Live Action and CGI short titled ‘The Last Words’, has grabbed the VFX award on 12th October at the 2nd Delhi Shorts International Film Festival’.
Directed by Parwinder Singh- A Student of ‘Wiztoonz Academy of Media and Design in Bangalore, this 18 minutes 47 seconds short was made in a month’s time and targets youngsters who experience depressing phases in life.
In a freewheeling discussion with AnimationXpress.com, Parwinder Singh, Director of this Short shares more about the interesting aspects of this short.
How did you come up with the concept of ‘The Last words’?
The short film title ‘The Last Words’ refers to the last words of Steve Jobs which were “Right now New is You”. Keeping this concept in mind, I decided to take this message forward in the form of a short film by showing the film’s opening scene where Steve Jobs is seen writing his last inspirational words, followed with special effects all over the short.
Could you elaborate more on the story line?
The storyline revolves around Steve Jobs last words and how it can be an inspiration to the youngsters who are pressurized with only limited career options in India. To bring out the psychological conditions of youngsters, I decided that two characters would highlight this concept in this short. There are alternate scenes in this short which bring out characteristics of the characters with one being a jobless person who is depressed and another one who has lost his life partner and is completely depressed. The climax of this short portrays realization that every individual should find ways to get over this depressing phase.
Why did you prefer choosing ‘Death’ in this short?
I made sure that the concept of death comes in this short specifically to help the audience know the psychological condition any depressed person undergoes and feels like committing suicide. In the later scenes, the audience will even realize on the feeling of losing the ones who is near and dear ones. To bring out the feeling of depression and happy life moments in this short, there were vfx touch ups to day light and night scenes for this short film.
What was the inspiration behind the story line of this short?
The story is inspired from Bollywood movie 3 IDIOTS. For camera angles, animation movie ‘Batman’ helped me carefully understand the nuances of various top camera angles. I used a Cannon camera to shoot the entire short. Throughout this short, Camera Movement Arc was used and top angles also bring out the mood of several scenes. Using these two camera techniques helped in bringing out 3D feel to the short.
Please inform more on the VFX added in the short?
As this film was shot in Bangalore and during cloudy weather, there were several scenes in which I added VFX, one is the smoke effect added in graveyard scenes in which the guy remembers his lover who expired and left him all alone in the world. The Daylight and Night scenes are all created using different software and not actual locations. The sun was created with After effects, which symbolized a light of hope in each ones life.The finishing scene in which at last the jobless guy gets a job and remembers the time when he had felt ignored and lost.
Would you like to name the software used for executing the effects in the movie?
Sure, Adobe After effects was used for Color correcting the short and making the brightness adjustments. Autodesk Max and Maya were used to give a 3D feel to the water flow scene of this film.
And what was your approach while designing the music?
We focused on bringing out this short with mild music and VFX to bring out an emotional connect to the audience with a sense of realization and sympathy towards the depressed youngsters.
Any challenges?
Yes! The most challenging shot was Modeling a 3D building and then animating it, which took around two months to complete
Can you share the credits?
Sure, I’ve Directed, Produced, Been the Senior Editor and VFX Supervisor for this Short along with Akash Gautam who has looked completely after the Screenplay and been the Junior Film Editor. The Acting Cast for this short was Sanjay K, who played the character of the guy who lost his lover, Praveen KP, who was the Job seeking person and Sri Nivasan as Steve Jobs.