In search of the sweet spot

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 9

It was Himel's shoot. Sir had informed us earlier that he would not be there till the second half. Hindol was to guide Himel, as Sir had guided him for his shoot. Kirti was the camera person. Kirti and Himel had sat together with their shots earlier. Sir had instructed us to use natural sources of light for the shoot. That meant if the room had a tube light fixed at a particular spot then the light source would be that it self. So, the first thing that we did was to get a tube light fixed in the set room he would shoot in. But the first shot was out side the house. Before taking the shot I asked Himel what light he wanted in this situation. to which he replied that he wanted a street light kind of feel. But we had no clue how to set it up. So we went for the floor lights.

Sir had instructed in the first day of shoot itself that the director had to choose a lens and the whole sequence would be shot with the same lens. But Himel was not sure about his lens preference. He was not clear what would be the angle of view, even Kirti was not very clear. So we all told Himel to see a particular shot in all three types of lenses. Keeping the magnification constant Kirti and Himel saw the different lens and Himel chose a wide lens of 7mm on P2 which was more or less like 24 mm otherwise.

Himel's sequence had a girl called Soumita (the female lead) who is beaten by her husband coming to her neighbor's, Sounak's house to take refuge. Himel's actors was Sumana and JJ. After hearing the story Sumana wanted to back out as she felt that she won't be able to act it out. So Himel changed her and the actress became me. So the first shot was of Soumita walking hurriedly towards Sounak's door and knocking on it urgently. Soumita had to have blood coming out of her nose,so we made blood with honey and sindoor. So, now I had to walk from a distance a bit scared. It was decided to take a long shot of this. But what I kept feeling was what was important in this shot was the fear of the Soumita and in the long shot this was not coming out properly. Maybe a handheld moving back would have been a better option. It would give a jerky nervousness to the shot and also allow the expression to be seen. But today was Himel's and Kirti's day and I totally gave into their choices.

The second shot was inside the living room. So the full set up went inside. Now came the time to shoot only in the tube light that we have arranged. The furnitures have been arranged before hand.

The second shot was of Saunak opening the door and Soumita coming in, in a rush and then requesting him to close the door and he closes it. This shot was taken as a two shot kind of manner. like in the previous one, I still kept feeling that Soumita's expression was being missed because of the angle being used. Hindol was trying his best to make Himel be calm and take decision but Himel was very confused and added to that Kirti was confused too.

We reached the third shot after lunch. By now we were clear that the shoot was going very slow and we needed Sir's intervention desperately. This shot was that Soumita sits on the sofa thirstily drinking water, while Saunak comes and hands her a tissue, she takes the tissue and wipes the blood off her nose and slowly looks towards the window on the opposite side of the room. So, when I sat on the sofa, the tube light was behind me and was casting shadow on my face. Kirti wanted to change that immediately. So the sofa was moved to a different spot. Himel kept saying that Saunak here was not that important. The most important thing was again Soumita's fear. Now because Himel had not written the script lines precisely Kirti was in a lot of confusion. She didn't know to keep Saunak's in frame or not, or only his hand would do. As I sat in the sofa, I realised Sir was in floor and was watching us from the first floor. I was relieved a bit. Kirti started taking takes after takes but none was satisfactory. At some point of time Sir intervened. We were missing something very vital. What's the use of so many retakes? If we can successfully get what is in that single line of the script then our job is done. "Apple for apple" is done. So, what will taking another take do extra. But instead we keep fidgeting with our camera- panning, tilting, moving. Which results in waste of time more so often than not. All this confusion basically arises because we have not found the sweet spot in the first place to start with. 

Sweet Spot- the spot from where we can get what is written in the single line of the script. 

So, when should we take re- take?

Once the shot is taken we need to check if atleast the single script line is coming through or not. If it's coming then the shot is good enough. Now we check if there is any extra information that is there in the shot which was not in the script line. If it's there then we need to decide if that is making any difference to the script line. If not then don't go for a re take. Only when the sentence itself is not coming through or the extra information is radically damaging the script sentence then only a retake is necessary. Sometimes it's better to just let it be and move on.

Sir pointed out very precisely why we were stuck for so long on the same shot. Because neither Kirti nor Himel was sure of what they were doing. Himel own his part had not written the script properly and in the process not gained Kirti's trust. Thus, when Kirti got confused she didn't approach Himel. But Himel could see that we were stuck, he being the director should have intervened then.

We resumed with our fourth shot. Now in this shot I had to get up from the sofa walked to the window stand there and then Saunak would ask me a question to which I react. Firstly, this was way to much information. Second, I just couldn't carry it off and so I resorted to melodrama. Sir intervened. Sir rightly told me to do just the actions, probably mechanically. Which also brings us to the fact that actions should be arranged properly to portray the emotions rather than giving the actors the complete responsibility to portray though their acting (which can be ruined by someone like me with overdose of melodrama !! )

The day went super slow and thus people got disengaged. Probably the one of the most important work of a director was to keep the crew engaged. Sumana and Ashok didn't have a lot to do and it was evindent that they were bored. But these vibes gets the whole crew down.

It was a not so fruitful day! I don't know why at the end of it I was not happy. I realized that Sir was teaching us a lot of things but somehow left alone we just couldn't handle ourselves. But we are all trying and hopefully we will get it very soon.

N.B - This blog came a day late and I am very very sorry for that!!