"What If?"

The Story Behind the Most Relatable Short Film

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Dec 09, 2024

She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.

They searched for blue
Their whole life through.
Then passed right by–
And never knew.

Masks by Shel Silverstein

I. What If? — The Short Film

II. The Story Behind ‘What If?’

Adulthood is the agreed insanity of grown-ups.

It’s a chilly Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving. Aaryaman and I are on the Silver Line of the Metro, heading toward Washington, D.C. The train is quieter than usual—fewer people commuting because of the holiday tomorrow.

As we sit there, curious as ever, we do what we always do: wonder about the world, life, and people’s stories. It’s the same curiosity that led us to create The UIUC Talkshow.

Humans are naturally curious, but then…we grow up. For some reason, we all agree to act in a mutually-agreed upon manner. We start playing by social rules. Those invisible expectations that dictate how we should act, what we should say, and even who we should be.

The moment I hear “should” or “expectations,” I’m instinctively suspicious. Why? Because those words scream conformity—a surrender of independent thought and individuality.

As the train hums along, we notice someone interviewing an older gentleman. She leans in, taking notes, nodding, and offering those subtle, affirming looks that make it easy for people to open up. She could be a journalist, we think—or maybe it’s a job interview? We’re too far to hear their conversation but close enough to let our imaginations fill in the blanks.

“Wealth management?” Aaryaman guesses.

“Then why the notepad?” I counter.

“Good point,” he nods.

We build these theories only so we can later test them. As we approach D.C., I wonder who will get off first—the older man and the woman or us?

After a few false starts, I decide to find out. With a mix of curiosity and intrigue, I walk over and ask, “Hi there, I make movies and I’m always fascinated by people’s stories. Are you a journalist, by any chance?”

Before she can answer, an older woman—seated with her back to her—turns around and speaks loudly with the kind of boisterous certainty that fills a room, “She gets that a lot! People have always told her she looks like Meryl Streep.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she mutters in that tone that contains the soft and involuntary eye-roll suspended between affection and the awkwardness of a child who unexpectedly finds themselves the focus of a parent who, like every parent, believes their child is the most incredible thing in the world.

“I work in Public Relations (PR),” she says, recovering her composure. “I’m visiting my family for Thanksgiving.”

The conversation picks up steam as I point to the older gentleman. “But you really look like you’re interviewing him,” I say, and now we get to hear the older gentleman’s story. Who was he? Her dad? A colleague? A family friend?

“Oh, he’s my grandpa,” she says, her face lighting up in a way that only happens when someone talks about someone they truly admire. “And he’s awesome. He’s a pediatrician who travels around the world.”

By this point, any narrative we had imagined about them had dissolved. But here's the thing: it's always like this—whatever story we might have pieced together, the actual stories are always more unpredictable, more surprising, and infinitely more revealing.

By this point, Aaryaman joins in.

“Who are you guys?” she asks, her grandpa and mom now fully tuned in.

“I’m Juan David,” I say.

“And I’m Aaryaman,” he adds.

“We are engineers who run a talk show, create software, and make movies. Most importantly, we follow our curiosity.”

“A talk show?” Her eyes light up. She’s intrigued. “Where can I see it?” she asks.

In a flash, I pull out my phone and show her my lock screen, where my QR code wallpaper leads directly to our YouTube. She scans it, takes a moment to look through the page, and then, as if unlocking a new puzzle piece, smiles. “This is amazing,” she says.

But now, we’re so curious about PR because we don’t know anything about it. What inspires someone to do PR? How do PR people see the world? What do they know that we don’t?

She tells us she got her current job by emailing the biggest PR firm in South Carolina with a bold claim: that she was the best person in the world for the job, the best hire they’d ever make. She was rejected twice—by the CEO. But by the fourth email, they finally hired her.

I couldn’t help but ask, “How did you know you were the best person in the world for that?”

Her answer was simple, yet packed with conviction: “I didn’t, and I’m probably not. But you gotta play ball—no hesitation, no second-guessing. You gotta go for what you want.”

At that moment, we both sat there, stunned, thinking, What the hell have we been doing with our lives? For months, we’d been paralyzed by uncertainty, caught in an endless loop of hesitation and overthinking. We had ideas—so many ideas. Creating a business? Focusing on the talk show? Making movies? Joining the Secret Service? Developing apps? Doing a venture-backed startup? Starting a media company? We were stuck in limbo, torn between possibilities, too afraid to commit.

And here she was, reminding us of something raw and undeniable: YOU’VE GOTTA PLAY TO WIN. You have to act boldly, do more, think less, and live as if you can never lose.

So, we start firing away with all sorts of questions.

And just as it’s getting good, though, the Metro jerks to a stop.

“It’s our stop,” she says.

But serendipity strikes again—it turns out it’s our stop too (even though there were actually two more to go, but hey, serendipity). As we all shuffle toward the doors, she gives us her number and says, “Text me with any questions, I would love to talk more about the talk show or answer any PR questions.”

She heads off with her grandpa and mom, while we go our separate ways, the brief encounter lingering in the back of our minds.

A few hours later, we agreed to meet the following Friday to talk more.

Thanksgiving comes and goes.

Friday arrives, and we’re back in action, meeting at a coffee shop.

We start learning about her story—her journey through college, her job in PR, the lessons she’s learned, and, of course, the blunt but invaluable roast she gives our talk show. She pulls no punches, and we take it all in, eager to improve.

But we also have a plan. We’ve brought a camera.

As our three-hour conversation winds down, she glances at her watch. “I have a concert to get to,” she says.

Aaryaman says, “Let’s make a movie.”

She laughs nervously. “I really don’t have much time. I need to get going.”

“It’ll take five minutes,” he promises, already setting up the camera.

And just like that, we’re in filmmaking mode. Aaryaman works quickly, capturing shots as she fidgets, glancing at the time every few seconds. In under ten minutes, he’s done. We thank her and hand her a UIUC Talkshow sticker.

And before we go our separate ways, she extends her hand for a handshake, but Aaryaman, with his usual innocent and genuine nature, goes for a hug.

“We’re at hugging level now,” she blurts out, laughing.

I hug her, and we say our goodbyes.

The entire interaction felt like a microcosm of our philosophy: follow your curiosity without hesitation, break social rules, and trust that the stories will tell themselves.

What if?

What if you talked to more people?

What if you rejected the social rules that force you to conform?

What if you thought for yourself?

What if you truly lived?

What if you followed your curiosity?

What if you followed your heart?

What if you lived with the simplicity of a child?

The other side of your “What If” isn’t just a short film or a new friendship—it’s the quiet self-consolation that there are no real strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet, and no true adults, only those who've calcified their capacity for wonder, who've traded open-hearted curiosity for the brittle armor of presumed maturity.

III. How ‘What If?’ Was Made

By Aaryaman Patel

It’s time to take you inside the editing room and talk about how the film was pieced together.

How are most movies made? You write a story, find the actors, film, edit, and publish it.

Simple enough, right?

How did we make this movie? We found a stranger who we asked to be the actor, filmed some shots with her, and wrote the story while editing it.

The most important thing to understand about What If? is that the story came after we had already shot everything1.

After I watched the footage, I wasn’t happy with it. All I could think of were the scenes I wish I had shot and the things I could have done differently. I felt discouraged and almost gave up on the idea of making this movie. But one fine night, I opened my laptop and decided to give it another shot.

We didn’t have a story, a name, or a script when I sat down to put this film together. All we had was a semblance of an idea of what it could be.

Before we get into the details, let me walk you through my process behind making this movie:

Step 1: Analyze the footage and take notes for each shot to know what you’re working with.
Step 2: Compose a story from the footage and what emerges most naturally from it.
Step 3: Find the right soundtrack based on the feel you’re going for. It’ll set the underlying theme for the movie.
Step 4: Come up with a structure/progression for the story and write the dialogues.
Step 5: Think of a great ending! This will make or break your movie.
Step 6: Put it all together. Make creative decisions along the way as they come to you. Sync the shots with the music
Step 7: Decide on the aesthetics of the movie, such as fonts and color. They should feel coherent and match the overarching theme of the movie.
Step 8: Finally, have fun including small easter eggs and references in the film!!!

The first step was to analyze and review all the footage. I meticulously watched everything, made notes about the types of shots and scenes, categorized them accordingly, and asked myself, “What is the story waiting to be told here?”

And with time, the story revealed itself.

I thought of several different versions and endings before I settled on the one you see today. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you should watch it before you continue reading.

For instance, I had initially planned the characters to be strangers who noticed each other at a cafe. But given the nature of the internal dialogues and the expressions of the actors in my footage, it felt best to go with a sense of familiarity between the two.

Careful consideration was put in to make sure that the male protagonist didn’t come off as someone creepy or someone who could be classified as a “stalker”. I wanted him to be grounded, vulnerable, and honest about how he was feeling. He didn’t have any bad intentions and I didn’t want to accidentally misrepresent him as having any.

He was initially meant to critique, observe, and question every single one of her actions, from drinking her coffee and working on her laptop to checking her phone, writing in her notebook, and playing with her hair. He was going to be portrayed as someone who was trying to decipher her, rather than admire her. It would have taken away from his feelings of anxiety and nervousness by diverting the attention to understanding who she was rather than what he was feeling. The latter aligned more with the intention of the story.

After I settled on a story, I started looking for a soundtrack to accompany it. This movie was going to be playful, relaxed, and well-paced. I already knew what I was going for, and it came to me in the form of Midnight in Paris.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know that its wonderful soundtrack plays a huge role in driving the story forward. There is a certain sense of love, warmth, familiarity, joy, mystery, and playfulness in its music. And those were exactly the emotions I was going for.

It didn’t take me long before I finally settled on ‘Ballad du Paris’.

If you’ve seen any of my previous movies, you know that I am a stickler for syncing my visuals with the background music. I feel that it helps with the pace of the movie and adds a certain rhythm to the movie-watching experience.

From Juan David’s side-eye and blink at 2:11 to Teresa’s head nod at 2:05, they are all meant to play along with the motions of the music. It almost makes one feel like the music was composed for this movie, rather than the other way around.

You’ll notice that the points of tension in the music correlate with the points of tension in the story. The music shifts gears between 2:02 and 2:24, which is the part of the movie where both characters’ true feelings are revealed to the audience.

Exposition—the art of revealing a plot’s critical background information—is one of the most important aspects of any good story. By revealing the right details at the right time, you can inform the viewer of the conflict and the subsequent details surrounding it. Through subtle cues and dialogues, I attempted to do the same for this movie.

For instance, I wanted everyone to be on the same page about the following:

They weren’t strangers: as revealed by his first thought in which he mentions her name
They were young, college students: as revealed when he thinks about how he should introduce himself
Uncertainty about her relationship status: was she single or did she have a boyfriend? Was she talking to her boyfriend or someone else?

By knowing these small details about the characters, the viewer can then piece together other details about their life.

Experimentation was at the core of this movie, like every one of the movies in the past. With this film, I chose to experiment with retro dialogue frames.

Since the story was constantly unfolding in the characters’ heads, it felt most natural to have non-verbal dialogue frames. Plus, it was a good challenge to convey the same emotions with only visual cues, without any words.

One of my favorite scenes that encapsulates this happens at 2:30, with the closeup on Juan David.

At this moment, he is feeling tired from all the overthinking. He knows what he wants, but he doesn’t have the courage to go after it. As the viewer, you can feel the frustration that he is feeling. It is almost suffocating. He feels trapped inside his mind with no way out.

This is what filmmaking is about: taking a simple emotion and adding immense depth to it.

Every detail from the choice of the music, location, font styles, story, and narration style was intentional. Immense thought and scrutiny were put into every single frame and transition.

For instance, different fonts were used for Gavin and Sarah2 to indicate that they originated from different people. Also, Gavin’s font style feels colder while Sarah’s is more gentle.

Gavin:

Sarah:

The music combined with the warm colors of the cafe adds a certain playfulness to the interaction too.

Remember, no detail is too small.

By now, we’ve taken care of most of the details. The film is almost ready! The only thing left now is to have some fun with it.

Let’s talk about the cinematography!

There are many easter eggs3 and subtle cues hidden in the film that aid its storytelling.

You’ll notice all her shots are very composed, still, and steady whereas his shots are more shaky. It is meant to make the audience feel what he is feeling: imbalanced and unsteady.

For instance, notice the zoom-in at 1:40.

It is meant to mimic the state of frustration and instability inside his head.

But by far, the one thing that makes this story hit so close to home is how it ends. It didn’t need a happy ending; it needed a real one.

It’s the final and most important impression of any movie. It can quite literally make or break your movie. It doesn’t matter how good your story is if you cannot tie it well together in the end.

Knowing this, I wanted to make sure that the end felt real—something that the audience could relate to on a personal level.

Even though it was not the end that everyone was hoping for, it was the end that made the most sense.

It allows the viewer an opportunity to reflect upon their own life and actions from a third person’s perspective.

And if even one person can see it, then ‘What If?’ will have served its purpose.

We have always believed in the power of storytelling to change people’s minds. They are a portal to understanding our idiosyncrasies, habits, and ultimately understanding ourselves better.

By making this short film, we wanted to show what many young people feel and experience daily today. They either feel too “cool” to approach someone or too scared to be an “inconvenience.”

In many ways, the story of how this movie came to be is a series of “What Ifs”.

If we hadn’t chosen to act on our instinct and approach her, we would have never met her.

If we hadn’t chosen to meet her at the cafe, this movie would’ve never been shot.

If I hadn’t decided to give the footage another shot, I would’ve never realized that there was a very honest story hiding somewhere in it.

Our life is a series of “What Ifs”, and the only way to deal with them is by choosing to act on them.

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