In cinema, objects talk. A sled in Citizen Kane, a volleyball in Cast Away, a spinning top in Inception: some of the most remembered things in film history are props, chosen by the art direction to carry what the characters cannot say. The shorter the film, the more they have to carry, because there is no time to explain. I learned how much they can do on my first short film.
Fala, Vô! tells, in a few minutes, a story that lasts months: a grandson stuck at home during the pandemic, keeping in touch with his grandfather through videos. A routine that is monotonous by definition. The problem with a short film is that there is no time to explain anything. So the objects do the explaining.
Objects that count time
Every video the grandson records starts with him folding a paper plane. Each plane has a number on its wing: how many videos he has sent, which is also how many days he has been at home. Nobody says “day 47”. The floor fills up with planes, and you understand. Later, the numbers keep going, but they start counting something else: the days since the grandfather is gone. The object does not change. What it counts does.
A whiteboard does the same for the months. It marks the days, and the plans he had for the year stay there, interrupted. The phone is the third one: it records the videos and brings the answers, and the way he waits for them says more about his anxiety than any line of dialogue.
Objects that carry a bond
Other objects carry the relationship. The telescope is how the grandfather taught the boy to see the world differently, and it comes back in the last scene, at their favorite lookout. The zither is part of the grandfather's cabin from the start, and only at the end do you learn it is how he celebrated his grandson's birthday every year; the grandson keeps the tradition. The paper plane is also the door to the past: the flashback comes in through it, so the jump in time never feels strange.
There is a smaller detail I love. As a child, the grandson wears a blue shirt, the same blue as the stripes on his grandfather's shirt. Nobody has to notice. The ones who do, feel it.
Costumes that change with the story
The costumes move too. At the beginning, the grandson wears saturated colors. By the last conversation, neutral and dark tones have taken over his clothes and his room. The grandfather goes the other way: his cabin becomes more symmetric and his clothes warmer and more saturated. That is why the birthday call feels so good, and why the next scene hits so hard.
Using this outside a film
A brand, a campaign or a series of posts also tells a story over time, and objects can do the same job there:
- Pick a recurring element. A shape, an object, a number, a corner of the frame that is always there. When it changes, people notice.
- Let it count. Progress, days, versions, a collection that grows. A counter tells a story without a single line of copy.
- Change it slowly. Color, position or size evolving from post to post says “time is passing” without saying it.
- Plant it early. If an object will matter at the end, show it at the beginning, even in the background.
Next time you plan a piece, ask yourself: what is the paper plane here? What small thing, repeated, can tell the story for me?
This text comes from Felipe Risallah's undergraduate thesis on the production of the 3D short film Fala, Vô! (Cinema and Audiovisual, UFES, 2023). More about the film at the link.