Joy - A Selfless journey to happiness

Joy - A Selfless journey to happiness

Joy is a free spirited happy-go-lucky boy from south delhi, his accidental visit with Mr. Vincent ventures him to the world of visually impairment where he explores and understands a convulsive journey of Netra who is struggling to give her exam.

The journey explores a heart whelming story of Netra, who is confident and full of life but needs a helping hand to move a step ahead in life. However Joy contemplates to take the plunge of becoming a “Scribe”. Will Joy be motivated enough by Mr. Vincent to accomplish the task and help Netra realise her dream?

In the cross roads between Netra and Joy, Joy learn a lot about Netra but more than that he learns and realises more about himself.

  • Nikhil Lama
    Director
  • Nikhil Lama
    Writer
  • Nikhil Lama
    Producer
  • Shambhav Jain
    Key Cast
    "Joy"
  • Julie Singh
    Key Cast
    "Netra"
  • Suren Saini
    Key Cast
    "Mr. Vincent"
  • Guneet Sethi
    Key Cast
    "Shantha maa'm"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Feel good
  • Runtime:
    14 minutes 24 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 11, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    2,553 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    Hindi
  • Shooting Format:
    Full HD (1920*1080)
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nikhil Lama

I come from a small town called Kalimpong located in Darjeeling a small hill station in west bengal India, rich in culture, craft and nature. I grew up listening to the folk tales from my grand parents, running around woods in the lap of snow valley.

As a passionate film maker, my subject & research revolves around social cause & human psychology.

As a writer & Director I am keen on crafting films that highlights the social issues while creating awareness in parts of society. I believe in enjoying the process of film making and every aspect of the craft from ideation - Screen writing - Direction to Post production. I hope to leave a legacy of a strong and a purposeful narrative in the form of story telling.

By profession, I am a User Experience Design - Associate Creative Director for an MNC for the past 16 years, Story telling for the Brand and studying human behavior is my is my core competency. I believe there is no boundaries when it comes to story telling.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I am Nikhil Lama and I am the director of the short film “Joy”.
Our film is about a “Scribe”, someone who helps a visually impaired student write their exam on their behalf. It explores a selfless journey of Joy whose chanced meeting with Mr. Vincent introduces him to the world of Netra who is visually impaired by birth.

As a Scribe, Joy learns more about Netra’s life. He helps her take one important step in life by helping her complete her exam, this act of kindness absorbs him in elation and he cycles back home feeling proud of himself.

VISION:
One take away for the audience (youth) is to inspire them to be a Scribe and support the cause, but in the large scheme of thought the movie talks about selfless act of doing something good without expecting something in return. It could be as simple as helping someone cross the road while you were heading to work this morning.

As a part of awarenesses program, our Social media page will host details of all the Visually impaired association across India and globe where one can find the contact details of the centres where they can volunteer to be a Scribe.

RESEARCH:
Since I come from UX design background, Research is of prime importance while crafting any product design. So for this short I did a thorough Primary research about Scribe in National association of blind New Delhi. Every dialogue in the movie is based on the research and the experiences shared by the students whether it’s regarding a Scribe cancelling his appointment at last minute to strict guidelines a Scribe has to follow during the examination process.

AESTHETICS:
Archetype: we identified our Archetype of the film as “Explorer” & “Care Give”, and derived our mood-board and other essential element of aesthetics.

Tone of the film:
From the archetype and from the story inspired by real life events, we identified key words - Real, Organic and Natural as a tone of our film.

Color Palette: Natural & Earthy colors, predominately you will see greenery, sky blue as backdrop and Character’s outfits.

Dialogues: written & delivered in a natural and conversational fashion.

Camera Angle:
Handheld gimbal shots that’s seamlessly moves along with the character to depict the the character physical & mental journey of moving ahead in their journey.

Specific to the scene from father Vincent & Joy’s conversation, the beginning wide angle establishes the characters far away from the concept of being a Scribe. As and when the character converse the wide angle shot comes closer to indicating both the characters mentally state of coming closer to the idea of Scribe, seamlessly combined with OTS shots to capture character’s emotions.

Background Music Design:
Background score has been curated and designed by picking acoustic musical instrument such as Piano, Guitar Strings and other cinematic orchestration pertaining to natural tonality of the film. Background sounds of birds chirping with light sound of hustle and bustle to bring in the feel of metropolitan city of Delhi.

FEW CHALLENGES:
Since Julie who portrays the character of Netra is 100% visually impaired in real life, me and my assistant director went through a rigorous workshop with her. When the idea of writing the dialogue in braille failed we recorded the dialogue for her to memorise it. Post that was the challenge to take out the emotion from her as she isn’t a professional actor.

Gunnel Sethi who plays the role of Saantha ma’am is also 100% visually impaired but she plays a role of a sighted person in the film. It required an immense practice to get her eye level just right to the camera angle making it look like her addressing the students.

CHARACTERIZATION:
I purposely did not want to project Netra with a white cane and black sunglasses that normally a mainstream audience is used to seeing a visually impaired character. Julie who plays the role of Netra is very much like Netra, She is Confident and full of life. I wanted to show her as an independent and a strong woman like the way she is in real life.