Jibran Karamat Film Blog (AS 2023)

This was the final poster for our film, made by Alishba. It helped emphasized our genre, horror, and our plot by focusing on the bell & the red color; which symbolizes danger in context to our movie.  

 After sending in the first cut we were nervous, to avoid the mistakes we made last time we also took a lot of extra shots with different angles and scenes in order to have more variety in the shot types and have better cinematography. Thankfully, the feedback that we got from our teacher was positive and it made us quite happy as he not only liked the cinematography but also the fact that we kept the narrative very simple and were still able to be creative with our limited space. He also commemorated our determination not giving up on our film and learning from our last project. He didn't ask for any changes in the film except fixing the timing of the dubbing and adding another buildup audio for the final scene to make it more suspenseful.

 Here is the first rough cut of the film, it's still missing some of the VFX and color grading rough cut

 Since I was the editor, and many of my teammates wanted to have a close hand in the final stages of post-production for our film, so we needed to figure out a way for everyone to easily include their input during the process. We decided that holding meetings online on Zoom where I display my screen for everyone else was the most effective method to allow everyone to participate in the process from the comfort of their own homes. 

 The software I used to edit was Premiere Pro. This is the timeline for the editing file. Audio: Foley sounds, like the sink running, walking sound effects, doors opening and closing, lights flickering etc. Music was added as well, and other sounds that are outside the film world like suspense risers and stingers, that's what you hear at the end during the jumpscare. During some of the dubbing, to achieve the effect of talking on the phone, I added low and high pass filters on the audio tracks to make it sound compressed. There was also a sound bridge added in between the scenes at 0:40. Visuals: In terms of VFX and color grading, I added glow onto some scenes without the tablet screen in the frame (that way you can see what is on the screen), to give it a more euphoric, hallucinogenic feel. Subtitles were added as well to make the dialogues more clear. The intro text was added as well to set the tone and scene of the whole film, establishing the genre as horror.

 Keeping in mind the flexibility of our actors to perform and to be present at the given time, the best location seemed to be Muskaan's own room, as she would be more comfortable performing there and expressing her emotions, not to mention free of charge to use.

After very quick planning for MIZPAH, we immediately finalized ideas and got to work the next day. We shot Mizpah in just one day, without repeating the mistakes we made in our previous shoots. Our props were just a bell & the lipstick note which was left on the mirror.

Our production includes 4 members; Alishba Jalal, Jibran Karamat, Sheikh Muskaan & Myrah Sulaiman. Our roles in the new production are largely the same as before. Sheikh Muskaan: Producer + Actress Alishba Jalal: Cameraman + Actress Jibran Karamat: Editor Myrah Sulaiman: Writer

  MIZPAH Script  [starts off from Alishba’s call] Scene 1 : Shot 1; Muskaan grieving over Alishba’s death, whilst watching their old photos  Shot 2; (flashback)-playing with the bell Shot 3; Muskaan crying close-up & focus on the bell on the side table  Shot 4; Receives a call from Hannan (envisages it as Alishba first)  *Dialogue* Muskaan: How was the funeral  Hannan: It was alright, how are you doing? Muskaan: I think I’m doing better now. I don’t know, I miss her... Hannan: Everybody misses her Muskaan: No but, it’s different. And I- see her everywhere…idk Hannan: Are you, uh, coming today?  Muskaan: No, I can’t. I miss her, I’ll talk to you later. *Dialogue ends* Scene 2:   [Muskaan enters into washroom & washes her face] Shot 1; *pull focus of the bell* - Muskaan holds it. Shot 2; *Muskaan rings the bell* - lights flicker & the door slams  Shot 3; Muskaan gets frantic & as she turns around, an anonymous entity grabs...

 Shooting Checkmate was pretty complex work for the group members as this was the first time we had to shoot a film which is more professional & unfortunately, that did not go how we expected it to. Therefore, After the criticism of our teacher towards the film we decided to add a couple changes which however led to the entire movie idea being altered knowing that our group had the potential to perform a lot better & hence, the whole film idea went from 'Checkmate' to 'Mizpah'. The primary idea behind the movie was by Alishba Jalal & Muskaan Ifaan; different ideas were put in by the rest group members [Myrah Sulaiman & Jibran Karamat].  Our new plot would follow the story of our main character (Muskaan) during the time of the loss of her dear friend (Alishba), who we know is haunting her from the afterlife. Following back to our original plan of doing this project in the horror genre Casting: We chose Muskaan & Alishba to act out, as the bond they sh...

 Storyboards for our Short Film Opening done by Alishba animatic version

 After spending weeks planning & discarding multiple ideas, we finally decided to shoot on Sunday, 19th February. We tried to work on our shortcomings in the past and tried different ways to compose our idea which would help result in a more professionally composed film cut.