A Year On: An Untittled Short Film Plot

About a year ago, I had this idea to do a short film. My roommate, Kugarubaan was one of the few person I share this story with and was heavily involved with me on developing the plot, coming up with a brief screenplay, dialogue writing and also assisting me in making my casting choice. I remember we even auditioned a couple of people for the lead role before finalizing who we would want. Yet due to other commitments we did not move on with this project.

With a year gone now, I doubt it if I ever will have the opportunity and time to ever direct a short film, thus I am going to share here the plot of the short film that I have developed. Since the plot was developed during my time in UTP, the cast which we have selected are everyone from UTP which I will share at the bottom of this post. I hope you enjoy reading it and share your comments in it

If this short film plot were to ever get some good response, I would like to proceed in converting this from a short film into a short story like a novel kind of concept. Happy reading 

 

The Plot

" The story revolves around a plus size dark skin Indian girl who is often bullied and mock due to a physical appearance and how that hinders her progress. The story will be based around a university location. The cast will be mostly students aged 20-23. The short film will start by showing a group of 5 people meeting up somewhere in the university. Four of them are good looking physically guys and girls and the fifth is the lead character. A plus sized, dark sized girl. 

 

The scene than heads into a montage sequence with a type of music which gives the montage a feel that they having a good jovial time hanging out together doing some fun activities together. Towards the end of the song it can be heard the sound of an alarm. It turns out that the lead character was dreaming about the whole event now thrust back to reality.

We than capture her daily activities as a university student as the harassing and bullying she faces due to her physical presence. As she wakes up and heads to the wash room, she and a fellow housemate bumps together at the door as it can’t fit the both of them in which results in the housemate scolding her that knowing you are fat why can’t you give way for me to go in first. 

This is followed by the roommate mocking as she combs her hair and puts on some make up in the wash room whereby the housemates mentions than no matter what she does, she is not going to look that beautiful. The lead character often reacts to those sarcastic comments with a smile but a sad smile.

She heads to class and sits at the back because if she sits in front, her classmates will mock her that they can’t see the white board due to her broad body size. She sits towards the back of her class alone. Then comes along a guy who sits beside her. It is her best friend and through monologue we see that she has a crush on him but is afraid to confess to him due to the inferior complex she has built within her about her physical presence due to all the bullying and sarcastic remarks she has been subjected to in the past by the society. 

In the monologue, as she thinks of telling him she is loves him, scenes of her being bullied is played over stopping her thoughts and keeping it to herself. Through melodious smooth background music we show a montage of the times they spent together which can be seen through her eyes she loves him. 

One fine day at the notice board in their university, they see that a singing competition is set to be organized in the university. The lead characters decides to join this competition because in the past she remembers her crush telling  her that he likes a girl who can singing well. As she goes to register herself for the competition again she is bullied with sarcastic remarks by other fellow participants who are there to register themselves. She nearly breaks down and walks away from the place and bumps into her crush who says that don’t let this people stop you from joining the competition. He gives a little uplifting motivating talk. Being encouraged by her crush she goes on to register herself.

With another montage with music, again we show clips of her practicing for the competition along with people at times laughing at her when they see her singing and also clips of her and the crush talking as if he is encouraging her. No dialogues are shown just with background music so that we don’t reveal what song she is going to sing and how her voice will be. 

On the competition day, she is shown waiting at backstage being very nervous and anxious about having to go up to stage and singing. With the other participants also there and giving her the sarcastic look writing her off as a competition. Her crush than walked in backstage and talked to her uplifting her one last time and asking her to trust her instinct and just be who she is.

After a couple of participants, she goes on stage. As she is seen on stage, the crowd breaks into laughter and booing. Again she starts to panic don’t know what to do. Whether shall she walk away or not? She than sees her crush from a distance trying to encourage her. She braves herself up and says that the song she is going to sing is dedicated to someone very special to her. Again the crowds laugh at her mocking her that even she has someone special. 

The music plays, and she starts to sing. Her voice was so mesmerizing even until the crowd who was laughing and booing her was stunned into silence. She goes on to sing a romantic love song with all her emotions and breaks down to tears a bit to the end. The whole crowd gives a thunderous standing ovation. She sobs in joy seeing how the perception of the crowd has changed towards her. 

As she walks backstage, her fellow competitors are in awe and congratulate her. As she walks from them she sees her crush standing waiting for her. She hugs him joy and then he proposes to her. He mentions that he has been in love with her for a long time but was waiting for her to break the negative perception on her and stand up to her bullies before he proposes to her. 

He had decided that no matter what happens on stage today, he was going to propose to her. He says that he loves her and asks if she loves him. As she says yes, at the same time we can hear the host announcing that the lead character has won the singing competition and is lead on with strong claps from the audience. "

The Cast

The Lead Character would be played by either Mugileswary or Kavitha Mohanakumar as both this fantastic ladies are excellent in the Tamil Language and can really emote well to the plight of the lead character. The plot was initially written keeping Mugileswary in mind, but as she was on intern we found another wonderful talent in Kavitha Mohanakumar. If both were available it would be an extremely difficult choice for me to make.

Kugarubaan would play the role of  Varun which is the lead character's love interest and friend. Again when I wrote the plot initially, only one person came to mind to play this role and that was Kugarubaan. There is something about it which makes it so natural for the role of Varun. He would fit in like a T for me

The opening montage scene of the four friends would go to Navaneethan, Kummanan Mano, Franzeene and Priya Tharshini

 

Kesha Varthiniy as the Lead Character's roommate who mocks her about dressing well to class

Lila Balasubramaniam as the Lead Character's housemates who mocks her in the wash room

Vaagi, Franzeene, Priya, Navaneethan, Kummanan Mano and Ivan as the Lead Character's classmates who bullies her

Kuga (Bomb), Debhasri and Ivan as the guy who mocks the Lead Character during the competition registration and the friend who is with him

Myself as Varun's friend who accompanies him during the scene where the Lead Character walks away from registering for the competition

Benedict and Keeshvini as the competition organizers at the registration booth

A malay guy, Chinese girl, Kiren and 2 foreigners as backstage contestant waiting to sing next in the competition

Prabhu as the competition host/emcee

A crowd of students to fill up and make it look like a singing event.