Learning from Early work

Learnings from really early work :

"1) You can make a video alone if you want to. YOU just need passion – everything els follows.
2) Choice of music is very important. Good music worked for one and not for other.
3) Simple stories work great.
4) Don't get indulgent with the shots you like at the editing table. If they are not taking the story forward they are of no use.

Important 5) Take interesting stock footages of sunrise, sunset. Think out of the box."

Fig 1: Random early work flex from the videos I made

After that I had entered a film school and I made an entry level film there. Here is my diary entry from my first film school project:

"1) Light should not be muddy
2) Successive shots should be shot at different angles
3) If the time limit of movie is 3 mins then try to edit your script to it.
4) Be ready to fire your actors if they you find they are not good during rehearsals – else whole project will go down the drain.
5) 3 mins movie – don't go for 3-4 scenes – setting up will take time. Do one good scene.
6) Pacing during editing is super important to help generate a mood.
7) Don't take even a single shot for granted. Never it is like chal jayega – be very particular about the lens, sound quality etc.
8) Don't have too many shots if time is less – else the whole shooting procedure has a risk of breaking down.
9) Rehearse rehearse rehearse. KILL actors if they have not mugged the line in advance.
10) Assistants are useful. Team is useful 
11) Never trust your team blindly. Check everything personally. Even if other person seems to be better – take your decisions – ask him to get lost if he is creatively interfering too much. 99% of times other suggestions are worse than your own.

P.S: Though I think being super ambitious in the foundation film taught me much more about directing a movie than if I had played it safe. Take advantages of being a student – be ambitious."

I realized this was me coming to terms with other voices in the project after having made so many films on my own.

Later I even assisted and nothing helped me learn how to handle and motivate the team better than assisting a fellow director. Here were my notes of the same:

1) Do to gym and build He-man kinda stamina if you need to work night shift and day shifts spanning 18 hours every day.
2) Assisting for a short time helps you know how things are on the set but assisting for sustained period of time will not help you incrementally. Make movies on the side.
3) Don't have useless good for nothing people on the set – they only eat away your unit people's food and interfere by talking and spoil the sound quality . Don't have them.
4) Define clear roles for your assistant. Earmark points of continuity for your assistants before hand. Have meetings with your assistant. Get them as charged as you are about the movie. Tell them that it is their movie also.
5) Rehearse with actors in advance.
6) Take reliable actors – who will atleast show up.
7) Take good amount of inserts – they will be useful.
8) Have a good clear list of shots so everyone is not confused about what you want.

At the end of year 1 we have to make a short fiction film in 16 mm and this is the film where I feel I found my voice.

This was my learning from there:

1) Color helps – every movie is like a painting – one needs to choose the paint before one goes to paint it.

2) Attention to detail helps – but it is of no use if you have NOT communicated it with BLOCK letters to your team mates.

3) You have to take care of everything. Period. Anything above is a bonus.

4) Get gaffer in the discussion meetings too. Your editor must know your shot breakdown so that he can make appropriate suggestions.

5) Quality of your movie – quality of your extras. Production Design Versus Social Design.

6) Production design of your movie determines if it is a student film or not.

7) Pre-decide the music of your film to know the rhythm of the shots.

8) If the movie is for 8 mins – have story of 5 mins to get the emotions out.

9) Take inputs from everyone on the team – they are useful – but not on the day of the shoot – before that.

10) Have good ADs who feel for your movie as much as you feel for it.

Fig 2: 16 mm Film school film flex where I was influenced by Matisse X Wong Kar Wai

After that I graduated from film school and suddenly the post looked all matured up:

1) Alone unspoken, undiscussed moments that make everything real and specific – These could be anything-  the first thoughts when you wake up in the morning, or eye contact with a stranger, or a forced smile,  a silly joke, a person suddenly at loss of words and his initial stammering or  a sudden blackout on a crowded train. I just feel that capturing those moments is the real power of cinema. I instantly connect with the character.

2) Using associative memory: It is for example if  I say hiroshima – you think of atomic bomb and a sense of grief, dignity and seriousness dawn upon you. One can use associative memory of objects, to make your film sharper. Sometimes you can plant the associative memory in the film itself. Example associating mother with her bangles and then just her bangles kept on the table after she is gone.

3) Chemistry between characters – Not just you but your actors sometimes need to spend time with eachother. Your goal should be that your actors fall in love with eachother. Chemistry is all that is unspoken – or the manner in which the dialogues are spoken – almost similar to point 1 but also involves interpersonal relationships. You can see a couple and tell them they are a couple. You see two extras walking- they will look like two extras walking unless the director or a smart AD has made efforts to make them look like a couple. Every chemistry has to be built offscreen.

4) Multiple forces in a scene – Truffaut says there should be 5 thoughts packed in a given scene at a given time. I have kept the minimum rule to 3 – always 5 can be difficult sometimes. Actually some scenes should have 0 thought – a shot/scene between two intense shots – so that audience can absorb the intensity. Also the best is if these things come naturally and organically to you. When you plant it too much – there is a risk of planting something that might be detected. Worst thing is when someone watching a movie feels that he is reading the final draft. I think revision gives you an opportunity to fit the script in mind space and also gives a clearer idea of rhythm and direction of the script. Also it eliminates cliches, brings richness in scenes, de-sharpens the edges of planted thoughts and infact helps make the script more organic.

5) Take them to a place they have never been– Give your audience a sense of magic – pad it with good audio and visual that grabs their attention, shake their body and make them prepared for the film. They should feel like letting go of their life and wanting to enter the world you have created. Actually audio plays a very important role – hence the importance of music and sound design should never ever be under-estimated. I have tried to understand why certain scenes give people that feeling (a separate blog entry for that). I guess that's because these scene present a new unseen image and so when one comes face to face with absolute creativity – all cells in his/her body resonate with it. Even if we achieve it once in our film, we know we have provided atleast one unique moment they would carry it forever with them. Those scenes are our windows to immortality. 

6) Find yourself in every aspect of your movie you are making– While the film is a team effort, it's also a private mental conversation between you and your audience. If the music doesn't resonate with the space you have designed, if the space doesn't resonate with the actors emoting – the film will not look like a coherent world. Your presence and taste is required to make a uniform, coherent universe where you are leading your audience in.

I had some more on Cargo and more on the recent film I made. They say (Tarentino I think) that making your own independent film is the best was to learn filmmaking. So that asks for a separate post 

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