Searching

Searching for Success

By: Julian Nowik
January 26, 2021

A few months ago (sorry the article is so late) I got the opportunity to hear Aneesh Chaganty talk about his 2018 film, Searching. Mr. DiBenedetto, Melrose High School’s film teacher, suggested that one of the members of The Imprint sit in on the Google Meet and write an article on the experience, which I was more than happy to do. Searching was directed by Chaganty and written by him and his friend, Sev Ohanian. The film is a mystery/thriller about a girl who goes missing. The catch? The entire film is shot from the perspective of a computer screen. While this concept is certainly a gimmick, as Mr. D puts it, “[the movie] ascends the gimmick.” Critics across the board seem to agree; the film boasts solid praise from all major review sites including Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb.

As a highschooler pursuing a career in film, having the experience of talking with someone in the field was incredibly valuable and insightful. Chaganty talked about his introduction into the world of film, making ads for Google, with unique ideas such as filming an ad entirely with Google Glasses. He worked making ads for Google until he pitched his idea for an eight minute short film thriller that would later become Searching. He explained how working on ads gave him the idea and stated that, “The idea came out of opportunity.” The studio liked the idea so much that they wanted to make an entire 90 minute film out of it. Chaganty explained how he initially turned down the proposal, as he wasn’t sure if he wanted this to be his debut film; after writing the intro sequence with the extra time in mind he decided he was back on board. Searching wasn’t the first film to be filmed entirely on a computer screen as Unfriended (2014) had done a similar thing, although Chaganty said that he looked to Unfriended often as an example of what not to do.

When describing the experience of making the film he explained that it was a very unique process;most of the film was reliant on an editing team because the vast majority of the film was post production. Since everything was just screen recordings or screen shots between two computers, having a good editing team was crucial. Editors and graphic designers had to recreate sites and chat rooms that no longer looked like they did in the film. Instead of making a storyboard for a film where most of the acting was done in front of a webcam, he opted to film the entire movie with him acting instead. This led to the creation of an hour and 40 minute long demo of the movie that Chaganty was kind enough to show us. The movie premiered at the Sundance film festival and was distributed by Sony making $75.5 million in the box office, a major achievement considering the budget was merely $880,000. For comparison, I, Tonya which came out a year prior, made $53.9 million at the box office, but cost $11 million to make.

When asked if there was any point Chaganty thought he may fail his career, he said, “All the time, bro… Filmmaking is like a roller coaster, you're always at the top or the bottom.” He described fearing that the movie wouldn’t do well because of its unique concept, but the fear chipped away after the test audiences enjoyed it. He explained that the fear of thinking the film needed to be better was what pushed him to make it better. With his success he began work on a new film afterwards called Run, about a homeschooled teenager in a wheelchair who begins to suspect that her mother is hiding a dark secret. The movie was planned to release on Mothers Day but ended up being pushed back to late 2020 as a Hulu original. Although, now that it's out on Hulu, I’d absolutely recommend giving it a watch, it's a pretty intense 90 minutes with a very unique premise. Overall, I was glad to have gotten a chance to hear Chaganty talk and after the success of his first two films, I’m excited to see what he’ll make next.