Dheepan Ratnam: 30-second stylised 3D animated short film. 19 hard cuts, average 1.6s per shot…

30-second stylised 3D animated short film. 19 hard cuts, average 1.6s per shot. NO on-screen text, NO subtitles, NO readable lettering anywhere — all signage is abstract glowing colour shapes only. STYLE (every frame): Stylised feature-animation 3D CG. Faceted low-poly geometry with hand-chiselled planar cuts — fabric folds read as carved wedges, not cloth simulation. Exaggerated cartoon proportions: heavy shoulders, thick forearms, small hands, short legs, oversized head. Matte painterly surfaces, zero PBR gloss, fine canvas grain over the whole image. Skin has soft subsurface warmth and a hard wet rim light. Cel-adjacent shading with crisp terminator lines and soft ambient occlusion in creases. Wide-angle 18-24mm lens throughout with visible barrel distortion, shallow depth of field, heavy radial motion blur on backgrounds, volumetric shafts through steam and rain. Rain is faceted streaks, not particles. Cuts land hard on the beat. CAST (locked, identical in every shot): KAVI — 27-year-old Tamil woman tea master. Compact and broad, low centre of gravity, thick forearms, short legs. Deep brown skin, broad flat nose, heavy straight brows, thin steel nose ring, pale old burn scar across the left forearm. Black hair oiled into a tight low bun with one white jasmine strand. Wardrobe: sun-bleached crimson work sari hitched short over black shorts, scorched grey thermal sleeves shoved to the elbow, black rubber apron, a stack of steel bangles on the right wrist only. Props: two dented brass tumblers. PALETTE: monsoon night. Wet blue-black asphalt, cold slate rain, one sodium-orange stall lamp as the only key, magenta and cyan neon bleeding in from off-frame, brass and copper highlights, a single crimson accent, pale steam white. STORY: The 9pm rush hits a rain-flooded street-food lane and Kavi outruns it on pure craft, ending alone in the steam. BEATS: 0.0-1.4 Macro, static, rack focus: a raindrop bursts on the rim of a brass tumbler into faceted shards, sodium lamp flaring behind. 1.4-2.8 Puddle-height 18mm, low tracking dolly right: her rubber sandals stamp into standing water, sheets peeling sideways in solid slabs. 2.8-4.4 Low hero angle, slow crane up into a 4-frame snap zoom: she plants both hands on the counter as the lamp bangs on and steam blooms up her body. 4.4-5.8 Whip pan across a queue of blurred umbrella silhouettes, settling on her hands seizing two tumblers. 5.8-7.0 Fast dolly in on her face: jaw set, magenta on one cheek, orange on the other, rain beading on her brows. 7.0-8.6 Vertical crane down following the pour: she rips the tumblers a metre apart, an amber ribbon of tea stretched taut between them. 8.6-10.2 Full 360 orbit at waist height, background smearing to streaks as she pours again without looking. 10.2-11.4 Top-down bird's-eye snap: the tea hits the lower tumbler dead centre, crown splash held two frames then blurred. 11.4-13.0 Handheld push through a curtain of steam, her silhouette resolving out of pure white. 13.0-14.6 Whip pan right to a rival stall's neon guttering out, a cook staring; her hands keep working at frame edge. 14.6-16.0 Low wide, speed ramp: a scooter tears a puddle open, a wall of water slabbing up; she pivots and shields the tray with her back without losing rhythm. 16.0-17.8 Slow-motion macro arc around one tumbler tipping off the tray edge, bangles blurring past. 17.8-19.0 Snap to real time, whip tilt up: she catches it behind her back on two fingers. 19.0-20.6 Crash zoom into her eyes; one brow lifts a millimetre. 20.6-22.2 Fast lateral dolly along the counter as she slides seven full tumblers down it, one per hand-flick, steam trailing each. 22.2-23.6 Reverse low angle from behind the queue: hands reaching in from every side taking cups, her figure small and centred, lamp flaring. 23.6-25.4 Drone crane pull-up out of the lane: the stall is one hot orange dot in a grid of wet blue-black rooftops, rain thinning. 25.4-27.4 Cut to ground level, slow push in: the lane empty, the last umbrella turning a corner, puddles gone glass-still. 27.4-30.0 Static low hero: Kavi pours one last tumbler for herself, steam rising straight up as the rain stops, she exhales, the lamp flickers once, hold, slow fade. AUDIO: No dialogue. Rain drumming on tin, kettle hiss, brass ringing on brass, the hard splash of the long pour, scooter doppler, crowd murmur, bangles clattering. Music: driving Tamil percussion — thavil and kanjira over a low sub-bass pulse, tempo climbing to a peak at 22.2s, everything dropping to rain and one held drone at 27.4s. NEGATIVE: no text, no lettering, no watermark, no photorealism, no PBR gloss, no live action, no plastic skin, no extra fingers, no morphing faces, no character/wardrobe/palette drift, no daylight, no drifting camera, no crossfades, no bloom overload, no still frames.