A Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: TEST
Genre: Drama
Date: June 2018
Director: Umashankar Gummadidala
Producer: USG Films
Executive Producer: Venugopal R Gummadidala, Phani M Gummadidala, Subramanyam Pendyala
Writer: Umashankar Gummadidala
Cinematographer: Umashankar Gummadidala
Editor: Umashankar Gummadidala
Composer: Jim Ellis
Production Company: USG Films
Budget: $50,000
Financing: Self
Shooting Format: 4k
Screening Format: 4k
World Premiere: Winner Best Cinematography at Art is Alive Film Festival
Website: https://www.facebook.com/Testfeaturefilm
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Umashankar Gummadidala (UG): ‘Test’ is about a grieving father who embarks on a journey of revenge. As the details of his daughter’s death become clear, he has to redeem himself from his own demons of prejudice and guilt. He has to face his true nature to succeed in his TEST of love. The story evolved from a series of disjoint incidents that happened to me over a period of 20 years.
Watch the Trailer for TEST written and directed by Umashankar Gummadidala
Tell us about the festival run, marketing, and sales?
Umashankar Gummadidala (UG): The film has been selected at The IndieFest film awards, Art is Alive film festival, First-Time Filmmaker sessions, Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival, and the World Film Carnival – Singapore. At the “Art is Alive” film festival, the film was nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor in Lead Role (2), and Best Cinematography. Test won the Best Cinematography award for 2021. At the World Film Carnival, the film won the Outstanding Achievement Award for Narrative Features.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Umashankar Gummadidala (UG): Kurt Longson, is a grieving dad who embarks on a journey of revenge. To get his retribution, he hires Adam – an army veteran with a lost cause as a hit-man. After realizing the true cause of his daughter’s death, Kurt takes on a journey that goes beyond revenge and retribution. He must face his demons of prejudice and guilt. He must face his true nature and succeed in the test of love. The movie explores the complexities and harshness of human nature. It shows humanity in a moral dilemma with realistic struggles and the challenges of society. It weaves this core thought with the issues of PTSD, Human trafficking, Parental acceptance, and the futility of violence and vengeance in the large scheme of human existence in a gripping and dramatic visual storytelling format.
Development & Financing?
Umashankar Gummadidala (UG): The idea of this film hit me, while I watched my 8-year-old practice for Ballet, however, the story had to be captivating. A chance encounter with a documentary on human trafficking and my own view on the dark side of the business triggered the story its shape. Some stray incidents of the past and the motivation of putting a middle-aged man with no extraordinary skills into an impossible situation steered the story and I was ready with the finished script in a month’s time. The movie was self-funded with support from friends and family and shot over a period of 1 year over the weekends.
Production?
Umashankar Gummadidala (UG): I had told my wife that I can make the film in 3 weeks, yet by the time I completed the shoot, it was more than a year. And another year for post-production. While I wanted to shoot the film in 30 straight days, I couldn’t do it given my own day job and the inability to raise funds in one shot. The plan was to invest in the equipment and find talent who can support the making of the film over a period of 6 months.
I had the auditions in public libraries by reserving the conference rooms. Early on, I had developed a friendship with Johnny Campbell who agreed to help me as a first AD. Neither of us knew that this will transition to him wearing multiple hats of a Production assistant, Camera Assistant, Sound crew, Makeup artist, and special effects. I was lucky enough to have this friend who could support me throughout the shoot.
We started rolling cameras in August of 2016. I hadn’t cast my main lead yet. There was weird confidence that things will fall in place. For locations, we found a friend who owned around 80 acres of land and was willing to help us by providing the land to shoot and the cabin and the beautiful house he built on it. A major portion of the film was shot in this location. Early on I felt the need to show a change in locations to keep the scale bigger. If I was to shoot over a long period, I might as well take advantage of the locations.
I was working on a day job as an IT consultant in Louisville, KY. I was living and filming in Columbia, SC. My routine would be to start early morning on Monday and drive to KY. Do my day job for the week and come back Friday night and start filming on the weekends. I scheduled everything for the weekend on Facebook. I was lucky enough to find talent who were extremely cooperative. Merritt to his credit was spot on with continuity. All I had to do was provide him the scene numbers and he would come prepared with the wardrobe for continuity. This was the same with almost all actors. Extremely responsible and cooperative. Christian brought his martial arts skills to the table and helped choreograph all the action sequences.
For a camera, I used a Sony a7s with a Ninja Shogun flame for 4k output. I knew to film the night sequences, I will have to shoot at night and at the time, for my budget, the low light sensitivity of a7s was my best choice. For sound, I used the Zoom H6N and shot the film on 2 lav mics. If there was a scene with 3 actors I positioned them closer to the actor with lav and reworked the scene to either make him silent or make his/her sound louder.
We used many such shortcuts to make the film. In the script, Adam has a son and there are dialogues with him. On the day of the shoot, the kid’s mother decided not to participate in the film. On location, we had to re-write the scene to keep the character on screen and shoot it as though Adam is talking to the kid. The rest was editing.
On lenses, I used Rokinon manual lenses. I bought a kit of 14mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm cine lenses. a7s is a full-frame camera but it has the ability to crop into the image. With these lenses and the ability to crop in, I was able to get multiple depths of field shots in a single setup.
For editing I used FCPX. I edited the film in a couple of months (again weekends only). But for color corrections, I had paid someone to do it. While I waited for the person to do the color corrections, I was working with Jim Ellis to finish the music. This is where my judgment failed. The person doing the color corrections was a novice and considering the nature of low budgets, he refused to re-do the work. I couldn’t use a single frame of what he had done. I had to do the DIY approach and started the color correction process myself. While this was agonizing, it helped me learn the process hands-on.
Once the music was completed, I had felt the lag and had to cut the film again a couple of times to where it was screened at the festivals. Overall it sounds like a lot of work, but if it wasn’t that much fun, it would have never happened.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Umashankar Gummadidala (UG): Given the success of my last short film Guilt (which made it to Cannes), I was hopeful to make it through all the A-list film festivals first. While I was disappointed in this strategy, the film did well in my next round of festivals.
The Release?
UG: I used film hub to release the film on all media platforms. The film is currently on prime and Vimeo among many other Roku-specific channels.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
UG: You can complain of the obstacles or see the benefit of the obstacle. Resigning to an ‘I can’t’ is the easiest thing. Figuring out a way to make it happen and even better than what was originally planned is where you will enjoy the process. Having said that keeping an eye on distribution is the key.
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