The Beginning of 'Quaransing'

Pitched by Tequila in our first meeting to share ideas, the concept was to do a short based off of the real-life events of the musical balcony performances that were happening in Italy during their lock down. Her first proposal was to have maybe two singers competing to be louder on opposite side of a street. The idea held appeal because it was topical, could be comedic, and was a joyful take on current events. She developed it that night, collecting references and ideas.

Because everyone's main worry was about keeping it short and achievable, she also pitched the alternative idea of a boy simply singing along to his radio to cheer up his despondent neighbours. However, Edoardo strongly liked the idea of a battle and presented a different, more comedic take on her idea. We see two guys battling with their different and clashing music styles from separate balconies, when they suddenly hear a stick tapping. A conductor is revealed on the opposite side of the street and leads them to play in sync.

The team was nearly evenly split on the 2 different ideas: the radio version, or the battle version. When we voted, it was decided that we would go with the battle version but include a radio as a device to set the scene of the long lock down.

Beat Board

After this, another idea was proposed. Instead of a conductor, why not have a little girl bring them together. She would whistle a tune that would burst them out of their argument, then they would be so awed by her that they call a truce and play the song for her. This was unanimously agreed to have the most heartwarming story line and would make the story more about hope and joy. So Nickoel wrote a quick script for Paloma and Tequila to storyboard overnight so we could have a working animatic ready by the official start of this project.

The story is obviously inspired by true events, however, we also looked at references like 'La Luna', 'One Man Band' and 'Coco' to get clear ideas on the direction we wanted to take this short film. We wanted a heartfelt relationship and story, yet with comedy as these 2 men who were fighting stop for a little girl, and obviously with a musical element.

We landed on a guitar and tambourine through process of trying to find songs and instruments that would fit each other. This was actually our main challenge in the first week. As we searched for song options that would fit the Italian theme, we found a cover of 'Bella Ciao' on saxophone that was actually from one of our references of balcony concerts during this pandemic. From there, someone found a nice and lively guitar cover. With the guitar side sorted, we were trying to find another instrument cover that could work over the top of it. After trying several combinations, we landed on Nickoel's brother recording accompanying tambourine. It would be simple and achievable, yet definitely in the spirit of a loud and annoying character.