Making a movie in a moving car
Sahan Fernando’s debut short film The Apartment, which won several awards at the Agenda14 film festival, is now on YouTube
In The Apartment, a 19-minute short film, the protagonist is driving – presumably to his home in the suburbs – and in the course of several phone calls, reveals to us the plight of the youth, obliged to keep up with living standards that rise higher than the skyscraper apartments overnight, dwarfing the metropolitan landscape.
The audience will be shocked by the lengths the bourgeois have to go to ‘keep up with the Pereras’.
The price of a decent SUV and a flat in Kollupitiya will cost them more than their conscience and vows of chastity.
Having won the Jury Award for Best Film, Most Outstanding Performance (Bandhuka Premawardhana) and a special jury mention for editing (Dulina Chandrasiri) at the 11th Agenda14 film festival, the film by Sahan Fernando (director, producer and writer) was released on YouTube and has already got more than 16,000 views.
The idea for the film, Sahan says, came from a drive when he and his father were speculating on the exodus of people leaving their beautiful houses in their hometowns for city flats - an ‘elitism fuelled materialism’ he found sad.
“In a world where ‘success’ is measured only by financial status and the materials that we have gathered, all of us seem to be caught in a race to prove that we are doing better than the other, even at the cost of our humanity.”
The main message Sahan wanted to bring out was the importance of contentment. “While it’s admirable (and essential) to chase dreams and have goals, it’s also important to take a step back and reflect on what you already have and be realistic with yourself.”
We cannot let go of an “image that keeps expanding with whatever we acquire and is never satisfied,” Sahan says.
“There is a bit of the protagonist in all of us, with maxed-out credit cards, personal loans, and spending for things beyond our means for external appearances. This phenomenon in a larger context is a depiction of what happened to the Sri Lankan economy as well. The implicit message I wanted to convey was that true happiness does not come from what you project outward, but from reflecting inward.”
Having studied Computer Science at the University of Peradeniya, Sahan, 30, an engineer by profession is a ‘writer by passion’. He says it was in Peradeniya he “transitioned (his) story telling from writing to performance arts”.
As a moviemaker he has more freedom. “The scope, environments are bigger, and you get to redo everything from acting to editing until you get the exact scene that you want to portray whereas in a theatre setting it’s what you get on the day (there is a beauty in that as well). Nevertheless, filmmaking poses its own challenges that come in terms of scale.”
Also from Peradeniya comes Bandhuka Premawardhana, who remembers his debut role as Miranda in The Tempest at school in Trinity College Kandy when Ashley Halpe drilled him till every line satisfied him. He says he is now looking forward to being a part of the latest Sri Theatre production “Once Upon a Family” (see review on page 4), which will be coming to Colombo in November/December.
It was in Bandhuka’s first year at university that Sumathy Sivamohan offered him a role in her Sons and Fathers. With her he learnt acting to the camera. Bandhuka has also enjoyed small roles in Good Karma Hospital and Funny Boy where ‘ the incredible professionality” of everyone was a great experience.
While for Sahan this is his first film, he had earlier made a name for himself at ‘Pera’ with his plays “Of Demons and Men” which discussed homosexuality in the Sri Lankan context and “The False Prophet”, a more comedic take discussing religious extremism and how it’s leveraged for political agendas.
“I have always believed in the power of storytelling. Art has the power to make a lasting imprint in us. As storytellers we are essentially borrowing the viewers’ time and I try to leverage that time to discuss pertinent societal issues (in my perspective) without sounding “preachy” and leave something worthwhile for the viewer to think about.”
“I like to take issues to the forefront of discussion, not as a fuming debate as it usually is, but as a work of art that people can (hopefully) enjoy.”
One of the major challenges was figuring out how to film in a moving car.
“We did not have the budgets which big studio movies have, where they would film scenes in a dummy car that would be pulled on a platform so that you get smoother shots and it’s much easier to direct.
“In our case, Bandhuka was actually driving with a camera strapped on the car with essentially no room for other equipment like lighting and sound. I was very lucky in terms of technical challenges that I had an amazing crew behind me. Jonathan Wisidagama (production designer), Dulina Chandrasiri (Co-director & DOP) and RecordOn studio were astute in coming up with solutions for these issues. We ended up with a mounted camera on the car with Bandhuka in it, with us in another car behind him with a livestream of footage and me reading the script with him while barking instructions in his ears.”
Due to the setting (they had permission to film on the road) and financial restrictions they essentially had to complete the bulk of the shoot in one night, which meant Bandhuka had to act for almost eight hours at a stretch (10 p.m to 6 a.m).
While happy with the accolades, Sahan says he has “some ideas for future productions bubbling in (his) head”.
“Hopefully I will be able to mould them into reality sometime soon!”