The "ORGANISM"

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 3

A single "ORGANISM". That's what Tanmay Sir wants us to be. Instead we keep insisting on proving that we are merely a ten individual thrown together. Two days have passed and not much improvement.

As everyday, the wake up call happened. And we were there on time at 9:45 and everyone was there! Achievement of its own! While I smiled and became happy God chuckled and said, "Not so easy you fool!" 

CUT TO 

Three people standing outside. Supposedly revolting! How? One by not writing the blog! One by revolting through the writing on the blog! The other refusing to write on blog at all (He would rather use PPT)! Everybody was there but Sir wasn't and as time passed the negative vibe in the class started boiling up.

Sir stood outside the department observing us. Some of us stood outside too. We didn't do anything to handle the situation which we should have. 

Sir entered and by then already I had a sinking feeling in my stomach saying things were about to go south(which again no one did anything about it!). As predicted, since one of has not written the blog Sir would not proceed. What commenced was a verbal conflict between Sir and the "Discontented Ones".

The "Discontented Ones" were not happy. JJ sat in the middle fuming. Mainak by his side poking him to take the lead. Sreecheta on the other hand was showing various kind of displeasure in her dance drama expressions. While JJ started ranting about how he has been highly frustrated and he was almost verge on tears and how he wanted to probably commit suicide, all I did staring at him was to figure out how the JJ I knew had vanished completely. The JJ I knew was a very brave person not afraid to tread a difficult path and here he was sitting and throwing big words being the most coward person. Mainak was still stuck and kept on arguing that it was not possible to tread the path which was being suggested by Sir. Sreecheta being the ex journalist came forward with big fat terms like anarchy, free will and how this forum was just about throttling them down. Sir sat there with patience. Suddenly he said stop, and everyone fell quite. Sir said that for this to go on there needs to be a decorum that needs to be followed and whenever he said stop people had to stop. This continued for quite some time when The "Discontented Ones" would be stopped by Sir in middle of the sentence. This made them more angry.

And here we, "The (supposedly) Contented Ones", were having our own hang ups. Some were getting angry, one was getting frustrated, while I don't know for what joy I was going on a guilt trip thinking why was I not being able to make them understand the basic simple point.The whole situation became very heavy and negative by the time we broke for lunch.

I was very angry and frustrated to that extent that I actually locked myself up and started crying. At that time I thought I was angry on JJ and Sreecheta and probably that's why I cried. But later once Kirti got me out of the toilet and I had some fresh air the answer hit me. I was stunned. I thought I was tolerant. I thought I was big enough to extend my arms and take all of them in. But I realized I was nowhere near. I realized I had to be bigger. And I was angry because as all the other people who were not understanding to leave their egos behind even I was somehow stuck there. The realization taught me that no matter how much you think you know yourself there is still many layers to peal. There is still chances where you will be exposed and then comes the defense mechanism that hits. The ego stands and grips you and won't let you move until you stand up and push it out with all your might. And I kept repeating to myself that this was my test. I had to push real hard. If in my life my motto was really to touch people's life then I have to rise above my EGO! I have to stick it through. I knew in my heart of my heart that if I could stick it through then I would be a better person and much closer to what I want out of my life.

Anyways, second half started again with verbal conflicts, it just felt very desolate.

The ORGANISM at work
1/25, f 3.5, 35 mm, ISO 400

One of "Discontented Ones" just didn"t turn up. One by one people started going to call him. Sir remained calm. Said that either he would come or the class will go to him. But everyone had to be together. On the other hand Hari's situation kept going on and on. Would he leave or not. Did we want him to leave or not. Did he want to leave or not. But somehow Hari was stuck. After sending three people to fetch JJ, Sir suddenly told us to take our pin hole camera and head out. We went out and checked out our cameras. After a while Sir said that all of us would now go to call the person who have not yet come. So we picked up all of their cameras and was just about to go when we saw all 4 of them coming to class. Good God! Miracle! The "ORGANISM" got down to work.

So, we started experimenting with the pin hole cameras again this time inside class.

Hindol checking his pinhole camera.
1/50, f 4.5, 35 mm, ISO 400

We started checking with a camera with one pin hole. We had a bulb for a source and we figured that once we point it to the source we get an inverted image of the bulb filament.

The source used by us

f-stop- f/9, focal length- 79mm, shutter speed- 1/200sec, ISO- 100

Our camera with one pin hole

f-stop- f/2.8, focal length- 50, shutter speed- 1/50sec, ISO- 1600

Inverted image of the bulb filament

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 106mm, shutter speed- 1/20, ISO- 1000

A modern day camera actually sees the image inverted but there is a mirror to invert it and show it to us in the view finder so that we can see an upright image.

What happened now was some of us had a longer hood and some one had a shorter hood to their pin hole camera. We saw that the people who had a shorter hood that sometimes when we place our eye very close to the hood we see an out of focus image but as we move our eye a bit back, the image comes to focus.

This is implemented by the diopter setting in the modern day camera. In pin hole camera it is about the physical distance but with diopter setting that distance is created by a particular lens.

Now Sir told us to remove the hood of our pin hole camera. As we did that we felt that the image formed was getting diluted. We realized that this was because the hood was cutting the light coming from the outside (noise). So, once we remove the hood, the light from outside dilutes the image and thus it starts looking hazy.

The diluted image once the hood is taken off

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/80, ISO- 2000

This just shows why we need the eye piece of the view finder.

Some of us were really confused now why only the bulb was seen and why not the other things in front of the pin hole camera. 

The brightest object makes an image

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 57mm, shutter speed- 1/20 sec, ISO- 1000

Sir explained that the camera sees the brightest object compared to the objects in its vicinity. Now that I am writing it I realize I am not that clear regarding it.

Now we came to a point where we moved our pin hole cameras to right and left keeping the object in frame. Sir pointed out to us that the image moves in the opposite direction as the image is inverted, ie. if we move to right the image too exists from right. It is same for top and bottom too.

Now Sir insisted that we make another hole in our pin hole camera. Once we did that we got 2 inverted image in the pin hole camera.

Pin hole camera with 2 holes

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 41mm, shutter speed- 1/20sec, ISO- 400

2 inverted images

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 35mm, shutter speed- 1/13, ISO- 800

We learnt that 2 images are formed because light enters from each of the pin holes and form individual images.

Now, the question came how could we make the image brighter? So, we suggested we could make the hole bigger. So, we did that but we realized that the image becomes blurred.

Pin hole made bigger

f-stop- f/4.5, focal length- 18, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

Blurred Image

f-stop- f/4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60 , ISO- 6400

Now the question rose that why would it become blurred. To explain this Sir took another camera and made multiple holes in it. He made 1 hole separate and other 3 hole very close to each other.

Multiple pin holes with 1 hole separate and 3 holes close to each other

f-stop- 5.6, focal length-  79mm, shutter speed- 1/20sec, ISO- 500

Image formed by the multiple pin hole camera

f-stop- 5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed-1/6sec , ISO-3200

Here we see that 2 images are getting formed. 1 clear image is getting formed by the 1 separate pin hole while the 3 pin holes create 3 images but as the holes are very close together the images overlap and forms one image but it is distorted because of the overlapping.

So, from this explained that one big pin hole is nothing but many small pin hole bunched together. Now, each of these many pinholes makes an image each and these images overlaps and thus becomes blurry.

The question still remains how to make the image brighter without loosing the focus? But I have not been able to find the proper answer. The only probability it seems to me is to make the source intensity more. But I highly doubt that would be the right answer!

We tried with two pin hole cameras with different tube diameters.

Two cameras with different diameter

f-stop- 4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

Image formed with the smaller diameter camera

f-stop- f/4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

Image formed by the bigger camera

f-stop- 4.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/60sec, ISO- 1600

We had kept the source size same and also the distance of the camera from the source same. What we observed was that in the smaller diameter camera the image fills up the whole screen while in the bigger diameter camera it looked smaller. This was because here the screen was behaving like the sensor. As the sensor size increases it is possible to capture more in the image.

We now took 2 cameras of different length.

Two cameras of different length

f-stop- 5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/100, ISO- 1600

Image formed by the longer tube pin hole camera

f-stop- f/5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/100sec, ISO- 1600

Image formed by the shorter tube pin hole camera

f-stop- 5.6, focal length- 55mm, shutter speed- 1/100sec, ISO- 1600

In this we realized that as the length of the tube increases so does the image size. This was happening because in the longer tube the light was travelling for a longer time and was thus making a big angle on the screen. This is what would happen in tele lenses.

We learnt about diffraction. It is the process by which a beam of light is spread out as a result of passing through a narrow aperture or across an edge, typically accompanied by interference between the wave forms produced. 

Refraction is the bending of a wave when it enters a medium where its speed is different. The refraction of light when it passes from a fast medium to a slow medium bends the light ray toward the normal to the boundary between the two media. The amount of bending depends on the indices of refraction of the two media and is described quantitatively by Snell's Law.

Then Sir taught us how to take a macro picture using a magnifying glass in front of our camera. We realised that we could go closer to the object using the magnifying glass.

A pic with max wide and close focus of my camera

f-stop- 3.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/30, ISO- 3200

Same picture now using a magnifying glass behaving as macro lens

f-stop- 3.5, focal length- 18mm, shutter speed- 1/30, ISO- 3200

It was a great ending to a very very frustrating day! In the morning Pakajda had come with the register and had asked Sir to mark who were absent. Sir had sent him back, nodding to himself saying that he will mark everyone at the end of the day, then smiled to us and said that he knew everyone will be there by the end. During the day there were so many times that I wondered that this might not come true but somehow Sir knew it would. I was proud of all of us. In pursuit of happiness this was when I was happy. In fact we even proposed to push a holiday for the coming Sunday. Tanmay Sir seconded it too. Hindol took up the work of calling up Subhodro da to check if it was possible to take a holiday on Sunday.

But the moment didn't last long. As we came outside, Hari who had already informed us that he would be anyways going, now posed the question if we would allow him to be an observer in our set when he comes back. We were very happy in that moment and being benevolent we, unanimously said we would accept him back. But that was not such a right decision, as we realized soon enough as Hari didn't even stand there for a moment more. So, ORGANISM had already one organ less.  

The lesson I learnt from this day was that no matter how tolerant you think you are there would always be scope to become more tolerant. I learnt that when there is a fight somehow both the parties gets hurt. I learnt ego can be the biggest hindrance of ones life! I learnt the path chosen by us is not easy......but definitely something to be proud of!!

At the end of the day Tanmay Sir's "Organism" came out of the class with a smile. I hope this smile lasts!!

Magic follows you...if you let it!

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 2

After the first day's class on philosophy and insights about greater things in life, I personally thought we as a group had made some progress. But that was my biggest mistake, and I realised it just now that I have actually written it down. It's the word "personally" that made sure that there was no improvement at all. While Sir was trying to teach us how to be a single organism instead of being a team of ten individuals, we were still thinking individually that if each of us did what we were assigned to then that person would not be blamed if something went wrong. While the whole effort should have been to work as a team and and get the result what was needed.

Now that's a loaded, self imposed, introspective "gyan" which makes no sense if the context is not given in place. So, with all GROUND RULES set we had to reach class at a given point of time. We had devised wake up calls and everything to prove that we could work as a team. God knows to whom because Sir is here for only few days but eventually Sir will be gone....so no use trying to prove anything to him! It should have been more about Doing it rather than proving it!  Which was a complete pretense and it fell through at the slightest shake. One of us did not reach in time for class so as per rules the whole day's class would be dismissed and Sir very well intended to do exactly that and settled for minimum first half of the day being off. 

But what was the point? Few of us got irritated coz they felt we were wasting our time by not learning (day by day this learning theory is becoming as bad as the IT rat race that I tried to leave behind!) technical and more important things in life other than learning how to work as a community.

Few of us tried to grasp the situation. The one who was late took a dive for guilt and instantly said sorry and insisted that the others should not be punished for her fault. And Sir said, "But its not your fault it's their fault. Tum to apni aadat se majboor ho but what about them?" Seriously, did we really do much to ensure that the whole group reached on time? I gave a wake up call but was it the best that I could have done. Was whatever we did as a group including the person who was late, the best we collectively could have done? The answer was a resounding NO and I knew then that it was our fault.

Though the majority of the class remained skeptic to Sir's ideal and philosophy(whatever you choose to call it), I realised something much more vital. To make something happen you got to do something about it. I realised that this issue was not an issue of the moment. This issue have been lying dormant for ages and everybody knew it - us as well as the other faculties. But all of them played it the easier way. I made a wake up call...my work was done-easy way! "They" didn't come when needed....let's give up on them- easier way! All of us took the easier way. No body took a strong stand. But here was a man who not only questioned this issue but also thought of teaching us how to tackle it. And here we were being the intellectual film makers that we claim to be, and presenting him with 101 reasons why we were being skeptical about his process. Guys, atleast he came up with a process while none of us or the other faculties did!

His question was very simple, "Do you trust me?" 

What I believe is that at some point of time you just have to take a leap of faith. Time will prove it- true, but if we sit and wait saying that lets first see if it works, then definitely it won’t work coz we are not working for it. Just lets take the leap of faith, zyada se zyada bura kya hoga that it won't work……fine, anyways it's not working….. but think what if it does…magic! Though my answer was a clear Yes, I failed to hear another voice echo my thoughts. 

Sir said a very important thing, that we are at film school we would some how or the other get to know how to work with lenses and lights but the person he wanted us to be, if we could become once....we would be a much better human beings and thus a better film maker. 

After the whole lot of heavy discussion and Sir's futile attempt to make things a bit lighter afterwards, we suddenly were sitting in the lawn with chart paper, paper cutter, cello tape and the other assorted stuff of arts and craft class. Anyone passing by had a good laugh, validating the fact that the direction department had at last gone completely bonkers! We sat around making our life's first pin hole camera. And suddenly the ten people worked as a team unknowingly. I saw people having disagreements otherwise coming together. 

Once the pin hole camera was done our faces were something to see. We all were smiling.... all skepticism, dissatisfaction, blame games and the whole bag of big words gone.... this was Magic!

The class ended with a discussion about yesterday's question about eye being of variable focal length. The moment this controversial topic came there was again split opinion. Though we concluded that eyes do have variable focal length we got again tangled in the question that if it did have variable focal length then why can’t we zoom in as we do in a camera? 

The difference between a normal human eye and a zoom lens in a camera , in spite of the fact that they both have variable focal lengths, is the field of view. When we zoom in, the field of view becomes narrower which in turn crops out the periphery gradually to give a feel that we are reaching closer towards the subject. Whereas, for human eye the change of focal length can not change the field of view. For the same reason the focus ring and the zoom rings are completely different entitity on a camera zoom lens, as the mechanism of zoom has nothing to do with the focus. But from human eye, the “accommodation” mechanism is all about setting the focus than narrowing the field of view.

The other question that came up was that, if the accommodation technique is solely responsible for the focus of a subject then what happens after the replacement of lens in an eye surgery? 

During a surgery, we replace the human lens with IOL (Intraocular Lens). Generally they are  monofocal lenses and are matched with distant vision. No “accommodation” qualities are present in these lenses and neither the ciliary muscles can help them to perform the accommodation proccess which it did for human eye lens. Thus a pair of spectacles becomes must to attain near-vision regardless of the age. Though nowadays we can get an expensive IOL which does have multi focal length which can accommodate far and a bit of near vision, still the ciliary muscles remain non functional.

"Magic follows you... if you let it!"- this has been my favourite quote for a very very long time. Today perhaps I realised that it was not only true for magic it was true for anything we set our heart to. TRUST follows if you set out to trust. Happiness follows if we set out for it.

Hoping tomorrow would be a better day and probably again even if for a flashing second I would be able to see the magic of all of us again I take a leave from writing anymore!

Point Of View

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 1

Let's start with a philosophical statement then, keeping up with the image of a film maker. In our pursuit of life(as we choose it to be) we generally seem to forget the PURPOSE of life.

But today I met a person who "re - reminded" me of the simple purpose of life.

"Pursuit of happiness" - it's that simple.

Tanmay Agarwal, came to take a lensing lighting workshop for us. But strangely (and now I know- rightly too ) he started the class with philosophy. Here we were thinking we would gather "technical knowledge" about film making and we ended up learning something much more important than that.

The class started with switching off our mobile phones and stacking them up on a precarious position, so that a slightest vibration(if slyly someone had not really switched it off) would actually topple it. Now you would ask me how was that helpful! And you could also say that Tanmay Sir was being way too strict and in today's world when mobile was so mandatory it made no sense. But I beg to differ. Apart from the simple fact that without phones we concentrate more, there was another lesson to learn. I learnt to commit. If I actually forgot then everyone's mobile would actually fall and probably get damaged. I could not afford that, so I committed. Now this led to a different set of problems. And what is film making without problems!! 

So the next problem was to commit that all of us would actually regularly for the rest of the workshop days switch off our mobile and put it in that stack and Sir raised a question, "What if someone didn't?"

After a lot of brain storming (what else do u expect when 10 directors are in the same room) which practically led to nothing...suddenly we were outside our classroom looking for a stick each which would be our punishment lest we forgot to place our mobile in a stack. So, say in 5 minutes all of us had a stick in hand, and testing it too and kind of scared coz it would hurt if seriously we went for it. But obviously Sir knew this was not the right way(Thankfully!!! Otherwise it would have really hurt!!). So we settled for GROUND RULE 1: Who ever forgets to keep the mobile switch off and in the stack, doesn't attend the rest of the workshop. Now that is a big commitment!

Now, once we had set the first rule it was time for setting all the Ground Rules.

GROUND RULE 2: Everyone comes to class 15 mins early.

Now that was a biiiiig deal for a class that refused to appear not only in time but say 2 hour after the given time. But somehow everyone nodded in agreement. Tanmay Sir smiled as he was not over with the rule and raised the same question again. What if someone didn't? And this time he gave the answer himself. If someone didn't then no one gets the class. Awesome!! Now came all of our responses. "How can that be?", "Individuals have to take their own responsibility." and few of us stated how we won't take responsibility of others coz they don't just listen(and yes, I voiced the last statement). Sir replied with another question. "So, is film making an individual work or a team work?" And believe me, it hit so hard. I instantly turned towards my friend, Kirti and I saw it in her eyes too. How could we have forgotten this. It's the simplest thing on earth, even a child could have answered it. Film Making was always and forever will be a collaborative effort, the team mattered. And we are all our "brother's keeper"s. I don't know in pursuit of what, I chose to forget this vital truth of life.

Though GROUND RULE 3 was a continuation of the previous rule. Whenever one takes a break all takes a break (ie. the class comes to a halt) and it resumes when all are in. This might sound simple but its not so. When for a particular individual the whole system gets block we forget team work, what comes through is generally the frustration and anger. But I learnt to be tolerant, to treat each team member as a loved one. And that really worked wonders - made a whole lot of difference too, in the attitude of the other person.

From there we went into a discussion of "An apple for an apple OR an apple for a pear." Sometimes we see things as the way they are in reality but sometimes we want to portray something else through our images. We tried clicking the picture of the sticks(yes, the ones that we had gathered!). Some of us concentrated on showing the bunch of sticks as bunch of sticks. But some of us wanted to show it as an emotion like fear. I wanted to portray it as unity. But I don't think I succeeded much. It still looked like just a bunch of sticks. So, basically I was going wrong somewhere and what i wanted to show was not coming across.

We shifted our class from outdoor to indoor and we took up a similar task. We had to take the picture of "the stack of phones". And this was an apple-for-an-apple exercise. We all chose the position and an angle from where we wanted to shoot. Once we had taken the shot, We realised how many of our shots were very similar apart from few. We also saw how in some of our shots the phones looked like a stack of books or a multi storied building. We realised until we are able to show the basic characteristics of the phone from certain angles we wont be able to show it as a stack of phones. So the few shots that was taken from a height were the ones that was atleast showed the basic shape and form of the phone and thus it actually seemed like a stack of phones.

Second half started with a camera in our hand. Suddenly after almost one and a half year in the course we realised how less confident we were about the camera we claim to have been using for so long. I realised so much work we think we have done but actually its just an illusion and in reality we have learnt to less. 

Anyways, we went to take picture of the most clicked item of SRFTI, "The Bridge". We all were said to take pictures of any one of the Bridge. The basic point should be that it should be a picture of a bridge. We all went to find our sweet spot and get the best picture of the bridge ever. We returned after few minutes and started reviewing our pictures. Each of us had taken few clicks and then chosen the one we thought was best. But sir insisted on showing all the clicks. Invariably what happened was all the other apart from the one showing the picture thought that some other click was better than the one the person had chosen to display. Half way in the review session we realised that it was all about the point of view. What we wanted to show and how we chose to show it and was it even being seen!

I took the the above picture and thought it was nice. Picture of the bridge for me meant a bridge leading from some where and to somewhere. So, I wanted to show both the ends. I also liked the railing which was making a line and lead to the curve of the bridge. But then once it was reviewed my class mates gave me some other views regarding the photograph. They pointed out the foreground part of the railing being too prominent takes away all the attention and also creates a negative space on the left side which takes away the attention from the bridge. 

Of all the pictures we saw, the picture we liked the most was of one of our friend, Ashok and weirdly that was an out of focus shot. What we realised is that its about the fact if we are able to show what we mean to show. No matter how much we know the technicality its about choosing and portraying the right point of view. 

Another thing that was important that we all realised that everyone has their own point of view. We saw the same thing differently. We realised how the same thing changes meaning or even looked different just because of different angles, distance and the light.

By the end of the class we stumbled across something which was so basic and all of us realised that we were just not sure about it. How did the eye focus? Do we have variable focal length in our eyes? Suddenly we realised we were back to square one and I felt like kicking myself. I suddenly had no clue what I was upto for all this while if this simple question confused me so. But I came home and read up. So now I know our eyes focus by squeezing or stretching our lenses, which changes its focal length to fit the fixed size of our eyeballs. Now comes the question, What is the definition of Focal length? Well, focal length was the distance between the lens and the plane where the image was being made. Now in the eyes case that plane is fixed thus the focal length is being modified by changing the curvature of the lens. It is not really a zoom lens as a zoom lens is basically a set of multiple lenses but the eye does have a variable focal length.

It was a nice day of work. And a lot of realisations. A whole new Point of view I suppose.....