The Other Side | Commentary
‘The Other Side’ is the very first short film I’ve ever made. I’ve had a YouTube and Vimeo channel for years, and I’ve posted many videos in the past that I’ve edited, but most of the videos were always just spontaneous shoots of events – family reunions, concerts, road trips, parties, etc. Other videos involved AASIA’s Date Auction, and the videos were mostly humorous – they weren’t taken seriously at all, just for fun. I can say this it the first “cinematic” thing I’ve worked on.
The project was an assignment for the Video Writing/Directing class I was taking. It’s the first film class I’ve taken at Loyola since I declared my minor in film. I wasn’t able to get into the Intro to Digital Filmmaking course because spots filled up so quickly, but luckily I was given an exception and was able to take the next course up – writing/directing.
We’ve all known about this project since the beginning of the semester – that our final project would be a short film. Throughout the semester we learned about the different aspects of filmmaking, from screenwriting to storyboarding to shot listing, etc. Because we had other projects to work on for the class throughout the semester – like a documentary project – no one really worked on their short films until April. Due dates for different elements of our short film – like the script, storyboards, shot lists – only started in April, which meant that no one did them until they were due (like this guy right here). We were also each assigned an editor from the editing class, and a scorer from a music class. This was pretty neat because it gave us a tiny experience of what it’s like in the real filmmaking business. I usually like to edit my own videos and know exactly what type of music I want in the video, so it was a little unsettling for me to give the tasks to other people. But it turned out to be an enjoyable experience.
Since the projects were due May 1, and no one really started working on them until April, that left only a month’s time to get it finished. Spring Break occurred in the middle of April (April 14-21) as well, which personally kept me busy and unable to film anything. Our professor required us to have everything shot by the end of Spring Break in order for the editors to have time to edit, and the scorers to produce original music (a total of 10 days of post-production).
When I was trying to come up with a plan for my short I knew right away that I had a limited amount of time to film, especially with other things in the way like art projects, exams, and LASO. Before April, I wanted to do something bold and ambitious – I wanted the story to have something to do with time-travel. I love stories with time-travel elements, especially when they’re well-executed, and I thought that’d be something fun to do. But when I realized I wouldn’t have any time to do something that ambitious, I changed my story to something way simpler – two characters, one setting. That’s it. In a way it’s kind of like an experiment for me because I’ve never done something like this before. I knew that it would be a challenge to make something entertaining with just two characters in one setting as well, with nothing much happening. The reason why the focus of the film was just two characters talking was because I was influenced by films that contained scenes where the characters just simply talked. The films of Quentin Tarantino (‘Pulp Fiction’, ‘Inglourious Basterds’) and Martin McDonagh (‘Seven Psychopaths’) come to mind. Both filmmakers, Tarantino especially, have been known to have scenes in their films in which their characters simply had conversations, and they could be about anything (like what a quarter pounder with cheese is called in Paris). It always amazed me because if such scenes were not executed properly, they’d be boring. But the ones in Tarantino and McDonagh’s films are so engaging, I’m always impressed. That’s not to say the dialogue in my film is anything as good as the ones in their films, but they’re influences. Also, the film ‘My Dinner with Andre’ is an influence for the story; it’s a film that takes place in real-time during a conversation between two friends.
As I came up with the story for my project, I already had a theme in mind when it came to the music. There’s an instrumental that plays in the background of some scenes in the TV show ‘Community’. It’s a quiet, eery, almost haunting kind of sound, and so I was lucky enough to find a YouTube clip of one of the scenes and sent it to Dominic, the scorer assigned to me. Dom ended up doing a fantastic job coming up with original tracks that had the spirit of the one from Community.
The song at the end of my short is one I’ve had in mind for years, even before I came up with the story for the project. The artist of the song is Tawsif “Sami” Khan, who’s an alumni from my high school, as well as a personal friend of my cousin’s – and that’s how I became friends with him. He released an EP back when I was still in high school, and the song “100 Years” was a favorite of mine from the EP. Over the years I’ve always wanted to use that song in a project, but never found the right project for it. When I came up with the plot for ‘The Other Side’, I felt like the song was perfect for it. My professor wouldn’t allow any of us to use copyrighted songs unless we had legal permission. Luckily, it was easy for me to get permission to use the song since I knew the artist!
The Story:
A lot of the plot elements for my short film came from real-life experiences. I chose the story of brothers based on my relationship with my own brother (it isn’t as bad as Robert and Chris’ relationship, lol). The entire baseball story is true. When my brother and I were young, maybe fourth grade-ish, my mom wanted us to be more active in sports. I remember specifically asking her to sign us up for basketball, but for some reason she ended up signing us up for baseball! I think it was because spots for basketball filled up or something, I’m not sure, but my brother and I definitely knew nothing about baseball.
Both of us played for two different teams because we’re in different age groups, but we were both terrible. Every single game we would always strike out, and we could never catch a ball. During a practice I really did get smacked in the face with a baseball (yes, I’ve been smacked in the face in pretty much every sport I’ve participated in). But I remember, in one of the last games I’ve ever played, I finally hit the ball with my bat. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, but everyone was yelling for me to run towards first base so I ran for it. In the end I only managed to make it to second base, but my mom told me how happy and proud she was, and that she cried tears of joy.
Using real-life influences helped me to make it more emotional in my opinion. It also made it easier for me to write. We’ve all had loved ones pass away, and we’ve all had things we wished we could’ve said to them before parting ways. This plot element in particular was influenced by my cousin Jimmy, whom my brother and I were close to back in the day. He would’ve been my brother’s age right now, but he sadly passed away when he was 10 years old. In a way, I used my feelings for my cousin, and my thoughts and reactions to his death, as influence for this short. There were certain plot elements and memories that I was going to write into the story that was directly influenced by my cousin, but I cut ended up cutting them from the final story due to time constraints and to make the story flow better.
The Characters:
Like I stated above, the characters Robert and Chris were based on my brother and me. But the strained relationship is pretty much fabricated. But if my brother and I were really distant, the conversation between Robert and Chris would’ve been similar to what I would’ve said to him.
I like films with twists. However, I really appreciate films that play with perspective and leave clues that make the twists make more sense upon second viewing. The “twist” isn’t important to the plot of ‘The Other Side’, but I added it because I wanted to experiment with perspective and see if I can make it effective. The reason why I introduced Robert first is because people would normally expect the “alive” character to be shown first – especially with the dialogue Robert says in the beginning, like “I wish I could’ve had one last chance to say goodbye,” and then Chris walks into the room. I made sure to leave context clues, like the phrasing of certain dialogue, as well as minor details like Chris’ black suit (coming from a funeral), the paper Chris puts in his pocket at the start of the film, etc.
Extra Notes:
Everything was filmed in one day (about 12pm – 9pm). When the sunlight started fading away we had to use fluorescent lights.
The actors in my film are not real actors, nor do they want to be. But they’re awesome. Kevin Mah is a friend who I’ve seen act in some short films in the past, so that’s why I wanted to recruit him. Kevin Le hasn’t acted in anything before, but I knew I could count on him to take the project seriously. And thank goodness I got someone like Kevin Le, because he totally knocked it out of the part at that crying scene. Those tears were 100% authentic. How he managed to induce tears was by pulling out a photo of a deceased loved one, and simply thinking about her.
I’m so thankful for my cameraman Jorge for the amazing shots in the film. And especially for the crying scene. After about 30 seconds of crying was shot, I yelled “cut,” but Kevin still continued crying, so Jorge continued to film until it was all over with.
We encountered some issues with sound, especially background noise that was out of our control. We filmed at an apartment complex, and right outside of the bedroom window is the pool area. The entire year the pool was never used… until the day of filming. And the people outside were the loudest people ever.
I am also so thankful for being assigned an amazing editor. She cranked out a rough cut in less than a day. And she’s so easy to work with. I’ve heard horror stories of certain editors being jerks to their directors from other classmates, but luckily I had the nicest and the best.
“The Other Side” was originally just a tentative title because of due dates for my script and whatnot. But as I got further into production the title stuck, and I just never changed it. I think it’s an appropriate title, though.
I’m really glad the finished film turned out as well as it did. In a way, I kind of had a lot to prove because this is something I want to make a career out of. Also, my professor wanted me to be very cautious because he was worried the film may be too boring for the audience. With nothing happening except for dialogue – for 12 minutes – it was a big risk. But thankfully it paid off, and even my professor was proud. Phew!
I paid my crew in Popeye’s chicken. That’s the best way to be paid, right?
