Picking up the sniper rifle

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 6

It was Day 6. The picture of the internet room that was not so promising. Again no one had finished the blog including me except JJ. We were all rushing to finish and post it. But the in thing was everyone was helping everyone out.

Sir came in some time and visited the CRT first, while we kept working on blog in the internet room. Sir came to the room in some time. He said the he would review the blogs that we were writing. He started with Ashok and said that in spite of the fact that his English wasn’t up to the mark, he somehow chose his words very carefully but in his own way got the same point across which we generally did in either big words or more words. His USP was his simplicity.

This basically was the leading act towards the original one. JJ had to be intervened. Sir Started reading JJ’s blog line by line and kept pointing out the biggest flaw. His use of big words that dampened the effect of what his content was. Just day before yester day Kirti and me had a chat about it that JJ has yet to figure out that he is still stuck in a way where he is using big words thus somehow seeking attention again. Sir told him the same. And said that he didn’t think before speaking. . So Sir said that whenever JJ is about to speak, we should stop him, tell him to think, formulate the sentence in as smaller and simpler as possible.

After this, we continued to class room to watch JJ's video footage that he has edited. Mainak on the other hand had not got it yet and was again sent to his tower. We started reviewing the edited footage. It was very haphazard. We learned a few things from the review:

1. Before shooting we should exactly know what I am looking for then only we would know where and how to look. He said that we generally think it works like a machine gun, just because we have lots of bullets, We think it would be much more effective and we go full blown filmy style shooting any where and any direction we like. But in reality a sniper rifle was much more effective if we knew what our target was. 

2. Characters introduction should be accurate and once introduced it should be explored.

3. Cheap edit trick and gimmicks won't win us any brownie points.

4. Each shot should have a beginning, middle and end and you have to patiently wait for it to unfold.

5. When we try to tell a story we should explore one idea at a time. Each idea would in turn have a beginning, middle and end. We should let one idea pan out and then delve into the other.

But great effort JJ because when we were dead tired to even move, he not only finished his set of work but also went the extra mile to finish an edited video. You can check it out in: https://feelsnicetoberude.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/day-6-terse-also-means-brief-jubaraj-j-barua/

Half way through the discussion Mainak returned claiming he had an inkling about the task he was presented with but somehow he was just saying it for saying sake. He was sent back to his task but this time with a hint that the task was an alibi, what he was told actually was to think; to ponder upon himself.

We went out to collect some footage. I did collect and I promise to edit a sequence to put up. What I understood while shooting was that there was a culmination point for the event to unfold.

After the lunch we picked up the P2 cams and went out to shoot, so that we could familiarize ourselves with the camera and all its faculties. By this time the Shooting schedule also came up. After a small chai break we sat down to watch a movie, “Mr.Hulot’s holiday” – a film by Jacques Tati.

Sir had asked us to ponder upon why h was telling us to watch the film. I believe that the take away from the film was:

1.     How actions are used to build up a narrative and along with the character graph.

2.     How each event is dealt within the format of beginning, middle and end.

I really enjoyed the film and by the end of it Sir was also there. Sir spoke to us again re iterating the same thing, reminding us again to let go of our egos.

My take for the day was to know before you do anything. To think before you talk. To visualize before you shoot. To use the sniper rifle in place of machine guns.

Today we move into the studio. Hoping the journey would be continuing to be as meaningful as it have been so far!