Searching Resources and Links Wikipedia re director and film NY Times: Overall discussion by director while watching one scene Transcript Hi. My name is Aneesh Chaganty. I’m the co-writer and director of ‘Searching. So the scene that you’re watching right now takes place early in the film. The film is about a dad whose daughter goes missing, and he tries to look for clues to find her. The entire film takes place on the tech devices that we use everyday to communicate. That’s laptops, cell phones, desktop computers. Basically every single tool that we use every day is a tool that we use to tell the story. In this moment right now he is realizing that his daughter might actually be in piano classes that she goes to every Friday. So he’s going to try and find out how to reach her there. The trick to kind of tackling this movie was basically by not making it boring. That was a huge thing that we talked about all the time. Like how do we elevate this concept? How do we make it feel like a capital M movie and not just a gimmick of a film that was lasting for 90 minutes? So from day one, in order to solve that we basically realized that what we should be doing is by using every single cinematic trick that we feel like we’ve learned, and that has been developed over the last 100 years, whether that’s a camera push in, or a dolly, or a lens flare, or just a narrative trick. If it was figured out before us, let’s apply it to this screen. And we figured if we take these small, mundane devices that we use everyday to communicate, and apply all these cinematic tricks to it, we will be making something, hopefully, that feels like something that you’ve never seen before. So this particular moment David is finding out that his daughter not only has not been going to piano classes the last few weeks, but actually canceled her classes months ago. And it’s the beginning of him realizing that his daughter is actually not at all the person that he thought she was. So he’s looking at these messages right now. We’re kind of panning back and forth. We’re punching in. And we’re kind of mixing live action footage and animated footage in a way that feels hopefully seamless for an audience, to hopefully give them a very, very cinematic experience on a platform that I don’t think any of us, including us, the writers and the filmmakers, originally thought was possible. But it’s why we’ve made this movie, because when we realized we could pull it off, we thought, hey, wouldn’t it be a really, really cool experience for an audience if we did?” New York Times Review Review: In ‘Searching,’ a Clever Conceit and John Cho as Leading Man By Aisha Harris Aug. 23, 2018 At its core, “Searching” is like any number of thrillers about tracking down a missing person: John Cho plays David Kim, a single father whose teenage daughter Margot (Michelle La) doesn’t come home one night or make it to school the following morning. Distraught, David combs through the trail of her online presence and passes along findings to Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing), the lead detective on the case. Days go by and the clues don’t turn up Margot, but they are revealing: David learns he does not know as much about her as he once thought. He takes things into his own hands, suspicious of those around him and increasingly unsatisfied with Vick’s investigation. What sets Aneesh Chaganty’s feature debut apart is its meticulously constructed storytelling device, which calls to mind “Unfriended (2014),” the horror film about a group of teenagers whose video chat is interrupted by the presence of an online phantom, and its sequel “Unfriended: Dark Web,” released earlier this summer. Every shot of “Searching” plays out on a screen — a computer, a phone, through the lens of a clandestinely placed camera. It mostly works: It unveils a clever approach to character building, as during the opening montage of family photos, home videos and emails providing intimate details about the Kim family over several years. Occasionally, the effort to commit fully to the conceit feels strained or shows its limitations, as when a grainy camera recording from a distance undercuts the intensity of a particularly dramatic confrontation. Throughout, David’s emotional journey feels wholly tangible — many of Mr. Cho’s scenes involve him interacting with other actors on FaceTime, yet he deeply inhabits his character’s distress and still-unprocessed grief over a different kind of loss chronicled in the film’s first few minutes. While a somewhat silly reveal in the final act feels ripped from a “Law & Order” episode, the combination of clever concept reflecting the prevalence of screens in everyday life, and the pleasure of watching a typically underused Mr. Cho take on a meaty lead role make “Searching” a satisfying psychological thriller. Director: Aneesh Chaganty Writers: Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian Stars: John Cho, Debra Messing, Joseph Lee, Michelle La, Sara Sohn Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1h 42m Genres: Drama, Mystery, Thriller Review by Jules Fox (ALLMOVIE) The suspenseful Searching comes packed with a lot of treats, most of all how much originality it brings to a tired genre. When a widower and a single father of a teenaged daughter discovers that she's missing, he takes it on himself to find out what's happened to her. As the layers of what's known about her life are turned over, he discovers that he may not know her as well as he thinks he did. In a breakout star-making performance, middle-aged single dad David Kim, played by John Cho (Star Trek reboots, Harold & Kumar series), is allowed the opportunity to display a broad range of emotion outside of his usual funny-guy roles. Playing the current distressed version of himself, he is held up in counterpoint with home video of the past happier version of himself when he was a part of his daughter's life as she was growing up. He masterfully exhibits nuanced reactions as he searches his daughter's laptop for clues as to her disappearance, only to be led deeper into an anxious hole. Detective Rosemary Vick, played by Debra Messing (Will & Grace), helps guide David along the emotional roller coaster of what happens when disaster strikes close to home. Her expertise is able to blend well with David's grim determination to piece the puzzle together in time to possibly save his daughter, as well as offering David a sounding board from the perspective of someone who's been through this before. Newcomer to the silver screen Michelle La plays Margot Kim, David's missing daughter. Unnerved by the death of her mother and at odds with her father, she brings a dreadful sense of realism to the role. Despite the fact that the movie is about her disappearance, we do still get to see her in home video style footage as the film progresses. What the movie lacks in big Hollywood set pieces, it more than makes up for in gritty performances, and a barebones script. This serves to increase our ability to suspend disbelief, because the story itself hits so close to home. Stylistically, Searching proves that films made up almost entirely of being on-screen footage are more than just a novelty. It offers a surprising amount of depth crafted by the first-time writer/director Aneesh Chaganty. One nice thing about the low budget/low risk that accompanies this style is that it allows for newcomers to prove themselves, in this case especially requiring some creative thinking to see how far the medium can be pushed. Ultimately, Searching is much more than just a thriller, or horror film, like the lowbudget Unfriended series shot in the same style, and also produced by Timur Bekmambetov. Paying homage to Alfred Hitchcock's classic suspense, Rear Window, the film manages to stay taught and evenly paced, while most of the action takes place with a man sitting down. While the internet broadens this 'window' into the world, Searching also brings up a deeply uncomfortable feeling that all parents have: while the internet broadens this 'window' into the world, Searching also brings up a deeply uncomfortable feeling that all parents have: that they do not truly know their children - and how the internet itself can bring about this darkness. Metacritic Many reviews Quartz Chaganty’s Easter Eggs You Tube Videos Seeds: a Google Glass film (a short film Chaganty made, which led to Google offering him a job) Hollywood reporter int Variety int Fox 5 int MTV int Sundance int William Mullally int Trailer Others that aren’t’ particularly helpful Jimmy Kimmel int HFPA Interview Q&A with director William Mullally and John Cho int Focus Questions for Module 1. How does Aneesh Chaganty tell his story? Consider the different screens we see (laptops, phones, etc), the various platforms the characters use (Facebook, Gmail, etc) and other film techniques Chaganty employs (flashback, dolly shots, etc). 2. What ethical issues regarding social media and digital technology does Chaganty raise?
