Gene
2025
Ten minute short film
Assistant writer and editor, costume and production designer
Gene follows an isolated girl, Lily, struggling to get through life, until a human-like entity, Gene, appears claiming he will make her life better. As her everyday becomes more fulfilling with the help of this mysterious being, Lily starts to come out of her shell.
With this, Lily makes a friend and gets invited to her first house party. However, things quickly go wrong when she takes a spiked drink which distorts her perception of Gene, and in a violent outburst attempting to murder him, her classmate takes the fatal hit.
COSTUME DESIGN
We wanted Gene to have a unique costume that made him stand out from the mundane environment of Lily’s life. This would both establish his character as non-human, and reflect his extroverted confident personality, all through physical appearance. I hence researched historical representations of genies, wanting to move away from the Western portrayal of the wish-granting genie by going back to the roots of the being: the Jinn of pre-Islamic mythology. I found through this research that the main physical element which kept recurring was the jinn’s ability to shapeshift into an animalistic creature. This enabled my decision that our character of Gene should bear resemblance to a peacock – the bird being synonymous with flamboyance and extravagance (qualities we wanted Gene to embody). A bird was deliberately chosen as the ‘shapeshifting’ trait for Gene, as birds are typically symbols of freedom, highlighting Gene’s spatial freedom (through his teleportation) as well as a freedom of the mind, showing his desire to guide and help Lily.
A costume which had peacock qualities would symbolize Gene’s role as a Jinn creature through his appearance from the animalistic traits, while also emphasising his exaggerated boldness and confident personality.
Still from Gene
Photograph of costume piece
I made it an adjustable headpiece as I was working on it on myself without knowing the actor’s head measurements. I did so by creating it as a belt-like adjustment but added a safety pin for extra stability and precaution.
EDITING
In the last scenes of the film, it is alluded that Lily takes a spiked drink, leading the audience towards the ending’s dark twist. We decided to give the film a subtle experimental twist through the camera work. We wanted to create a sense of disorientation and loss of control through the blurring of images.
The handheld shots were used to place the viewer directly into Lily’s mindset through the unstable shots to stress her own perception of the party. These shots, being in contrast with the rest of the film– otherwise shot on a tripod with very symmetrical composition–, highlight a disturbance in Lily’s grasp of reality and self-control.
By undertaking a more experimental approach to this scene through the lack of crisp, detailed images and the use of unconventional angles, the audience is forced to experience Lily’s mental state which quickly becomes overwhelming and chaotic. We wanted, in this scene, to prioritize emotion through the blurry images, the close ups, and the intensity of the colours.
Extract from Gene
