Energy Game

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 14

It was JJ's shoot. JJ was a hyper active person who gets angry faster, annoyed faster just like a kid. For him the main lesson of the day would be Patience which would lead to directing from distance. JJ picked up the camera and tripod from my room right in time. Everyone else was not responding to my constant plea of getting the equipment. Anyways,when the equipment were collected and I did reach the set JJ was missing. JJ had gone to Sir's room to discuss. We set up the first shot as we knew it from the previous day. Then we started fooling round a bit with the camera.

JJ came a bit later and he seemed calm (which was very strange when it came to JJ!).He had decided to go for a long take approach as he was using f11. He wanted to play with the deep depth of field. JJ's stories are always approached in a bit offbeat way. This story had it too. Tanmay Sir and Kirti were acting. The lighting was done completely by artificial light. 

JJ started the first shot with Kirti in foreground and pulling away a suitcase, while in the background we see Tanmay Sir packing his suitcase. The main essence of this shot was the distance between them.

Tanmay Sir believes in creating moments. So during acting he created moments. He tried showing us by varying the movements how the energy keeps moving from one place to another. I realized that the play of energy is the thing that keeps us glued to the screen. The going apart and coming together of energy is what composition, lighting, cinematography is all about. We took few takes of this shot with variable actions and went and screened it in big screen. Weirdly, the shots many of us liked was not liked by JJ.


In one of the takes, Tanmay Sir and Kirti were apart to start from, then suddenly they came together just by crossing each other and again went their own way. A beautiful moment was created which probably could not have been scripted(specially not by novices like us!). Adding to this Subhodro Da says a beautiful thing. He says that if you want to capture a shot of 10 secs then direct the actors for a action of 40 secs starting a bit earlier than the moment and ending a bit later than the moment. Somewhere in the middle you will get the moment you want.

After a hurried lunch, we were back at the floor. JJ, Ashok and Hindol were setting up the shot. JJ had gone into a block over the condom packet sequence. He didn't know the actions, so Kirti and I improvised and found the action. As the proper actions were not written, the first take went completely out of the script. JJ quickly stepped in to say that the actors should stick to the script. Now came the problem that the condom packet was not seen properly in a long shot. He was adamant about establishing the condom packet, so Kirti was instructed to put the packet in certain position and in a certain movement so that audience could identify it as a condom packet. This made kirti's actions and movements highly unnatural. This is where Sir stepped in and pointed him out to take the inserts. So we quickly finished this shot and went for the inserts of her putting the condom pack in the suitcase and her reaction and dialogue.

Now came the last shot which Kirti had been dreading since morning. This was a intimate shot. Where Kirti sits away from Tanamay Sir. There is a power off and the room becomes dark. Kirti comes and sits beside Tanmay Sir and tries to get intimate but at this moment a car's head light cross their faces and Tanmay Sir points out the the cab of Kirti is there. It was a difficult lighting but Hindol was doing a great job.

Tanmay Sir lodged the first question.
So what do you think the girl is thinking about?
She is sad that whatever they had will be no more. She is thinking that how the relationship could have ended. She wants to probably give it another try.
So, what relationship? How is it different from any other relationship?
And then the point hit us, physical intimacy. Why do we all cringe from it? Are we afraid of it? Cant we approach this emotion when it was such a vital emotion in all of us. Like JJ puts it, why are our stories all asexual.

Sir asked us to remember the most beautiful moment of our relationships. He said to portray what the girl was thinking we should show what she was thinking. Kirti went into a nostalgic mood and became emotional. It was a vulnerable position for her. But once this shot was taken, it was wonderful and so real. There was no forceful cliched actions like "about to kiss"... the magic just happened.

Now we were set for the fantasy shot which would be placed where Kirti is thinking. Obviously she longs for physical intimacy. How to show that without diving into cliches. Sir made Kirti sit on a table. Then went and stood in front of her. Then he asked her to put her legs around him. The moment was made. There was no doubt they were intimate and since it was transformed from an emotional thing to being a mere physical action of putting your leg around it was easy for Kirti to do as well.

Moral: We should know what we are asking from our actors or in that case from any of the crew member. We as a director should know how to get that without making it too complicated or stressful for them. 

We got back to CRT to view our footage. The moments were captured beautifully. The session continued with a song that Sir played. "Love will turn you around".

All of us were in peace. For few minutes the silence ensued and it was blissful. We all knew there were other people but we knew they were our people. TRUST. That was the first question that was asked by Sir when he came the second day. We had achieved trust...not only in all of us but on ourselves.

The Energy Game:

Each shot is about energy games. How the energy comes together and again part.
Each scene is an energy game. How you place one shot after the other and build the energy upto a crescendo. It is a mix of magic and your craft.
Each crew operating is an energy game. How you keep all the energies together and not let them fade or dissipate. It is a mix of authority and humbleness.
Each day of our lives is an energy game. How we channelize the positive and discard the negative is what we need to learn.

 Personal take away:

Generally when I like any character of any story, I place some or the other characteristic of that character with some character of my "The Ex". I find him in those characters. It bugs me sometime as keep feeling why the hell do I do that, why do I keep remembering him. The same thing happened today. But when Sir asked me to find the most beautiful moment, I did. And that was kind of a revelation coz I suddenly realized its not a bad thing. I remember and that is why today I could get my moment. It's all good. And because I was at peace with this matter it did not bother me as it bothered Kirti. I mentally gave a pat on my shoulder for being raw and at the same time knowing one self. 

"How do you know when to stay or to go
And how do you know when it's real
You don't need a sign to make up your mind
You got your heart at the wheel
You wanna start sharin', carin'
Carin' again"

Back in class as I closed my eyes in the darkness and listened to the song, I cried but not in loneliness but in hope. We were all sitting. Few days back it didn't matter what happened to to others. We kept fighting our own demons but never shared. But suddenly in the dark, I remembered Sumana was scared of darkness and I wanted to know if she was fine. I cared for her. I thought I had lost it.... to still let people in. I was more attuned to myself.