The making of short film ‘Take Out’ (Part 2)

I know it was again a long hiatus after my last post. As they say, your first film teaches you a lot about filmmaking and one thing I am learning constantly is that how seemingly little aspects of film production could take so much time and energy. Nevertheless, that or several other unjustified reasons are still no excuse for the irregularity in my blogging. I have decided to be more regular in my blogging from now on and I hope that I stick to my resolve this time (Can you believe me saying this?).

As things stand now, Take Out is finally finished and I’m busy sending it to few festivals plus promoting the film at another channels. I’m also working on my next short film to be shot in the next couple of months. Continuing with my last post on the making of the film, below are some more reflections from my experiences during the pre production.

Rehearsals with the actors

1. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of rehearsals. I was lucky to have actors agreeing to do two sessions of rehearsals with me. Most low-budget independent productions rarely have that luxury. I know that some people say that too much rehearsal can kill the spontaneity of the actors. I don’t really agree with that. Most independent shoots happen under the tough constraints of budget and time. So, actors spending too much time experimenting/improvising during the actual shooting, is rarely beneficial. On the other hand, actors have enough time to improvise and reflect over their character with the director and other co-actors during the rehearsals.

The history and the importance of character in Bollywood

While watching reruns of some cult Bollywood films, a thought occurred to me. That how interesting and well crafted characters, more than anything else in those films, have always fascinated the Indian audience and perhaps those characters were the single most important factor in ensuring success and their following even till now. If I think about many cult Hindi films starting from the 50′s, I see a common thread wherein an interesting and an identifiable character- reflecting the times- had always been at the center of those films’ success; when I say success, I mean either box office or critical, and many a times, it was both.

The newly independent India of the 50′s, a nation not only recovering from the bruises of partition & the long colonial rule but also facing many problems- economic and otherwise-, found echo with such characters as sensitive poet Vijay (played by Guru Dutt in the film Pyaasa) or with Devdas (played by Dilip Kumar in the film Devdas). Both characters are love-lorn, misunderstood and also doomed, but both were immensely loved by the audiences for the same reasons; the intensity of these characters and also for some sort of identification with such fatalistic characters. This brilliantly worded song by Sahir Ludhianvi, from the film Pyaasa, captures the ethos of one such character. Other notable examples of this period where the character dominated: The character of Nargis in Mother India and the affable and the Chaplinesque Raj Kapoor in many of his films.

Story: How it starts?

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean. – Socrates

Of late, I have been thinking a lot regarding how the story of any film begins in the mind of a writer/filmmaker. In various scriptwriting books, courses, workshops etc, we learn about various things related to any good story; the structure, various acts, conflict, interesting characters, beats, plot points, resolution and so on. The book, “Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting“ authored by the ultimate screenwriting guru, Robert McKee, is considered Bible in screenwriting. I cannot write enough that how much this voluminous 500 page book has taught me. Unlike most other books on screenwriting which focus more on the mechanical aspects of a story structure, Mckee’s Story turns inwards into human psychology to explain in minute detail how great dramas unfold on screen. He writes, “We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent.” His book, Story, is a path to that rediscovery. In it, McKee offers so much sound advice, drawing from sources as wide ranging as Aristotle, Casablanca, Stanislavski and Chinatown, that it is impossible not to be influenced by this book when you start your journey into screenwriting.