About A Story About Nothing

A Story About Nothing is a story about nothing in particular. It does not have any obvious or underlying message to bring forth to the attention of the audience. It lacks a proper storyline and is further tainted with the sub par performance of its actors, whom are all amateurs and very shy to emote their character's feelings in front of the camera. A debut project for the director and the screenwriter, A Story About Nothing is more about visual experimentation and the spirit of independent filmmaking; it champions style over substance.

The idea for the motion picture project came about from the same driving force that had propelled the main character in A Story About Nothing to fight for the well-being of his sanity: boredom. During the long and listless days and nights of the winter break in January 2004, fellow University of Minnesota undergraduates Fazrul Adri Roslan and Mohamad Mohamad-Sharin struggled with themselves to bring about an end to the boredom that haunted them. Quickly disgusted by the endless routine of oversleeping, overeating and uninspired indoor entertainment such as playing cards, torturing the cat and downloading porno, they set out to find a creative outlet that became a holiday project gone bizarrely out of control: making a short film.

It all began after being inspired by the rented DVD Requiem For a Dream (2000), directed by Darren Aronofsky, the name behind the groundbreaking independent effort, 1998's Pi. Initially, it was simply the personal desire by Fazrul Adri Roslan to use the film's catchy theme, "Summer Overture" by The Kronos Quartet, in a short and spontaneous homemade movie about him going to the refrigerator to get a cream cheese sandwich. The hauntingly catchy song above proved to be more than just an inspirational soundtrack to him personally, since it also spawned the interest of fellow roommate Mohamad Mohamad-Sharin to write a short story based on the moody landscape captured by the film's theme song (read below: the unfinished Hunger, Anger and Boredom).

Equipped only with a modest digital camera, and determined not to waste away a creative streak seldom found in their peers, they set their apartment as the stage for filmmaking. Loosely guided by Mohamad-Sharin's short story and inspired by the stylish camerawork of Aronofsky's film, they began drawing the storyboard that would later help to shape the feel and the flow of the motion picture. Aided by the talent of Mohd Syukri Yahya as the supporting actor and cautiously maintaining the film's quality from falling into the clichéd standards of a music video, A Story About Nothing unfolded gracefully into a memorable visual/audio journey -- and the rest as we know it is history.

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"Hunger, Anger and Boredom
by YBLalat

To him, the morning starts at noon, and noon starts with the checking of the mailbox. Each day and effectively at each noon, he will start his day that way. Always. In whatever condition that he is: hungry, grumpy, lousy and easily irritable by the most insignificant annoyances – he will start his day with the checking of his mailbox. He is like that in the morning, every morning, and always and unique of him like that. An old habit that won’t die young and a routine that will probably last his whole lifetime. From where and who he picked it up is no one’s guess. But such a person is he, and his morning is noon.

The content of the mailbox will determine the mood of his day. If there were news magazines, he would be a person that is easy to bring to the table for a discussion, or a person that is pleasant to negotiate with, or a jovial personality easy to bring to bargain on issues that are rarely of him to take a sincere interest into. And if there were rental DVDs, he would be a person that keeps to himself his critical thoughts, like that of a film critic, perhaps. He would have the stare in his eyes that is both apathetic and understanding, and a light chuckle that is both patronizing and complimentary. And if there were none in his mailbox but the breath of the postman, he would then be a person highly in ire and eager to unburden the cold shoulder treatment onto others.

The morning after the first day that the final exams have finally left him unshackled and beyond the interest of any great big textbook, his mailbox produced for him nothing. Nothing that which could be deemed as a congratulatory gift on the eve of his new freedom: not a crispy, scentful news magazine, and not a raunchy, scantily clad adult magazine, and not a letter of worldly news, and not a flyer of communal events. None.

(A king for a day, but a king of nothing.)

He slammed the mailbox door shut and walked away, exasperated. With nothing from the mailbox to entertain him or to keep him occupied, he was without a cause. As he paced himself towards the apartment door, in the filthy set of pajamas that he had had on since last week’s Friday, the only thing that he could think of to keep himself up in the high spirits and in the mood for a celebration was to have his favorite breakfast: cream cheese on toast with a side of honey and chocolate syrup, and a warm cup of sugarless black coffee. Munched up in sweetness and washed down with bitterness, swimming in fat and salt.

(A meal fit enough for a king who’s without a reign.)

He could almost taste it. It was as if the wet cheese was at the tip of his tongue, lingering. The refreshing warm smell of coffee, its aroma embedded deep within the Colombian beans. The hint of honey goodness on the coarse texture of the warm bread, slightly dipped into the chocolate syrup – it almost felt like he was already there, and on his bed, covered in blanket, munching away a day-to-day’s boredom, on the second day of the holidays, on the cold and the bitter of Minnesota's winter."

[Kertas Kotor 3, Minneapolis, January 2004]