Mohan Parivar
(An animated short film)

Director, Writer, Storyboards, Animation

Direction-Vatsal Bucha

Writing- Vatsal Bucha

Storyboards- Vatsal Bucha

Animation- Vatsal Bucha, Sudhanshu Kanwar, P Varsha, Kriti Bhavaraju

Backgrounds- Sudhanshu Kanwar, Malaika

Character Designs- P Varsha, Kriti Bhavaraju, Vatsal Bucha

Sound Design- Vatsal Bucha

This is the first three minutes of the film, as the full project hasn’t been completed yet. I guess some films really do end up in production hell!

The trailer for the film, I'll talk about the process later in the post.

Synopsis

As her youngest daughter loses her favourite toy, the mother must navigate her dysfunctional family as all of them learn to overcome their personal conflicts.

This is a story about a dysfunctional family facing individual struggles. The youngest daughter has not slept for three days following the loss of her beloved doll. The father has lost his job but has not disclosed it to his family yet. The oldest daughter has recently broken up with her girlfriend and is concealing her lesbian relationship from her parents. Meanwhile, the mother is grappling with her own sense of powerlessness in life as she strives to maintain harmony in the family. The narrative follows their journey as they unite the night before a party and learn about the significance of empathy and cooperation. The film takes place in one setting- their home.

Process

While the initial concept and script for the film were developed during the Script Writing module in our second year, significant changes were made to enhance the story's impact and authenticity in terms of emotion and context. The story draws from my personal experiences of growing up and discovering my identity, realizing that my parents are just as human as I am, and coming to terms with emotions from the past.

Parivar

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While all the characters serve a purpose in the story and drive the narrative forward, they also represent people from my life. The mother, the father, and Manya are based on real individuals I’ve encountered, each dealing with similar challenges.

Research

The research process took us to Gurgaon, where we spent a few days with four nuclear families. We observed what a middle-class home in Gurgaon might look like and explored the aspirations of the people living there. This helped us identify elements to enhance the story’s effectiveness and authenticity.

Our research methods included the fly-on-the-wall technique and conducting interviews with the families.

We took field notes, photos and sketches of the household to base the virtual set of our film on these houses, adding in our own previous personal experiences.

Approach to Leading a Team

The project was created during Moving Images, an eight-week module in my Communication Design program at NID Kurukshetra.

While the film served as a crash course in storytelling, the biggest lesson I gained was learning how to lead a team. Before this project, I was never someone who naturally stepped into leadership roles. However, this experience became a gateway for me to discover that I might actually enjoy being a leader — developing a vision, starting a project, and executing it alongside equally passionate people.

During production, I aimed to create a fun and collaborative workspace. We shared inside jokes and even gave ourselves a fake studio name: Paripona Productions.

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Paripona Productions Team

Here are the major lessons I learned-

Balance the serious and the humor
Humility goes a long way, YOU CAN BE WRONG, and YOU PROBABLY WILL BE
Making decisions in service of the film is your prime responsibility.

Direction

While the script was initially conceived without a specific medium in mind, my team and I ultimately chose animation. At first, I tried to incorporate elements or scenes that would traditionally justify animation as a deliberate choice. However, over time, I realized that animation is not a genre that restricts storytelling; it is a versatile medium capable of accommodating any genre or type of story. Simply wanting to create an animated film was reason enough for the project to exist. Moreover, animation offered us immense control over storytelling — control that might not have been achievable with live-action due to monetary and time constraints.

The film followed a standard three act structure.

Talking about the visual language of the film, the film follows a 4:3 aspect ratio. The decision for this aspect ratio was made keeping in mind a few reasons. Firstly, all the characters of the film, even though they belong to the same family, feel very stuck and restricted within the 4 walls of their home. All of the family members love each other, but somehow don't understand each other as individual human beings, unfortunately, stuck in the roles given to them by society. Secondly, the ratio represents the old Television screen ratio, which we associate with a familial structure- All of the family coming together to watch TV.

The film uses a couple of Visual Motifs and Symbols.

The windchimes at the start and end of the film represent the state of mind of the people inhabiting the house. At first, being swung around by the extreme wind and rain, and being calm and harmonious at the end.
A bird returning to its nest is used at the start of the film, symbolizing a natural family and household structure. Just like the family coming together at the end, the same bird is seen sleeping comfortably with her eggs near the end of the film.
Family photos have also been used as a repetitive symbol. During the end of the film- when a strong thunderstorm, takes away all the light from the house, the family sits together like in a traditional family photo.
Phones have also been used repetitively throughout the film, signifying their only way of communication outside of the house, given the strong thunderstorm. The phones most of the times representing the extrinsic forces affecting their lives inside the house.

Windchimes, Bird and the nest, Family Photo

Phones as a motif

The compositions mostly have a foreground element as well as a background element, showcasing the chaos in the house, aiding in telling multiple stories at a time.

Most of the film has sequences that start with an opening long shot and as the scene goes on, as it goes to the emotions of the characters, we have more close-ups and mid-shots. For example, in this scene, Manya, the daughter, and Brijraj, the father are having a heart-to-heart conversation.

The starting full shots of the father and daughter act as a sort of checkpoint we come back to throughout the sequence, showcasing their relation progressing through the conversation.