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!
Ah! Copy Paste!!! Or in visual jargon we should call it "reflection" ?! ;-)
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