Blueprint...

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 11

Today I was much more in control of the situation. I woke at the right time. Finished my blog and was at CRT for the meeting at 9 am sharp but no one else was there. JJ came along and was equally shocked to see that no one was there. We started calling people. JJ had met up with Sir and he had given proper instruction that the blog needed to be finished right away. Then we would head for the floor. Himel, Sumana and Hindol were yet to submit their blog. So I sent them sit and write the blog. Today was Ashok's shoot and Himel was doing the camera. He was outside the department, so I asked about his shots and story. He scared me a lot when he said that his full story was a single shot. I tried to make him understand that he should break the shots. Long takes will not only dynamize less but also give a proscenium approach. But Ashok did not understand what I was trying to say. 

Meanwhile, I got the floor open. Mithoo Da and I started to prop up the Kitchen. JJ and Kirti were acting.  While they rehearsed their lines outside, I rushed to finish propping. We started shooting by 11 am. We had put practical lights wherever necessary. Ashok's story was about a gambler who beats his wife and takes all her money. So Kirti needed some make up to show that she was beaten up. We used lipstick to make a bruise under and around her eyes. 

Kirti's make up

f 4.5, 1/60, ISO 6400, focal length- 30mm

The first few shots were taken but all the shots were very stagy.  But one commendable factor was that Ashok was conducting himself properly. He maintained his calm and distance. But he too resorted to coverage style. 

We were taking a shot of the glass in which rum would be poured. Now that was the biggest mistake. The sub text of the shot we were missing completely. JJ's character was angry and the shot needed to portray that. Sir came to the floor in between the shot. He sat there watching us work. He then pointed out that Sumana who was doing sound, was holding the boom very far from the action. Sir explained that the boom mic should be kept as near as possible and the mic should ideally face downward as then the boom would also get the sound that would be reflected from the ground. Sumana tried doing that but in that the boom shadow was coming in frame. Once Sir checked the frame Sir pointed out that there was a lot of things that were unnecessary in the frame. KISS! Sir pointed re arranged the composition of the shot to chuck out all the extra things. Once that was done the boom could be held much closer.

Moral: Do not hesitate to move the frame. It is easier to move the frame than to move everything else or to keep everything else in a limbo. 

Moreover Sir asked JJ to pour some rum in the glass take a pause pour some again, this time a lot more and then pick up the glass. And voila! The subtext was clear. The shot transformed from being the shot of a glass getting filled with rum to a man's anger.

Moral: Use actions to depict emotions.

After this shot we broke for lunch. Kirti and I were walking together towards the mess when I asked Sir that how to decide if to take the action and reaction together or to take it separately and edit it together? Sir said that it was depending on the passage of time it would take to travel from action to reaction and if something important or interesting would be in frame during the travel. Moreover it was also dependent on the script line. I realized immediately that this confusion arises when we are not that clear about our script lines.

This generally happens that we want to portray something but we get stuck. This happens generally because we see the magnanimity problem. But Sir states it right when he says that we should not see the problem as that. Instead we should think of positive actions that can get the problem solved. If there is a will there has to be a way.

We resumed shooting after lunch. We started with THE SHOT of Ashok's sequence. It was again a long take with a chunk of dialogue highly charged with emotions. JJ and Kirti had mugged up the lines. The first take went very nice acting wise but technically Ashok was not happy with the shot. So now started the barrage of retakes. With each retake acting deteriorated and the actors started getting mixed up with their lines. Sir was listening to us from outside the shooting area and stepped in at this point.

He sat both the actors down and told them to write out their dialogues. This would help them to memorize. Then he told them to say the dialogues mechanically for few times. Then they took the shot again and it went fine. When we reviewed the shot the shot was obviously very proscenium like with characters doing a kind of choreography. On the other hand Sir hand taken a shot with his camera from where he was sitting. Here he had captured certain moments before JJ went into the kitchen with his dialogues. Even the dialogue itself was very interestingly shot as it had a different feel to it- almost voyeuristic in nature.

Hindol after seeing the shot commented that the moments captured by Sir of JJ was very original but how do we write it down when writing a script. Sir explained that it was probably not possible. That is why what we write on script is a blueprint. We should know what we want from that shot but we should also be open to different moments as and when they happen.

Sir showed us some footage that he had taken of the workers working in the campus and he portrayed how it was possible to draw attention to what was wanting to be said.