what if films’ analysis

I stayed at Giovanni’s home during the last day of my brief visit to Rome. I have to admit that meeting him in real made our friendship turn real too. I’m not saying that before our real meeting, the friendship or the relationship was fake. But it lacked certain credibility which I believe comes only after you meet/know the  person in real. Giovanni, who looks even more fitter and younger than his pictures, met me with the same genuine warmth as he had always shown in the virtual world. I had a great time talking to his beautiful and intelligent wife who welcomed me into her home with the same warmth as her husband. They both watched my movie, Take Out, and all three of us had a detailed discussion on things I was trying to say through the movie. They said that they liked my film and I wanna believe them! I met their beautiful daughters as well who appeared hard working, intelligent girls.

Giovanni has a very strong sense of history and culture. He is not only a proud Roman himself, but also encouraged me to look deeper and with more respect into my own Indian roots (He himself has a huge interest in and knowledge of Indian history and culture). We spent the evening walking around the streets of Rome and discussing everything from Polymaths to Ancient civilizations to the Classics. It seemed as if we have known each other through the ages and this meeting was destined rather than a random event. He also took me to Vatican city and I wondered at everything I saw there.

I have to admit that I fell in love with the part of Europe I visited and ever since I came back, I have been dreaming about settling in Mediterranean Europe one day . This trip has forced me to look deeper into some of the questions I have been avoiding for some time, while giving me a fresh perspective on certain issues. And, the meeting with Giovanni was one of the important events in this trip. Thank you Sir and here’s a toast to our ever lasting friendship! Waiting for you guys in Montreal!

Our film “Take Out” has been accepted to play at the prestigious Cannes film festival Short Film corner. I’m excited to go to Cannes for my first film.  The coolest thing about this is that they are sending two passes per film. The pass gives you access to all red carpet premieres, meeting industry big wigs and attending some cool workshops. And who knows I might sign a distribution deal for the film as well. It’s the biggest short film market in the world.  Below is the link to our film at their website catalog.

http://www.shortfilmcorner.com/sfcfilm/filmFiche2.Aspx?id=53651671

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.

2. I  encouraged my actors to improvise, while staying within the character and his/her motivations. For instance, there was a scene in the movie where two female co workers run into each other in a restaurant. During the first rehearsal, both actors started playing the part as it was written. But I egged them on to improvise or even add few lines of their own by perhaps doing some trivial talk typical of such females in a similar real life situation. And then they started talking. It helped us to add few lines to the original script which enhanced the scene. Another big advantage of rehearsals is that some of the lines or the action which sounds fine in the script looks ridiculous when actors start playing them. So, you have to go into the rehearsals with an open mind and might have to rework some of the aspects of your story/script.

Preparing shot list and visualization

3. I’m still learning many aspects of cinematography, so obviously my understanding of that was even more limited before Take Out. So, I decided to work within my limited knowledge and be not very ambitious in designing various shots. Fortunately, the story required a very naturalistic feel rather than very cinematic one. I mostly stuck with the static medium shots because I felt that’s truer to the tone of my film. I didn’t go overboard with the close-ups either. My only regret is that I should have taken bit more risks with the moving shots and also used dolly in few of the important shots.

4. I made a detailed shot list and discussed it with the cinematographer. He approved most of my shots while suggesting few changes. I also asked him to watch certain films/clips to understand the kind of shot selection and lighting I’m looking for. I think one major blunder which happened was that we didn’t do any rehearsal session with the camera or the cinematographer around. What that means is that you are taking a huge risk by assuming that, during the actual shoot, things will go exactly as planned in your paper shot list. For one, an actor might look quite fine  playing a scene when you watch him/her from a naked eye, but there might be issues when you see him in the camera. For instance, one of the actors had a habit of moving his shoulders too much while playing a scene. I didn’t notice that until I saw the rushes and of course it was too late by then. We have to do lot of editing in his scenes which could have been avoided had I shot him even once before the shoot. Another reason that the camera should be around before the actual shoot is that the staging of the actors could be very complex in real compared to what looks on the paper. If during the actual shoot you realize that certain shots are impractical/impossible to shoot, you are forced to take quick alternative decisions which are most often wrong.

Careful planning of the logistics

5. Everybody tells you this but you don’t learn until it happens. Careful planning of logistics is so integral to any shoot, I think. You might be renting a camera from one place, lights from another and the sound equipment from the third place. On the top of it, your cinematographer might tell you just a day before the shoot that a specific lens he needs is not available at the first place, so you need to arrange it from some other place now! And that’s just the beginning. Truck rental, parking space during the shoot, catering, props for the set, make up kit, scheduling of actors are some of the other very important things which have to be carefully planned much before the shoot unless you want glitches showing up at the last-minute and hurting your shoot. The production manager for my film was an experienced guy and he managed things reasonably well, but still, you have to remember that its your baby in the end and the stakes you have in your project cannot be compared to anybody else’s. So, delegating responsibilities well and also keeping tabs are absolutely essential.

In my next post, I will write about my experiences during the actual shoot.

As things stand now, the film was shot in July and the post production is now coming to an end.

Some notes from the making of the film:

1. I think its very important to work with the professionals only or at least those amateurs who are serious about the business. I’m very lucky that I live in a city where there are lots of artists who are willing to work for very little. With the kind of very limited resources I had, it would have been impossible to make a movie of this kind of production standards in a place such as LA or New York or even I would say, Toronto. The reason I say work with the professionals only is because actors or other artists involved in filmmaking are people who are in this business because they really love their craft and will give themselves into your project much more than your friends or other amateurs/non professionals who just want to do it for lark. Plus, professionals bring their own energy and interpretation to your script which adds so much value to your storytelling.

2. I was very skeptical in the start to contact more experienced actors because I didn’t expect them to agree working with a newbie like me who had practically no experience before this and who’s paying almost nothing. But, I guess if you believe in your script and are enthusiastic about your project, other people get rubbed over by that passion too and that works in the end. Or you can also say, I’m really a sweet talker who hoodwinked so many people !

3. My experience was best with the female actors. All of them were  passionate, unbelievably professional and very talented. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised with this as I had earlier assumed that it will be challenging both to find the right female actors and to also work with them. Infact, for all female roles, I had more than two actors wanting to act for the same role!

4. I think it’s extremely important to discuss your shot list in detail with the cinematographer. Ideally, I think, storyboarding each and every scene and sequence could never hurt.

Rest later..

Hopefully will be back very soon with many stories and experiences to share.

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.

Characters started changing in the 60′s. The yahoo times were there. Happy go lucky/debonair characters, played by the likes of Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor and later by Joy Mukherjee/Rajesh Khanna etc, had now also started finding their way into the cinegoers hearts. Again, success of these characters came from the changing times. India was more confident now and things were looking more positive, romantic and colorful; epitomized by the both confident and cheerful Shammi Kapoor in this song or by the darling of the masses, Rajesh Khanna, in this song.

The brooding angry young man character, created by the writer duo of Salim Javed and played perfectly to the tee by Amitabh Bachchan in many of his films, was definitely the main highlight of the 70′s. This time, the character was more of an answer to the problems of those times. The dreams of independence and the India of Gandhi and Nehru seemed to have gone haywire by now. Hence, this angry young man, taking on the system directly, found huge support and resonance from the audiences across India. Almost all the films given by this team, most notably Deewar, Zanjeer, Trishul, Kaala Pathar and Shakti, had one thing in common. An Intense, brooding and vindictive Bachchan’s character; angry with the demons both within & outside his world and taking on the system single-handedly. While I watch those famous AB movies, I realize that even though the stories were nothing exceptional and the plots of these films had many loopholes, the films still worked, both with the masses and the classes, primarily on the strength of the characters written and on the persona of Amitabh Bachchan who played these similar characters so well. The biggest cult film of Bollywood till date, Sholay, would not have even succeeded half without it’s extremely well written and realized characters of Jai, Veeru, Thakur, Basanti and the ultimate Gabbar Singh! Even when we talk of films of more realistic and less commercial directors of those times, such as Hrishikesh Mukherjee, a strong and an interesting character was always the highlight of their more successful films and perhaps the main reason why the films worked so well. Most notable examples: The characters of Rajesh Khanna in Anand and in Bawarchi or the character of Amitabh Bachhan in Mili or even the character of Utpal Dutt in the best Hindi comedy film of all time, Golmaal.

I think that the 80′s were the lowest and even the most chaotic times in Hindi cinema; coinciding, again, with the turbulent- political and otherwise- situation in the country during that period. The mainstream films had become very hackneyed, nonsensical and the so-called Hindi parallel cinema movement ended before it really started. I personally believe that, apart from some other reasons, one major reason that the Hindi cinema mostly failed during the 80′s was because that decade was unable to give us Indian audience a lovable or an interesting character. Of course there were few exceptions such as the character of Mogambo played by Amrish Puri in one of the very few cult films of the 80′s, Mr India, but for the most part we had no real character to adore in that period.

The period from the mid-90′s till the present one, again, had mostly those films do really well which had an interesting character at the heart of the story; a character which also reflected the moods and aspirations of current generation. Perhaps the most successful film of Bollywood till date, DDLJ released in 1995, caught the imagination of millions through the character of Raj played very well by Shah Rukh Khan. Raj is a cool, naughty (even bit dishonest) and also a commitment phobic flirtatious urban youth; but, in the end, an immensely lovable character who instantly connected with the youth of India. Similar characters were the backbone of quite a few cult films after that; the character of Aamir Khan in another cult film DCH or the character of Saif Ali Khan in Hum Tum. These so-called confident & metrosexual characters once again coincided, or perhaps even collided, with the resurgent Indian economy, more stable social/political environment in the country and with the more optimistic and resourceful middle/upper middle class now. Quite a few other very successful films of present times also had a strong and an interesting character at the core of films’ strong appeal, even if that character was not your metrosexual Raj/Rahul. Most notable examples: Munnabhai character played by Sanjay Dutt or the character of Bhiku Matre, played by Manoj Bajpai, in the film Satya or even the character of Kabir Khan played by SRK in Chak de India.

Therefore, as I tried to analyze above, Bollywood audiences have always loved to see a character which they can relate to or/and idolize. They might ignore an average story or even some loopholes in the plot, but if you give them a well written strong character/s in the film, they will most likely lap up the film. I often wonder what’s the reason for this fascination with the character. Is it because they sort of identify themselves with these characters or it’s because they aspire to be those characters? Or, as I suspect, it’s the complex dynamics of interplay between both these forces and even more.

P.S. Even though I believe that character has ruled more than the story or the plot in Bollywood, my analysis above is of course an oversimplification. The complex and the ever changing world of film storytelling, and especially Bollywood, cannot be simply seen from the prism of character alone. I also agree that there are quite a few examples in Hindi cinema where the story or the treatment worked more than anything else.

The best things happen when you least expect them. Yesterday evening, there was this special screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the movie theater very near my house. A local movie club was organizing it. I went there expecting just to see my most favorite film, and unarguably one of the greatest films ever made, one more time on the big screen. But not in my wildest dreams, I had imagined to see among the audience the famed Dr David Bowman of 2001, the Hollywood actor Keir Dullea himself! Mr Dullea was actually invited by the movie club to be a part of this screening.

And, there he was; all agile, animated (looking at least a decade younger than his actual age) and excited to answer the questions after the film ended. How I wish I had known about this and brought my digital voice recorder, something which I generally carry with me most of the times, but didnt carry it yesterday!!  He talked about the film and answered quite a few questions from the audience. The questions ranged from the extremely articulate and profound ones (from people who had obviously seen, read and thought about the film a lot before this screening) to some trivial ones, posed by few first timers among the audience. I have myself read quite a bit about this film’s making and about the various interpretations associated with the film’s ending. So, there were no surprises in that regard. As Mr Dullea reiterated again yesterday, the film, like the monolith in the film, remains a mystery and is open to interpretation all the time. According to him, and something which is very well-known now, Stanley Kubrick didn’t just want to thrill us with this film but instead he wanted to inspire our awe for the unknown and force us to look for our own answers from the film.

Nevertheless, Keir Dullea shared some interesting tid bits about the film, about it’s making and about Stanley Kubrick which are not that well-known and which I wanted to share here.

1.The first segment of the film, The Dawn of Man, was actually shot in the end during the actual shooting. But, the more interesting part is that the segment was shot in Africa without Kubrick ever setting his foot there!! It’s well-known that Kubrick had a fear of flying, so he directed all that segment over the trans Atlantic phone line giving minute instructions to his assistant director and cameraman; Kubrick had studied all that area geographically through pictures.

2. All the special effects in the film, designed by Kubrick himself and for which he also got an Oscar, were done mechanically and there were absolutely no computer graphics etc involved in their production.

3. During the scripting of the film-which took almost 2 years-, Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke never emphasized on the philosophical and the allegorical dimensions of the story during their discussions with the main protagonist Dullia and the other actors. Even during the actual shooting, actors were just told to act their parts keeping the basic plot and the basic characterizations in mind.

4. Contrary to popular perception, Stanley Kubrick was not a dominating or a controlling director. Neither did he insist on tens of retakes for every scene, as it’s generally believed. According to Mr Dullia, in his long career as an actor, he found Stanley Kubrick to be the most prepared director on the sets and a genius in every sense. Dullia mentioned how he never saw Kubrick raising his voice or being tough with actors.

After the Q & A session, Keir Dullia went to the main lobby for an informal chat with people and to sign autographs etc. I wanted to tell him there that how much this film means to me and that how much this film has affected me over the years as a person & as an aspiring filmmaker and so many other things I wanted to say and thank him for…But, when I went up to him and shook hands with him, I got tongue-tied and could only mutter “Thank you very much Sir”. Still I’m glad that I had the presence of mind to take my cell phone out from my pocket and request an old lady standing near by to click a picture of us. Mr Dullia put his hand on my left shoulder and the lady clicked the picture. I’m generally not star-struck and would not insist on clicking pictures with them- except for the very few perhaps if I ever meet them-, but this was a different matter. I mean, this man had acted in 2001 and worked with the greatest film director ever!!! By shaking hands with him, I almost touched Mr. Kubrick!!

I know the pic below is very badly lighted and not a kind of picture which one would like to show to people. But, what the heck man; I’m still standing with the man who, on an ultimate journey into the unknown, triumphed over one of the smartest villains in cinematic history,  HAL 9000!!! And, I’m certainly not ashamed to show off that.