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!