RATS (short film) – Behind the scenes

This is a behind the scenes look on what went into making our short film, RATS.

The short has a little twist, and I’ll be talking about it in the blog, so if you haven’t watched the film yet, check it out here:

How I came up with the idea

Our cat regularly brings in rats/mice into our house. I wanted to write something about the different ways people deal with rodents, such as wanting to save them and let them outside, or just kill them.

There was an early version of a script where two brothers are eating KFC, but then an injured bird is brought in.

The bird is severely injured, and the younger brother wants to take it to the vets to save it, but the older brother decides to put the bird out of its misery.

The script ends with them finishing their KFC, the younger brother looking at his chicken wing in a different way now, not able to finish, whilst his older bro is still demolishing the chicken.

Looking back on it now, I might actually use this idea in the future haha. But when I was writing this idea back in June 2021, and thought about the idea more, it mutated and evolved into something about COVID.

How the idea evolved

I think the spark of inspiration to shift the context to COVID was when I was watching Inglourious Basterds, and Hanz Landa gives a speech likening Jews to rats.

He mentions that squirrels are just as likely to spread disease as rats, and it really got me thinking about the bad rap that rats have got.

This got my brain working, and I made the connection between the bad reputation that media and culture has perpetuated about rats, to the narratives created of Asians as the sole disease spreaders in the pandemic.

Fortunately, I’ve only experienced very minor racist incidents in these times – being called corona, having hand sanitiser lobbed at me etc.

But the main thing that really got my blood boiling, is when I’ve been with my family for these incidents. Seeing these ignorant white guys disrespect my family is what really sets me off.

I’ve been really wanting to write something on the treatment of Asians in the pandemic for a while, but I just hadn’t found the right idea, so when I got the idea, I was eager to jump on it, as I hadn’t done any shorts for a while.

It was a bonus that it was just a really simple and short idea that I could execute with my lil bro.

Outlining with the story circle

I usually like to outline everything and figure everything out before I type anything into Final Draft, just so I can fix the more fundamental story problems earlier, saving time on writing scenes that would greatly change/get cut out further down the road.

This is one of the early outlines I had:

• Need
  • To save small animals, argument w bro who wants to throw out disgusting pigeon
    • he needs to have a need before story starts
• Unfamiliar situation
  • Cat brings in rat/mouse
• Adapt
  • Try to catch it
    • Discuss what they doing
• Get what want
  • Catch the rat/mouse
    • Couldnt see if it rat/mouse
    • Big bro is like just take it away if you really wanna save it, drop it by the cricket ground
    • dont need to explain what their objective is
  • Save the animals
• But at cost
  • Bro says to kill it
  • Cat just jumps in and eats them?
  • he has to take it out
  • Or he gets racially attacked on his way to release the animals in same way his bro exhibited (mounted camera)
    • That would tie everything together really nicely
    • All the arguments that bro used, used by the racists

If you don’t know what Dan Harmon’s story circle is, here’s a video of him explaining it:

I usually use this as one of my tools when outlining ideas, to give them structure – find it really helpful as it can be easily scaled down to structure a scene, or scaled up to structure the story as a whole.

I find I often do multiple iterations of a story circle, to refine my ideas, and to really nail the flow of the story.

Here’s one of the early drafts:

A lot the dialogue is really on-the-nose, which I had to fine tune in later drafts, and a lot of it I decided to cut out. I wanted to make the short as streamlined as possible, with the enter late, leave early mentality.

Casting

On this short, I worked with one of my favourite casting directors. She is one of my long-time collaborators, and I was really happy with the actors that she picked out.

She really has an eye for picking out hidden talent, that are able to deliver convincing raw performances in front of camera. We had four different actors audition for the main role, but just two made the cut. 

Shitty snorricam rigs

We shot the short in like an afternoon. I’m a really big fan of the snorricam shots that are used in Requiem for a Dream, so I really wanted to do something similar for the film.

Also, it was a solution to get around the fact we didn’t know or have the budget to get the white actors that would be suitable for the role.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have any fancy snorricam rigs, so to get around it we used a tripod, and extended out one of its legs. 

Got my little brother to sandwich it in the crease of his thighs, then walk with it, keeping the tripod as close to him as possible. It looked pretty goofy, but I think it created a pretty decent shot.

Reshoots

We filmed the argument scene between the two brothers twice. 

Initially, I filmed it in a really boring way. When I was watching the footage back I was really unhappy, I clocked how uninteresting some of the framing was, and the staleness of our performances. 

As a result, I decided to reshoot the scene. I don’t think that reshooting is a bad thing, but I hate inefficiency, and wasting time, and I think if I had been a bit more prepared and we rehearsed more, we could’ve got it all in one go.

Pacing

Also, the pacing of the scene wasn’t there, the energy just fell flat in our delivery of lines. So in the edit, to get around the boring framing and bad pacing, I used a slow zoom shot of a rat, so I could manipulate the audio pacing. 

However, I went too far in tightening it, and made it too much like a ping pong conversation, which I’ve had a tendency to do in the past when I’ve edited.

There was no time for the characters to listen to each other, and as a result it felt really robotic.

Even though it was technically quicker, it probably wasn’t as engaging because there wasn’t an interaction, happening it was just two people taking turns to say their lines.

That’s why it’s so important as a director to make sure the actors are REALLY engaging and listening to each other. The key thing is to make sure they’re trying to affect the other person in order to get their objectives.

Acting and directing at the same time

I’m trying to get better at acting and directing at the same time – it’s fucking hard lol. As an actor you need to be in the scene, and not thinking about anything else, and as a director you have to be out of the scene, looking at everything from an objective vantage point. 

It’s a contradictory position to be in, having to fulfil the opposite ends of the spectrum at once. Especially when you don’t have another person to give impartial feedback on your performance, it can be a very difficult juggling act.

I have nothing but respect for the people who can pull it off, especially actors who are the lead of their film too, like Stephen Chow and Takeshi Kitano. 

I was really happy with my little brother’s performance, in the scene where it was just him acting.

I think this might have been due to the fact that I had all my attention available to direct him – I was able to get him in the state of mind he needed to be in by provoking him, and getting him to fully invest in the given circumstances of the film.

Reflections on the short

Pretty happy with how the film turned out, because it’s such a quick and contained little film. If I was to do it again, I think I would try to establish the fact that me and my little brother are having a conversation earlier on.

When I showed it to some of my friends, they thought that it was my little brother talking to himself – an interior monologue. 

It’s funny, a lot of times when I’m at home with my parents, they literally can’t tell me and my little brothers apart from each other just by voice, as they’re so similar.

This short film really means a lot to me, so if you enjoyed reading this article, or watching RATS, would really appreciate it if you could share this with someone you think it might resonate with!

Also, if you’re interested in reading more behind the scenes stuff, I have some more blog posts detailing my writing process as I go.

I’ve got a post about writing a short film about two journalists, my next music video, and another upcoming short film about addiction to food.