Sir Shahzad.

OUTLINE PROPOSAL FORM

The first thing I am doing to think of ideas is by listening to music that I personally like, since I do not want to make a video of a song I personally do not connect with much. My favorite music genre to listen to is Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. These genres of music feature a lot of dark/controversial material such as war, drugs, abuse, mental illnesses, trauma etc.
I am listening through my entire playlist at this point, imagining what a music video of that particular song would play out like. I think I will be able to decide on a song by tonight. I hope I do.

Yesterday, my teacher, Mr. Shahzad Naeem, briefed us on what we are required to do this year for the Advanced Portfolio. My classmates and I were told that there are four options that we can choose from:
1. A music promotion package, of which, the major task is to make a music video of a certain song.
2. A short film package.
3. A documentary package.
4. A film promotion package, which would require us to make two trailers of a film, for the major task.

We were given time till tonight to think about it and let him know, and immediately start working on our ideas and finalize the outline proposal form to send to authorities at CAIE. What I have finalized is that I will be going with a music promotion package. The reason I’m choosing to make a music video is that in my film opening task video that I submitted for my foundation portfolio, I relied on music a lot as my way to narrate my story and set a tone of the film. I made use of sync-based cutting in my video i.e I made cuts wherever the beat of the music changed. I’m deciding to use it as one of my strengths again this year and go with the option of making a music video. I will soon start working on an idea and will be updating on the blog. Hope this journey goes well! 🙂

My name is Anish Kumar Dharma and I’m currently studying A-Level Media Studies at Cedar College, Karachi, Pakistan. I’m going to update this blog regularly regarding my progress with my A-Level Media Studies Advanced Portfolio. I believe it’s going to be an exciting journey primarily due to the reason that I did quite well in my AS-Level exams and ended up with great results, which includes media studies as well. I got a B grade, which may not be the best possible grade but I was one of the top scorers from my school in the subject, so I want to keep it up this year as well. Another reason why I am really excited is that I learned a lot about film-making, teamwork, content writing last year when I was working on my Foundation Portfolio, so I want to apply those learned skills this year, and also because I am working alone this time, which could be tougher but I don’t mind taking that challenge.

I believe A-Level Media Studies is the perfect initial step one could take if they want to pursue anything related to media as a profession. I personally want to pursue Film Direction and Editing in the future and I believe those two are the fields I am currently stronger at than other fields, such as writing etc.

I have also gathered quite a bit of experience in the media world, apart from the opening credits sequence I made for my AS-Level Foundation Portfolio. I have been to an art festival held at the Karachi Grammar School, which is one of the leading schools in all of Pakistan. The festival also had a film-making category in which I, along with my team, were the finalists. I have also worked as a freelance videographer for small to medium scale businesses, which were a newly launched restaurant and bakery. I made promotional videos for their social media marketing campaigns.

With that being said, I am really excited to start the year and work on my Advanced Portfolio, hoping I end up learning as much as I did last year, if not more, and that helps me get into a top film school, from where I’ll start my professional film-making journey.

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Today, we were asked by our Media Studies teacher to create our blogs and start updating them, so we did. I will be updating about whatever we are learning in our classes and also every step of the creation of our advanced portfolios. My classmates and I are looking forward to this journey. We were asked to decide from four things which were a music video, a short film, a film promotion package and a documentary short, and I have not decided yet but I will be updating here once I do think about it.