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For this project, we were given a list of five poems to choose from. Among these, I-797-C Notice of Action stood out to me.
In this poem, we see an immigrant being investigated along with their spouse in an interview. Immigrants have always been subject to discrimination and scrutiny in the countries they migrate to. And sometimes the legal processes might ask too much of them, at the cost of their privacy. That is the scene this poem is set in. It gives us an uncomfortable insight into an immigrant's personal life as they get questioned and picked apart, dehumanizing them, details of their marriage being pried open and spread out on the "table" between them.
I want to provide a reverse perspective on this. While there are immigrants who do come to other countries and get married out of love, there are also some immigrants who get into a marriage of convenience, either willingly or unwillingly. These marriages of convenience could be for political, economic or social reasons. Like an immigrant marrying someone who is willing to fund them or in exchange for a citizenship. Or it could be someone being forced to marry someone from their social group, creating a loveless marriage that brings an immigrant to a country that is alien to them, for a partner who is alien to them, and a society that alienates them. This is the perspective I would like to take in my film, a dark look into the very reality of such marriages, to bring to knowledge a custom that very much exists but hasn't really been shown or portrayed in film.

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When I choose the subject and wrote the script for it, I had some ideas about what I wanted it to look like. When I met Tomiraj and Victor, I realized we see eye to eye and through group discussions they helped me build upon my ideas as well as add to them. I wanted to shoot the metaphorical long table however shooting that in a real location would have been problematic. The idea of putting that scene in a black dimension helped us add more metaphorical meaning to it as we showed it as the reality suspended from reality. It also gave us creative freedom to play with lighting, perspectives and artistic storytelling. Switching back and forth between reality and the unreal version of reality gave us the flexibility to show the same story running in two different parallel settings, like the behind the scenes and on stage performance of a drama.

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We want the portrayal to be in a black mirror-esque, satirical narrative. We see the narrative through the perspective of the husband, the wife, and their lawyer. The poem starts with the mail getting dropped through the mailbox, a notice to appear for an interview in it. We see the husband and wife sitting on two sides of an exaggeratedly long table, with the lawyer sitting in the middle. The body language of the spouses is mechanical. The narration of the poem is done by the lawyer in the form of reading the letter. His presence symbolizes how the couple need an external influence to function as a unit, how there is no real bond between them. He serves the purpose of an enabler, a safe haven ,a controller, helping keep the marriage and resultantly the citizenship stable. When we see the couple step outside their house or see one of them alone, they are warm and completely human. This shows the stress living in 'arrangements' can cause on even the best of people.  When it comes to the actual interview, we hear the wife thinking all the real answers in her head before speaking the curated answers from the list. The last scene where it says don't mention citizenship, say you married for love, we see a glimpse of some exchange or compromise that brought together their union. It shows how wanting to survive in a hostile external world can be reason enough to push two people to come together and yet not come together.

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While at First glance these questions look easy to answer, I wondered what they would look and feel like if they were about the stranger who lives in your house. The questions are invasive enough already, but directed towards the stranger, they're uncomfortable too. The marriage was one of convenience, however saying that could cost you the citizenship, the only thing that matters. And of course you would have to put up an act. So how would you do it?

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7 Mood board and color palette ideas in 2022 | color palette, mood board, color palette interior design

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Mar 8, 2022 - Explore Up's board "Mood board and color palette" on Pinterest. See more ideas about color palette, mood board, color palette interior design.

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When Kalyani approached me with the idea I was intrigued, as it fell into a genre I haven’t tried to tackle before. We wanted to create a contrast between the two timelines by making one of them surreal. I believe it was my suggestion to try a blackout effect as it would be a very striking image and also allowed us a lot more freedom with the size of our set.

The shoot itself should’ve been better organised and the bookings done earlier; this lack of organisation meant we ran short on time and had to sacrifice some shots. Although, due to my shot list we were able to capture all of the primary shots, as we got them all out of the way first.

During editing, I cut a few bits dialogue and a couple scenes as I realised the pacing wasn’t quite right. The final version wasn’t the exact film we envisioned but I am happy with the result.

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The narrative of the film alternates between the home and office. The home scenes, where the couple sits with the lawyer, are shot in an ethereal, unnatural dreamy state, with darkness all around them. This was inspired by the film 'under the skin', where the lead drags her victims into an other dimension, which is just an endless pitch black space. The film also strikes upon some sensitive issues we had in mind, like women being bogged down by patriarchal societal expectations, and touches on how immigrants must feel being lost in a hostile culture, always on the verge of losing it all the moment they take one false step.
The idea for the main character was inspired by Scarlett Johansson in the above example, as well as Rosamund Pike in 'Gone Girl'. We wrote our immigrant as the strong female lead who stands in the morally gray area between right and wrong,  doesn't reveal her real self much, and can manipulate her way into anything.
Apart from the actress, we never really see the whole of any character. Her husband is always in the shadows, because that is literally how he has been with her, an alien living in her home. It is a marriage of convenience, with both of them milking it for different reasons, and we see it through the lighting. The lawyer sits in the area between the light and dark, her ray of hope and instrument in setting up the fabricated reality, the drama that helps her stay in the country. The table also alternates between being small at times to being unrealistically long at times, showing metaphorically the distance between them.

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Our main idea was to create a visual metaphor of the relationship between our main protagonists. We've decided to show the long table just to create that distance that exists between the husband and the wife. We chose not to show the husband face, because he doesn't exist, he is not important for her, he is just a tool, a way for her to get what she wants.

We inspired from the Under the Skin film, and we tried to recreate that total darkness around our characters. I am sure that, if we would have had more time in executing that scene, it would have been better.

Production wise, I've learned that we need to organize differently. We should have done certain things earlier, we should have booked the studios/locations with at least a couple of weeks before the deadline. In simple words, we still have a lot to learn about the pre-production part. In the same time I have to mention that Riyadh Haque and Ryan Lackenby were very helpful and they tried to organize the studio bit, giving us the proper time to finish the shooting.

I am happy with the fact that we, as a team, managed to accomplish the task, despite the pre-production phase.

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The shot list is colour coordinated for the repeated angles to avoid resetting lights and angles between scenes.

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We want to illuminate the wife while the husband and the lawyer stay in the shadows. It shows her as the central character of the narrative, the lawyer and husband just enough insignificant in her story.

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the metaphorically and literally long table shows the distance between them as a couple

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For the filming, we used Sony PXW-FS7 6 Lens Kit that comes with Samyang prime lenses, and Sony HXR-NX80 Compact 4K Camcorder for B roll footage.

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For lighting, we used multiple lighting kits. The ARRI 300 lighting kit lights were used as primary source of lighting, while the IKAN 2 LED light panel kits were used for filling in and softening shadows.

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Kalyani Sinalkar (UP2040815)
Tomiraj Vijenthrathas (UP2037247)
Victor Rosu (UP899647)

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We used this 3D render from our test shoot to quickly create the same setup when it came to shooting.

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Tripod ,FS7, Studio - Dining Table-Wife left of table, Husband right of table (in shadow), lawyer middle frame facing away.
This shot establishes the dynamics of the characters, the wife as the lead, the husband as the unwilling participant and the lawyer as the mediator. The lighting puts the wife in focus, casting her as the ethereal character.

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Tripod,FS7, 14mm lens, Studio-POV over husband's shoulder.
This shot shows how the normal table distance between them looks from the couple's perspectives, it is a metaphor about the unfamiliarity and the alienization between them.

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Tripod,FS7, house-
the letter the husband holds has significance as it shows the husbands motivation in being a part of the lie. it shows the viewer the marriage is one of convenience.

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Tripod FS7 Library - Interview- now we see the wife through the camcorder, as if through the eyes of the state. And not surprisingly, even though the husband is siting right there and is visible in the wider angle, the eye of the state is only set on her, is only set to scrutinize her.

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Tripod - Over wife's right shoulder, FS7 14 mm lens,Studio - Dining Table-
We see the husband as the wife does, insignificant to her plans and herself, a metaphor on him being a resident alien.

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FS7 House - Bathroom Wife puts toothbrush into holder next to Husband's white one. We see the wife only ever answer one question clearly, and that is because of the habit of seeing his toothbrush when she brushes her own teeth. It signifies that the man living in the house is still a real man with a real life, but the only ways she knows him is(ironically)through his habits.

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The wife's façade finally breaks, the tolerance gives way to passion and anger at her dehumanization by the state mechanisms.

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Tripod - Left side of lawyer FS7 Studio - Dining Table Close up of lawyer's mouth - "don’t mention citizenship. Talk about love, how you got married for love". The lawyer ignores her outburst and keeps advising her to lie, this scene signifies how nobody is really even listening to her real voice, they are only there to do what they do or take what they want. It gives us an idea why she is in the gray; it is because the truth has no place at either of the tables in the film.

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sony fs7, Eldon-corridor- The last shot of the film shows the end result of the meeting with the lawyer, a confident fabricated couple walks out of the interview room, we only know it is all fake when they tear apart as soon as the elevator door closes.

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Risk Assessment - Cinematography Shoot 11.04.22-17.04.22

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This was what the footage originally looked like.

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The final colour graded image definitely achieved the effect we wanted, and looks far more striking than before. The grading was done by myself (Tomi) and Victor once the editing was complete.