Private Project

Santa's Workshop - The Beginning

As Christmas draws near, a group of children sets out on a quiet mission of kindness, offering gifts, joy, and love to those who need it most.
Their compassion sparks a gentle reward, as Santa returns the gesture with gifts of his own.
It all began at a camp organized by St. George’s Church in Alexandria, where sharing what little they had led them to start discovering the meaning of community and the true spirit of Christmas.

And that was just the beginning.

  • Shady George
    Director
  • Shady George
    Writer
  • Shady George
    Producer
  • Shady George
    Editor
  • Shady George
    Cinematographer
  • Shady George
    Film Colourist
  • Shady George
    Sound Design
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    مصنع بابا نويل ـ البداية
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Music Video, Short
  • Genres:
    Inspirational, Spiritual, social, Humanity
  • Runtime:
    7 minutes 54 seconds
  • Country of Origin:
    Egypt
  • Country of Filming:
    Egypt
  • Language:
    Arabic
  • Shooting Format:
    H265 & H264
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Shady George

Shady is a filmmaker from Egypt. His experience in filmmaking includes developing several short scripts, as well as directing, shooting, editing, and color grading a variety of video projects.

Shady began his filmmaking journey in early 2023 and has since participated in numerous workshops and masterclasses in scriptwriting, cinematography, film production, acting, and directing at several cultural institutions. He is currently enrolled at the “Arab Film and TV School” (affiliated with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture’s Academy of Arts).

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Director Statement

“Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, much love is lost.”
This quote by Gibran Khalil Gibran perfectly captures one of the main reasons behind my passion for filmmaking. It reflects the inability to express feelings with the right words, a dilemma I often face, when I am missing words that really express what I feel.

I believe films possess the unique ability to convey emotions without uttering a single word, a way to express what remains unspoken, by the virtue of communicating by images, painting with lights, express with composition, camera angels, blocking, staging, subtext, etc..

Currently, I am in an experimental phase of my artistic journey, experimenting with different tools, techniques, and approaches that that best define me and my vision and effectively convey the images, thoughts, and topics that captivate my mind.
I aim to remain open and flexible, testing, changing, and adopting different methodologies in both my thoughts and filmmaking techniques.

I don't align myself with any specific cinematic style or methodology, but I am deeply interested in:

- Social and emotional narratives that delve into human vulnerabilities and challenges such as loneliness, conflicts in beliefs and needs, depression, weaknesses and obsession, the meaning of happiness, and love from various perspectives. I am trying to achieve this through constructing tense plot with extreme pressure on characters, to magnify specific feeling, in order to best observe and communicate such feeling

- Multi layered storytelling, the first basic layer is the simple entreating connected story, beneath that additional complex dimensions to be added with symbols and projections, it could be a reflection of the society, incidents, beliefs or even the film maker himself or the human battle with its own demons. In all cases, I always try to be mindful of the first basic dimension “the connected entertaining story”, beside to proper use of exposition, subtext and juxtaposition.

- Cinematic aesthetics, I am captivated by the picture aesthetics through hard lighting and emphasizing on shadows, expressive color grading (ranging from black and white to washed out coloring to vivid saturation), dynamic scene composition which manipulate the foreground and background to create illusion of vivid picture depth. I also admire deep focus, (however when it comes to shallow focus and soft lighting I am interested in the use of anamorphic lenses with its distinctive light flare and focus breathing effect), also I am interested in long scene takes, while when it comes to editing I prefer match, jump and smash cuts.