YELLOW Directed By Semih Tareen

Shane: Tell us about your film?

Semih: YELLOW is an homage to giallo, a genre of Italian horror/crime films from the 1960’s-70’s, and YELLOW is dedicated to Mario Bava, an Italian filmmaker who pioneered the style of giallo films. YELLOW is a technical and artistic exercise in employing traditional elements of the giallo film using a broad range of the color palette and the dynamic camera work. YELLOW was shot on 16mm Kodak vision2 stock, using an ARRIFLEX 16mm camera.

How did you come up with the idea for the film?

Giallo films contain stylistic visuals that bring an operatic element to each scene, particularly the murder scenes that take place. I wanted to pay respect to this genre, and I thought trying to imitate the look and feel of these films would be a great way to practice my skills with the camera, since this was a school project.

Was this a school project?

 Yes, at the Seattle Film Institute.

How did you find your cast? 

The actor was my school classmate who looked the part perfectly, and I had seen one of his reels where he had acted and had done a great job. The actress was found during an open audition.

How long did the film take?  (From conception to final edit)

 Because it was a school project, it tooked longer than usual. Conception to final edit was 12 months. After the final edit, musc was completed which  was scored by me.

What was the most difficult part of the shoot for you?

 Achieving the look. We were shooting in a completely dark room, so we had to set up the lights to make the room look naturally lit with light sources. At the same time, I had to stylize the scene with colors and lights, so combining the stylistics with a believable interior was tricky.

Tell us about the films festival experience so far?

 YELLOW has been accepted to 4 festivals so far: Seattle International Film Festival, Terror Film Festival, FirstGlance Philadelphia Film Festival, Sao Paulo International short film festival. YELLOW has been nominated for 4 awards at the Terror film festival: Best short thriller film, best cinematography, best music, best actress.

What are you most looking forward to at the festival?

Although not a premier, the upcoming Seattle international film festival is the first film festival that I will be attending for YELLOW, so I am looking forward to the Q&A, to meeting other filmmakers, and to see the audience’s reaction to my film.

What films or filmmakers inspire you?

Filmmakers: Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Brian DePalma, David Lean, Michael Haneke, Hiroshi Teshigahara. The films that directly inspired YELLOW are Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace, The Whip and the Body, Black Sabbath.

What made you decide to become a filmmaker?

 My background in film is as a composer. I studied film scoring with 2-time emmy award winning composer Humme Mann. To date I have scored music for 21 films. But the reason I work as a film composer is because I love cinema, and I like to specialize in a specific niche like film music. I feel confident in my abilities as a film composer and I love to make a good looking film sound even better. But my love for cinema made me want to take it to the next level, which was to learn more about cinema (which is why I attended film school) and to make my own film, which is YELLOW. Also, studying filmmaking and making a film made me appreciate the process even more, and has helped me on recent film scoring projects by allowing me to communicate more effectively with the filmmakers. The fact that I have made a film myself makes them feel more like I am on their side. Even though film music is supposed to be a collaborative process, I have worked with filmmakers who have felt very uncomfortable during the scoring process, so my experience as a filmmaker has come in handy to make them feel more at ease.

 What is next for you? 

Besides my ongoing scoring projects, a feature length giallo hopefully. I would like to use the success of YELLOW to find investors for a feature length giallo script that I am working on. If there are any investors interested who read this article, please do contact me.

What is next for the film?

I am still waiting to hear from other film festivals that I submitted YELLOW to. Meanwhile I would like to find distribution for YELLOW. I feel that without securing distribution for YELLOW, the film will not be completed.

If asked to give one piece of advice to a new filmmaker making their first short film… What would it be?

Marketing the film properly is as important (if not more) as making the film properly. I have met many filmmakers with great first short films under their belt but who were discouraged because their film didn’t get accepted to film festivals. When I asked them how many film fests they sent it to, they said “2”. When I asked them if they had prepared promotional materials such as websites, posters, postcards, professional DVD covers, they said “no”. I came to understand the importance of properly presenting your material from my film scoring experience. In addition to having an excellent film music demo, I had to make sure that it was packaged in a professional looking CD case. The same rule applies for any business model, whether it is filmmaking or something else. But of course, this is all assuming that the first time filmmaker has already done their homework on filmmaking, and has hired the best cast and crew.