EVA Curated · Film 01 · Script and visual direction
Two routes for Film 01
Both scripts follow the journey of your reference, rebuilt for EVA: a creative who never speaks, questioned by an off-screen therapist, what is said seen as it is said, the gust of wind when the idea lands, then the creative putting it all together until the brand. Each route has its own light and mood, and both are set only in your two contemporary projects.
- The story first: these are the scripts, with direction frames beside them.
- Fast A-B-C-D cutting: about 45 cuts in 60 seconds.
- Only the Shmaisi villa and the Palm Jumeirah residence.
- Casual, long-sleeved wardrobe, and Gulf detail checked throughout.
Route A · Day
Almost
The design was handed over in March and the client says the house is perfect, but EVA's creative is still there, and in a gust of wind the light shows her the one piece that is missing.
Direction frames: light, mood, wardrobe and rooms. Every shot gets its own frame once a route is chosen; any drawn lines, type and the logo are made by hand in the edit.
Mood and visual direction
- Mood: bright, dry, deadpan: the comedy of precision.
- Light: high-key late-morning sun, soft bounce off the marble and plaster, clean whites. Never dark. Light is this route's own language: at the turn, a blade of sun finds what is missing.
- Palette: the villa's own colours, kept true: white plaster, travertine, cobalt, burnt orange, terracotta, blush, teal velvet, teal glass. Her cobalt shirt picks up the villa's cobalt accents.
- Camera: composed, locked-off frames; room wides where only one piece changes; macro details; quick snap-ins on the jokes; one view straight down from the gallery. Fast A-B-C-D cutting with one short hold.
- Art direction: EVA's Shmaisi villa is the house, with two details from the Palm Jumeirah residence: the gathered teal chair and the teal glass chandelier.
- The Creative: an EVA designer in her early thirties, an original character, from the region, natural, not model-polished. Loose cobalt linen shirt (opaque, long sleeves, buttoned cuffs), tobacco-brown straight trousers, small gold hoops, dark hair in a low bun with two loose strands at the temple, dark loafers. She is at work in the house: loafers on the marble, off before any rug or upholstery, her feet always on the floor.
- The makers: seen only as hands, in grey work sleeves and grey gloves. Her hand and their gloves never touch.
- Grade: clean and bright, true colour, light 35mm grain.
- Sound and music: a clock and a pen, crisp foley; a mirwas hand drum enters softly under the speeding clock, and the full Khaleeji groove (oud and mirwas) arrives with the making. No Turkish instruments or phrasing.
- Voice: the Therapist, never seen, only heard (her voice, her pen, her clock): a woman, dry, unhurried, a little amused. English, with an Arabic version written fresh in Gulf dialect, so the wordplay finds Arabic equivalents. The Creative never speaks.
The script
PictureVoice (the Therapist)Sound
10:00
HER, CHECKING THE HOUSE, 3 macro cuts: her fingertip traces the edge of one plaster petal / her loafer toe lines up with a dark triangle inlay in the white marble / her fingertip runs along the staircase's silver stringer and pauses over a seam nobody can see any more
(0:00.3) "Still the house, this week?"
A clock; a pen on a notepad, off screen
20:02.7
From above, the same hall floor months earlier: an unpolished white slab, the triangle cut-outs still empty. Her hand slides the rolled drawings across the slab to a grey-gloved hand; her fingers let go a beat late. On screen: Handed over.
(0:03.0) "Handed over. ...In March."
Paper on stone
30:05.5
3 wides: from the gallery, straight down onto the finished triangle floor, her figure small crossing it / in a slant of late-morning sun, her shadow crosses the plaster relief / she walks the marble border of the double-height lounge, small in the frame
(0:06.0) "Your client says it's perfect."
Footsteps, a slight echo
40:09.4
Close: she glances at the lens. Deadpan
(0:09.5) "...You heard 'almost'."
50:10.9
WHAT IF SHE STOPPED, 3 shots of about 1.3 seconds, the piece filling a third of the frame, same light; on the "tock" it drops to its stopped-short version: the plaster relief becomes a flat painted wall / the cobalt lamp becomes a plain beige lamp / the triangle floor becomes plain white marble
(0:11.4) "Most people would call this closure."
One dull "tock" per room; a pen scratching, off screen
60:14.9
Her hand nudges the left blush chair
(0:15.0) "You moved the chair again?"
Wood on marble
70:16.9
Macro: the chair's runner slides until it sits parallel to the joint between two marble slabs
(0:17.8) "...Two degrees."
A soft click
80:18.9
PACING, 5 cuts that shorten with the clock: wide, she crosses the double-height lounge under the amber glass drops / her fingertip turns the amber glass vase a hair / wide, she passes beneath the crystal sunburst / from the gallery, she turns at the end of the bottom step / her fingertip on the chair again
(no voice)
The clock, speeding up; the mirwas enters, soft
90:21.4
From above, tight to the waist: she sits slumped deep in the gathered teal chair, head tipped back into its pleats, arms folded, staring up past the lens
(0:21.7) "Will they notice?"
The clock
100:23.4
THE PEARLS, 2 cuts, low across the glass of the pearl table: she sits on the rug at its short end, chin on her forearm along the glass edge, her eyes sweeping the spheres / she sits back, not satisfied
(0:23.9) "How are the pearls today?"
A pen scratching, then stopping
110:26.4
THE HOLD, 3.5 seconds, high and wide: she sits deep and angled in the burnt-orange armchair beside the lacquered column, her feet in plain socks flat on the rug, her loafers off and side by side on the marble at its edge, cheek resting on her hand on the arm, eyes closed. Still
(0:26.9) "We'll come back to the pearls."
Silence, the clock
120:29.9
THE GUST, 4 cuts: close: a gust crosses her face and lifts the sheers; the loose strands lift, her eyes open, away from the lens, toward the light / through the gap, a blade of late-morning sun swings across the rug / it slides onto the pearl table's glass, every sphere sitting on its own round shadow / it stops on one round shadow with no sphere above it
(0:32.6) "...One's missing?"
A rising swell
130:33.4
The burnt-orange armchair, empty: the cushion still dented, her loafers gone
(0:33.8) "We still have ten minutes."
The swell cuts dead
14a0:36.2
BACK TO THE HANDOVER, 1.5 seconds: the last shots rewind fast, back to the raw slab of the handover; Handed over. returns for a moment
(no voice)
The clock ticking backwards
14b0:37.7
Sourcing. a grey glove holds out three ivory lacquer chips; her fingertip chooses one / a grey glove holds out the cobalt shade; her fingertips take its rim, the tissue falling away
(no voice)
Oud and mirwas, every cut on a beat
14c0:40.1
Coordination. at the stair, a grey glove opens a booklet of silver leaf as her fingertip points to the seam / on the raw hall slab, her tape cross between two grey gloves, one holding a dark triangle, one a small spatula of resin; her fingertip taps the cross
(no voice)
14d0:42.5
Execution. a grey-gloved palette knife draws a plaster petal up from the flat wall at her tape mark / a grey-gloved gilder's tip lays a square of silver leaf over the seam, her fingertip pointing just beside it / a grey-gloved hand sets the last dark triangle into its cut-out at her tape cross
(no voice)
14e0:46.1
The final details. tight on the teal chandelier's lowest tendrils against green marble: at her pointing finger, soft in front, a grey glove turns one low tendril to face the way she means / the bolts already out on a grey cloth, four grey-gloved hands lift the pearl table's glass on suction cups / a grey glove sets a small linen box on the table's bronze rim / her fingertips lift its lid: one sphere in tissue / her fingertips set it down into its own shadow
(no voice)
The clock ticks forward again
150:52.1
2 cuts: low, at the chair's runner and the marble joint: her fingertip hovers, finds nothing to correct, and withdraws / close, half-profile against the lacquered column: she looks at the lens; one corner of her mouth lifts
(0:54.2) "...Perfect?"
The music holds one chord
160:56.0
The pearl table from above, glass down, every sphere home; the EVA CURATED logo, from EVA's own file, settles onto the glass; beneath it, on two lines: What was envisioned / is what is ultimately experienced.
(no voice)
The therapist's pen clicks shut; one final note
The voiceover on its own
- 0:00.3Still the house, this week?
- 0:03.0Handed over. ...In March.
- 0:06.0Your client says it's perfect.
- 0:09.5...You heard "almost".
- 0:11.4Most people would call this closure.
- 0:15.0You moved the chair again?
- 0:17.8...Two degrees.
- 0:21.7Will they notice?
- 0:23.9How are the pearls today?
- 0:26.9We'll come back to the pearls.
- 0:32.6...One's missing?
- 0:33.8We still have ten minutes.
- 0:54.2...Perfect?
Notes
- From your reference: a creative who never speaks, questioned by an off-screen therapist; what is said is seen as it is said; pacing and lounging; a gust of wind across her face as the idea lands; the creative putting things together until the brand; a lot of the house.
- Ours: the client who hears "perfect" while she hears "almost", the house stopped short, the two degrees, the light that finds the one missing piece, the four stages of Curated told from the handover to today with her hand or her mark in every one, the hand that finally finds nothing to correct, the brand settling onto the finished table, and every line of the voiceover.
- One house from two EVA homes: the Shmaisi villa, with two details from the Palm Jumeirah residence.
- Staged for the film: the missing sphere (your real table is complete) and the glass lifting off, with its bolts shown out first.
- Culture: long sleeves throughout; her feet always on the floor, in plain socks once her loafers are off before any rug or upholstery, soles away from camera; her hand and the makers' gloves never touch; no drinking glasses, carafes or books in any frame; calligraphy and mirrors kept out of frame; the spheres are never counted.
- On screen: "Handed over.", the four stage names and the closing line, all in one plain typeface; captions burned into both the 9:16 and 16:9 versions, with separate English and Arabic cuts (Arabic checked by a native speaker).
- To confirm with you: her hair uncovered, as in EVA's own photography (or a loose shayla if you prefer); that her resting shoeless in the house, as part of her work, reads well for the KSA audience; and the Creative as a woman, as written, or a man.
Route B · Night
Before Nine
The family moves in at nine. It is one in the morning, and EVA's creative is still at the house with her makers, on a late call with her therapist, seeing her own drawing hang in the air wherever a room is not yet exactly as drawn. By dawn, every line has come home.
Direction frames: light, mood, wardrobe and rooms. Every shot gets its own frame once a route is chosen; any drawn lines, type and the logo are made by hand in the edit.
Mood and visual direction
- Mood: intimate, poetic, quietly funny. A night with the house.
- Light: a lights-on night, never a dark one. Night changes only the light; every piece, finish and colour stays as photographed. Every room lit by its own lamps and fixtures, warm and legible, the glazing deep blue beyond the sheers: the design reads in every frame. The house brightens through the night's work, and dawn arrives on a house already glowing.
- Palette: the villa's own colours, true at night (teal velvet, peach, terracotta, cobalt, travertine), turning gold at dawn.
- Camera: the camera holds still wherever her lines are and drifts only on her and on the house at dawn; the cutting stays fast; dawn stays close: light on one surface, then on her.
- Her lines (the film's own device): her pencil drawing hangs over the real rooms, on the floor like a plan and in the air like an elevation: graphite, slightly uneven, the grain of the paper in the stroke, chalk-white only where it crosses dark teal or cobalt, never a glow. Each line marks a near miss, or a piece not yet there, the gap marked by her own small pencil tick. The drawing never gives way: the room moves to meet it, and as each piece arrives its line settles onto it and fades. The lines are her obsession, never a building sequence.
- Art direction: EVA's Shmaisi villa is the house, with one detail from the Palm Jumeirah residence: the dining table's vase.
- The Creative: an EVA designer in her early thirties, an original character from the region, natural, not model-polished (the same face as Route A, a different wardrobe): a long, loose knit in deep olive with long sleeves, wide charcoal trousers, soft suede slippers, small gold hoops, long dark hair in a low knot that stays up (only a strand moves in the wind). Her feet always on the floor, never on the family's furniture.
- The makers: seen only as hands in grey work sleeves and grey gloves, always at least two.
- Grade: warm and open, no crushed blacks; gold at dawn.
- Sound and music: the house at night: air-conditioning hum, a far-off car. The phone voice is filtered on the first line, opens to a close, full voice, and is small and filtered again on "...Hello?". A Khaleeji solo oud with low strings through the night; one oud note on the beat the room stands as drawn; through the night's work the oud's own rhythm, low strings and her pencil ticks carry the pulse; the music opens at dawn. No Turkish instruments or phrasing.
- Voice: the Therapist, heard through a phone on speaker: a woman, warm, sleepy, dry. English, with an Arabic version written fresh in Gulf dialect. The Creative never speaks.
The script
PictureVoice (the Therapist)Sound
10:00
Night, every room lit by its own lamps. 4 cuts: the plaster relief in lamplight; one thin pencil circle hangs beside the round terracotta cushion, unexplained / the crystal sunburst from below, glowing against its dark ceiling / the double-height lounge, the glazing deep blue beyond the sheers, the amber glass drops catching the lamplight / her hand lifts her phone off the end of the teal sofa, screen to her palm
(0:00.8, filtered) "It's one in the morning."
AC hum, the line's hiss
20:04
2 cuts: she crosses the marble hall in soft slippers, drawings under her arm, phone in her hand / a crate waiting in the lamplit hall, lid still on
(0:03.6) "And the family moves in at nine."
Soft steps; the speaker voice rings back off the stairwell
30:06.5
2 cuts: from behind, at the end of the bottom step, she stops and looks up, her fingertips resting on the top edge of the glass balustrade / looking up the cascade of glass leaves along the stair wall
(0:07.5) "Our session's on Thursday."
40:10.5
THE LINES, 4 cuts, each tight on one piece: the terracotta cushion, drawn a hand's width along (the circle from row 1) / the top edge of the stair's glass balustrade, one pencil line along it, a small tick where her own fingertips rested / the oval white table, drawn a little further from the fringed sofa / a lounge sheer at the floor, its hem drawn on the marble, the real hem a finger's width short
(0:10.5) "You drew every room." (0:12.8) "The rooms didn't quite listen."
A faint pencil scratch per cut
50:16
2 cuts: her open hand spans the gap between the oval table's drawn edge and the real one: a hand's width / she lifts the lid of a crate in the lamplit hall; pinned inside the lid, her drawing, its title block stamped DESIGN HANDOVER, the approval box signed, filling the frame
(0:16.4) "Everyone else signed off at the handover."
60:19.4
BURST, 3 quick cuts: an empty vase on the Palm dining table from above, hydrangeas drawn in / the black drum lamp by the sheers, dark, its light drawn as pencil hatching on the travertine / a cold mabkhara on the hall's marble table, a soft plume of smoke drawn above it
(no voice)
Quick pencil ticks
70:21
4 cuts: three rooms as most people would see them, no lines: the relief / the curved staircase / the teal lounge / then: she stands in the middle of the lounge rug, drawings under her arm, phone in her hand, looking up as her lines return, one at each piece still off: the table, the sheer, the dark lamp
(0:21.0) "Ninety-nine percent is still a beautiful house." (0:25.3) "Isn't it?"
80:26
2 cuts: close: she slowly shakes her head / her hand smooths a drawing flat on the oval table's top, her phone face down beside it
(0:26.6) "I can hear you shaking your head."
90:28.5
PACING HER LINES, 3 quick cuts, a macro, then a hold: just above the floor, her slippers walk heel to toe along the drawn outline of the oval table / she passes the black drum lamp, its pencil hatching on the wall behind it, her knit sleeve crossing frame / her slippers follow the sheer's drawn hem / macro: her pencil's eraser touches the oval table's line on her drawing / low, from the side: she sits deep in the rolled-arm armchair, feet on the floor, her drawing on her knees, her pencil turned eraser-down, resting on the oval table's line: one rub and the drawing would match the room; the blue panel and the amber drops behind her
(0:30.9) "What would it take?"
The hum, then silence
100:34
THE GUST, 3 cuts: from nowhere a gust crosses the lounge: every pencil line sways like thread, and the drawing on her knees lifts at one corner / the wind crosses her face, a strand lifts from her knot, and she sits up, the eraser lifting off the line / her view, the oval table: on the oud note it stands exactly on its line and the line fades, the studded lamp beside it glowing; on the wind's drop it is back where it was, and the line returns
(no voice)
Wind, glass drops knocking, one oud note
11a0:38.5
WHAT IT TAKES. Each stage name is lettered into the frame in her pencil's drafting capitals, like the title block of a drawing, with no hand or pencil in frame, and held through the stage. Sourcing. her fingers fold back the tissue in a crate in the hall: the lounge's sheer, remade a finger's width longer / grey gloves lift white hydrangeas, cut for the morning, from their box
(0:37.9, small and filtered, as the wind drops) "...Hello?"
The night's pulse begins, every cut on a beat
11b0:40.7
Coordination. her pencil, point-down, taps one mark on the drawing pinned inside the crate lid; two grey gloves rest beside it, one on a tape, one on a curtain hook / over her shoulder, she holds her drawing up against the oval table, lining it up, two gloves at its edge
(no voice)
11c0:42.9
Execution. grey gloves hook the remade sheer onto its track / at her pencil tap, two pairs of gloves ease the oval table onto its line / low at the floor, a grey glove runs a steamer down the sheer; the fabric drops and its hem lands on its line
(no voice)
11d0:46.1
The final details. from above, grey gloves set the hydrangeas into the Palm dining vase; the drawn flowers settle onto them and fade / a grey glove sets the black drum lamp's dimmer to the drawn glow; the hatching fills with real light, edge to edge / her right hand drops dark oud chips onto the glowing charcoal of a footed brass mabkhara; a soft plume rises / her cloth lifts her own fingerprint, the last trace of her in the house, off the top edge of the glass balustrade, where her last pencil tick sits, first light catching it
(no voice)
120:51.5
DAWN, 3 cuts: first light warms the plaster relief; the terracotta cushion now sits inside its pencil circle, and the circle settles onto it and fades / along the top edge of the glass balustrade, the last line settling into the light / from the foot of the stair: she sits a few steps up, the drawings in her lap, the pencil worn short, its eraser untouched, her phone face down beside her, feet together on a lower step, eyes closed, and smiles
(0:53.0, small, filtered, sleepy) "Still on for Thursday?"
The music opens out
130:56.5
The last line lifts off the balustrade and settles on a bone card as a single rule; the EVA Curated logo, from EVA's own file, above it; beneath, on two lines: What was envisioned / is what is ultimately experienced.
(no voice)
The front door closing behind her; one final note
The voiceover on its own
- 0:00.8It's one in the morning.
- 0:03.6And the family moves in at nine.
- 0:07.5Our session's on Thursday.
- 0:10.5You drew every room.
- 0:12.8The rooms didn't quite listen.
- 0:16.4Everyone else signed off at the handover.
- 0:21.0Ninety-nine percent is still a beautiful house.
- 0:25.3Isn't it?
- 0:26.6I can hear you shaking your head.
- 0:30.9What would it take?
- 0:37.9...Hello?
- 0:53.0Still on for Thursday?
Notes
- From your reference: a creative who never speaks, questioned by an off-screen therapist; what is said is seen as it is said; pacing and lounging in a chair; a gust of wind across her face as the idea lands; the creative putting things together until the brand; a lot of the house.
- Ours: the night before move-in, the therapist on a late call, her drawing hanging over the real rooms as near misses, the gust that shows her the room exactly as drawn for one beat, the night's work in four stages lettered in her own hand, dawn, the last line becoming the line under the brand, and every line of the voiceover.
- Every move in the night is small, a hand's width or a finger's width: the detail everyone else overlooks. The sheer is remade a finger's width longer, the flowers are cut fresh for the morning, and the oud chips are lit to welcome the family. The night stands for the whole of Curated: what was sourced and coordinated over months arrives, and every piece is set exactly as drawn before the family walks in.
- After your note on our earlier storyboard: this is not sketch-to-finished-house. Her lines are what only she sees: the gap between her drawing and the room. No sketch ever turns into a room, and the house is never shown being built; it is always the house EVA delivered.
- Staged for the film: every near miss. Your rooms were delivered exactly as drawn; every dawn frame is the house as EVA delivered it.
- One house from two EVA homes: the Shmaisi villa, with one detail from the Palm Jumeirah residence.
- Culture: long sleeves throughout; her feet always on the floor, soles never toward the camera; the makers always a crew of at least two in the room, and her hand never touches theirs; a contemporary footed brass mabkhara with natural oud on charcoal, set out to welcome the family; no drinking glasses, carafes, branded candles or books in any frame; calligraphy and mirrors kept out of frame; the phone screen never shown.
- On screen: "DESIGN HANDOVER" on the drawing's title block, the four stage names in her pencil and the closing line; captions burned into both the 9:16 and 16:9 versions, with separate English and Arabic cuts (Arabic checked by a native speaker; the Arabic stage names hand-lettered in plain drafting style, never calligraphic).
- To confirm with you: that her working through the night at the empty villa with her makers reads well for the KSA audience (if not, the same film runs as an early start: "It's five in the morning", the house still lamplit, dawn on the last cuts); that her lighting the oud reads as a welcome prepared for the family; her hair uncovered, as in EVA's own photography, or a loose shayla in the same olive; and the Creative as a woman, as written, or a man (a man means rewriting the Arabic lines and the wardrobe, not a simple swap).
Before we build every shot
For you to confirm
- Which route, or which parts of each, you would like to take forward.
- The Creative as a woman, as written, or a man.
- Her hair uncovered, as in your own villa photography, for the KSA audience.
- For Route B: her working through the night at the villa with EVA's crew reads well for your audience.
- The therapist's voice in English, Arabic (Gulf dialect), or both.
- Your EVA Curated logo file, so the end card uses the real mark.