Abyss of Anguish is an experimental film, created for the fulldome format, created during the interim class 'Bengaluru around the corners, a fulldome film fest'. I collaborated with two of my peers to make this film.

The film connects two integral aspects of Bangalore- its tech hubs and its lakes. Through the film, we try to portray the feeling of futility in working endlessly towards something that has no deeper meaning (related with the numerous tech hubs) and the collective feeling of burnout and purposelessness that drowns the soul engaged in such formless work (the drowning is related with the lakes). The film draws on how the tech buildings are drowning out the lakes, quite literally, since tech buildings have taken up several lake areas in Bangalore. 

 The film delves more into the 'feeling' of this collective experience, and explores the psyche of such a person quite literally drowning within themselves. The film goes on to ask a bigger question about exercising the true intent of life and purpose, appealing more to one's emotions than one's logic. We hope to make the audience question their goals, think about their 'purpose' and understand their stubborn beliefs after they watch the film. 

The three of us discussed thoroughly the different topics we wanted to depict through the film. After arriving at a consensus, we fixed on our topic, intent and what impact we wanted for the audience. Since the film was in a fulldome, the process of creating a narrative was drastically different as compared to a regular square film, but were mentored by facilitators Karthika and Udayraj for the scripting of our ideas and thinking visually for a dome format. After the script, we focused on creating storyboards for framing and mood boards that furthered our message and theme. We then ideated a plan for starting the creation process and mediums we planned to use, factoring in the time limit and our abilities. Some of the pictures during this process are added below.

Our film required less filming and more animations and edits. We faced several challenges during the editing process, since visualizing in a dome format was tricky at first. The facilitators of our course guided us through virtual reality programs to show the space we were working with for the film. Most of the film was edited using After Effects, and the complicated parts of the editing process were conversion of our footage into circular 360 degree formats. Fulldome is  a format where the audience is contained inside of the work created, thus we had to ensure not to include sudden motions while creating the film. This format was also the reason we made the film in more of an experimental, psychedelic way. 

My individual contributions towards the film were creating the entire sound track for the film, and color correcting the entire film. I also created some animation sequences in the film- the purple animation of the man typing on the keyboard, and two other sequences, whose pictures I have added below for further clarity. 

At the end of the course, our films were screened at a planetarium in the city. The experience was surreal, the surround system of the dome and the audience's reaction to our film was extremely rewarding. We plan to enter this film in international fulldome film festivals such as  FullDome Festival in Jena, Germany; Dome Fest West in Los Angeles; Fulldome UK Festival in Plymouth and further on.

Currently, we are in the process of editing the film further and creating posters and trailers of it according to festival requirements. We are being guided by the facilitator for this course- Karthika, for the same.

Added below are some videos of the screening that depict how the film looked in dome format.