Miles to go...

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 10

Yesterday night I felt sick, so couldn't write the previous blog, couldn't wake up early too. I was just not feeling well. Anyways, it was Sumana's shoot and one member less in a small crew as ours would be disastrous, thus I picked myself and reached the floor.

Production meetings have not yet happened for any of the shoot yet and that is a problem. I had already spoken to Sumana and the requisition list for propping up was huge. She had decided to shoot in 3 spaces. One was the living room, a tea stall and another space too which would be a bedroom. I was not sure why was she asking me to prop up so extensively but JJ and I anyways started running about propping up the spaces. JJ went to get things from Bimal da's shop for our tea shop while I rumpled around to get all the props and costume. But with the help of Mithoo da, Bikash da and Dilip da we got all the spaces dressed in remarkably short span of time.

JJ and Kirti were the actors. Sumana's story was of two strangers meeting and getting closer. Hindol was doing camera today. He wanted to use proper lights. So we replaced the tube light by kino and placed a tungsten to get the feel of a street light. The first thing that caught my eyes was the fact that Sumana had not written her dialogues and thus a lot of improvisation was happening on the go which was taking a lot of time. More over Sumana was constantly standing with Hindol checking the frame. She had chosen normal lens which was 12mm in P2. The first shot was done before Sir came in. Sumana was resorting to coverage style shot taking overlapping the same action in 2 shots. Just before taking the 2nd shot, she felt that Kirti needed a bindi. Inspite of me telling her that it would be difficult to find she wanted me to check in the costume department. I returned without a bindi and opted for a sindoor bindi. This was a long wait. Sir intervened. 

Everyday Sir was re iterating certain basic rules to which we always nodded but almost never followed. 

• The first and foremost being that the director has to distance himself from the whole activity on floor, so that he/she can concentrate on directing and delegating the jobs. 

• How to understand the normal focal length of a camera?
• If we put one eye to the view finder and open one eye we will see two images getting formed. If we keep adjusting the focal length, at some point we will get one image. The focal length at which we get this is normal lens of that particular camera. When the image in the view finder is a bit wider and the objects look a bit smaller, it is wide. When the objects look bigger and the frame becomes tighter, it is tele.

• Once you have set your lens, if you stand where the camera is placed and stretch out your hand fully in front of you and measure the two extreme edges of the frame, this is your angle of view. Now with this measurement if you can stand anywhere and see the angle of view from that spot(ie, the position of the camera would be the place where you are standing).

• Once you have found the angle of view, we need to choose the sweet spot, before taking the shot.

• Do not go for coverage. It does not allow you to find the sweet spot.

• KISS (Keep it simple silly!) Don't waste time over extra things. If the script line is coming through it's always enough.

• Best friend of the director on the floor is the cinematographer and there should be complete trust between them.  The director should be able to explain what the shot is. Once it is done the cinematographer should be allowed to take the shot. Once this is done still if the emotion or magic is not coming through then the director should intervene. 

• Melodrama makes no sense. Give your actors proper actions to portray the emotion.

• An hierarchy should always be maintained. Director is the commander. S/He should trust people on his/her crew, but the ultimate decision would be his/hers.

• People should be engaged during the shoot. Delegating work to everyone is also a process of engaging them.

• Not everyone needs to know everything, thus the director should talk to personnel personally regarding their duties. If someone has a suggestion they should go up to the director and have a talk.

Sir looked at our light arrangement and asked why we needed it. He explained that earlier we needed heavy lights as the sensors were not good enough so to expose we needed them. But now the sensors are strong enough. So we switched off the kino and the tungsten. Instead of the tungsten we put 2 tungsten bulbs. Again KISS! Lights are for seeing. If we can see it should be enough.

We went into the next shot. This was of Kirti opening a lock and then deciding to lock it again and leaving. The light source was a over head bulb, thus when she looked down her whole face became dark. Hindol tried taking a mid shot of this. First the cam was on the lock- she opens the lock, pause she puts the lock back- Hindol tilts up to get her face. Sir intervened. Sumana had given a complicated direction to Kirti, to show hesitation, thinking, confusion- and Kirti being Kirti, just like me had gone into melodrama zone. Sir spoke about the Bressonian Process of shot taking. He said that the action was important.

• He asked us to move the camera close. 
• The camera was placed 2 inch lower than her eyes as she was looking down.
• The lock was important as that was the action. Kirti's face was important as that was the reaction. Thus, take the 2 shots separately.
• When close up of the lock, Kirti was given direction while the shot was on. Sir said this could be done in a way so that the actor's concentration doesn't break and you get what you want.
• "Surgical lighting"- As Kirti's face was in shadows, Sir took 2 pieces of the reflector and reflected some light on her temple and on her chin. The point is to see, where light is needed we can feel it in using reflectors.

After the lunch we got back and shooting resumed. The bonding between Sumana and Hindol had improved. Sumana was trying her level best to keep away from the camera but the amount of shots left bogged her down. She was loosing her calm and all the things that Sir keeps mentioning about the "conduct of the director " kind of went for a toss. But the brighter side was we were able to take a lot of shots- finish the whole sequence that was planned.

It was a good day! Though we didn't do everything the way it should be done but we somehow managed through. We are all trying....and I am sure we will get it.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep."

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!!

The Show Went On

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 8

The fight and decision had lasted till almost 4 am today. I was mentally, physically and emotionally tired. It was beyond imagination that a man teaching sense and people getting it could create such a magnitude of problem. Suddenly the direction department was in lime light. Everybody wanted to know what was happening. Suddenly the people who never took stand and never felt the need to take any steps to solve our problems ever were standing....but against our growth. Suddenly the picture was becoming clearer as in who to believe and who to be awry about.

Hindol had to shoot but all we were doing was going to one place to the other repeatedly doing meetings. Why? Because in a group of 10 people 2 people thought that they were not comfortable. They couldn't cope and they created havoc and dragged us in a soup. How can 2 people do that to other 8 people? And moreover they were lying, shouting, throwing tantrums, crying and bitching around. Could this win the day? The general answer would be "No". But the way things were going, it seemed like they were. Our mind was so jammed up that we were becoming clueless.

Another meeting. All the parties present. We again tried to get our point across. But Mainak and Sreecheta kept on ranting. The meeting was going no where moving in circles. We were loosing patience. And then it happened. We all stood up and said we had had enough. If 2 persons can create such fiasco, it was better to give up. We walked out deciding that the workshop will be cancelled. This was humiliating for us, for Tanmay Sir (who was doing this for what....I am sure the money was not enough to drag one self through the turmoil he was going through. He was going through this because he wanted good for us ) and equally humiliating for Subhodro Da being the co- ordinator of the workshop.

We were fuming when we came out and went to the studio floor and picked up our equipments and headed out to return- the workshop was over! We had just stepped out of the floor, and Tanmay Sir was standing there. He grouped all of us and said, "Kahan ja rahe ho? Kaam nahi karna?" He led us back in. He said lets start working and we did. We were highly confused now as to what was happening. He sat us down and asked us, if we wanted to do the work or not. We said we wanted to. Then what was our obstacle? The whole fiasco. Then get rid of it. But they keep creating conditions and counter conditions. What's more important fighting with them and winning or the work. That simple. I went back to the Dean's office and informed whatever they were saying we agreed. We just wanted our work to go on.

We just had 2 to max 3 hours to shoot and because of the chaos we haven't been able to prep too. But honestly, as a group I think all of us would agree this was the smoothest shoot we have done ourselves. 

Hindol was told to trust his cinematographer. He was told to be articulate and clear about what he wants. He was told to be calm. He didn't check a single frame. But the outcome was awesome. During a shot we realized that we could cheat positions and make the character stand according to various ruloes of photography but that might just disturb the organic quality of the story. Instead of that we find our sweet spot. Jubraj was doing the camera. He had already taken the shot maintaining the rules, now he set out to find his sweet spot and he did. And the change was awesome. Another thing I learnt was to "identify the magic". There would always be a magic point. We just have to capture that. Our whole purpose should be aligned to that magic. 

Lensing and lighting workshop it was. We all thought we would learn about lights and lens. This workshop is about lights- TRUE- but within oneself!

Musing of a tired soul

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 7

If I say things went south, or I state we had a bad day, it would be an understatement. What we went through was a day of frustration, humiliation and mental harassment. Yes exactly the three points stated and re stated by my colleagues, Mainak and Sreecheta. So, now what do we do? Which faculty do I run to? Where should I appeal for my human rights or what so ever crap I need to appeal to, to get a resprise from this?

Now the question that arise is why and who made me feel this way? Blame game starts. My fellow batch mates, Mainak and Sreecheta. They repeatedly said we are being idiots following this workshop. Now I have a question. Lets talk in the language that people here understand. I too have a mental faculty of my own. I too have a free will. I too have my own pursuits in my life. My pursuit is of my happiness. Whatever path I choose is my choice. It's my wish and my right to choose whatever path I want to achieve this. So who are they to tell me if I am being stupid or not.

Why should I compromise? I can't be forced to take a stand where I have problem standing and facing myself in the mirror. Call me selfish I don't care, but my conscious is very important to me.

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!

Step by step

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 5

What happens when you have a backlog? Ask anyone of of 12th batch Direction Department!

Finishing 3rd and 4rth Days blog, almost all of us stayed up almost the whole night and the limit was stretched by Hindol and me, we spent the whole night in the internet room of the direction department trying to finish our work. But the beauty was, everyone did it willfully. Nobody complained. We all understood that we had to do it and why we had to do it. 

An interesting thing happened though, late at night when almost all of us sat in the internet room, Sreecheta's blog arrived. This was unexpected because few hours back also we have spoken to her about her situation and she had not only failed to have understood the situation but have completely been blinded by her self. The blog that came dripped with apparent self realization and she projected the image of a prodigal son. But the reality lied somewhere in between the lines. each of her apparent smooth word was loaded with malice. She had understood nothing. Now why I had to tell this back story was because she sauntered in to the class thinking we must be going gaga after reading her false self realization thing. It was awkward and we didn't know what to say.

We all finished our blogs (Though some of us, including me, posted the blog right at the end but believe me we were all trying our best to be as fast as possible!). Sir was not there at the given time, but now all of us knew what was this about. We went about doing our own work. Some of us were editing our blogs, some were going through the terms we were supposed to know about while some of us were finishing reading others blog. It was a well oiled mechanism now and each part did their own work while all of us exactly knew what was happening. 

Subhodro da came in the middle and popped his head in the internet room and and with raised eyebrows(like he does!) looked at me and inquired if Tanmay Sir was late. I had a half smile on my lips (Having fun with the chosen word late and its connection with The Organism.). I told Subhodro da, "No he is not late, this is also a test. He wants to see if we know what to do with our time." Subhodro da chuckled and commented, "It seems he is gonna get even that done what your father and mother couldn't do for you!" Probably it was true!

Sir came and went to the group sitting in CRT first. He saw Sreecheta, accompanied her outside the department to have a chat. Then he came to the lot of us who were re working on the blogs in the internet room. He stated that he wanted to review what we were writing on our blog. He started with Mainak's blog. He went line by line explaining to Mainak how his condescension was showing through. How through the whole blog he was doing nothing but ranting and stroking his own ego.

This led to a class gathering where is was decided that Mainak and Sreecheta had to do a task each as they were not understanding the essence of what we were doing. Mainak was still stuck with his ego while Sreecheta had no clue at all as she has not even ventured to step out of her comfort zone facing her own faults and taking responsibility for them - ego was a very far word for her case, first she needed to understand her self.

Mainak's task was to go to one of our lake islands and build a tower with stones(28 as he is 28 yrs old), which would be taller that him. Sreecheta's work was just to observe him doing that. The only common rule for both of them was that they couldn't speak to anyone or make eye contact. After they had taken our leave to do their respective task, we thought how vain can one be. Mainak was an intelligent guy, I failed to understand that how he could not understand that Sir was telling him to build a representation of his own ego which would be taller than himself. This was just process to make him feel humble. And in spite of him understanding that he was still so stuck that he actually went ahead with the job. Sreecheta on the second day from when the discontent had started from her part had a problem- one of her questions was not being answered. The question was "Why couldn't the human eye zoom in even though it has a variable focal length?" Sir remodeled the question for her and said that after this task she would find her answer to the question only sir stated the question as "why we can't look in closely, even though we have all the faculty to do that" that was the twist in attitude that we were looking for in her.

Anyways, back in class we delved upon how to capture the image now that we were till now seeing though our pin hole cameras. We needed a sensor. So we converted our DLSR cameras into a pin hole camera. We opened the lens and placed a black paper with a pin hole in its place. The camera stated behaving like a pin hole camera. We had control over the shutter speed and ISO.

My first click
1/50, ISO 400, f00

 I started experimenting by varying the Shatter speed and ISO

1/80,ISO 6400, f00

1/40, ISO 3200,f00

1/10, ISO 800, f00

1/3,ISO 200,f00

Then I set out to take my self portrait.

ISO 6400, 1/50, f00

Fun with my pin hole DSLR camera

1/30,ISO 6400,f00

ISO 6400, 1/30

ISO 6400, 1/50, f00

1/40, ISO 6400, f00

1/40, ISO 6400,f00

After lunch Mainak was back. Sreecheta was no where to be seen. Then we sat in the lawn to make an apparatus with which we could get a fully focused image. With black paper, gate way paper and a magnifying glass we achieved that.  Since this aparatus didn't have a name we derived it from Tanmay and Bazooka. We had our first |'Tanmooka'.

We then into class and started doing our experiments with it.

EXP 1:

If the source is further the focal length is lesser than if the source is nearer to us

Tube to be a further object
Shutter speed- 1/20 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800,  image- focus at infinity.

We see that Hindol's hand holding the magnifying glass is at a certain distance

Bulb to be a nearer object
Shutter speed- 1/30 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800,  image- focus at nearer object.

Now if you check his hands where he is holding the magnifying glass. 

You will notice that it has now moved further away from his body.

EXP 2:

If a stop is created in the same Tanmooka, how would it vary the foreground and background.

This experiment was misunderstoody by us and with different tube sizes we used different magnification to check for the foreground backgrould relationship. We will be repeating this experiment on Day 6.

Shutter speed- 1/50 F stop- 7.1, ISO- 800,  magnification – 95 mm.

Shutter speed- 1/6 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800, magnification: 65 mm

EXP 3:

What happens if you move the tanmooka closer to the subject and try to keep the subject in focus – The foreground changes rapidly and the background gradually – this is basically what happens in a dolly zoom.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image- long distance.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image of long distance.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image of middle disatnce.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image of middle disatnce.

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image at the closest distance..

Shutter speed- 1/10 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 1600,  image at the closest distance.

We had worked our ass off. We were dead tired but we were Happy!

Baby Step...

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 4

The day started with a question that Tanmay Sir asked, "Are you late?"

For the past couple of minutes all of us except Sreecheta (her's is a complete different chapter we will delve into later), were loitering around thinking we were waiting for Sir to turn up. We all gave slanted look towards the watch to find it is 10:10 am. We were not in class so technically we were late. So we all nodded. But the googly was yet to come. Sir's next question,"Am I late?" With a very confused stance we all kind of replied with an yes. And then came the next question, "Bosses are never late! So, who do you think is the boss here?" Except for me and Hindol probably everyone else got where this was heading but we stood at "All of us". It took time to realize that we all wanted to bosses but for the time being Sir was the boss- this led to a discussion about if we were seriously our bosses we would have known what to do with ourselves for the time when Sir was not there...but none of us had any clue. I realized what fools we all are, we try to claim that we want to be film makers- the head of the crew, knowing exactly what everybody is supposed to be doing at any given point of time and here we were standing like dodos not even knowing how to handle ourselves for hardly few minutes. 

Sir kept on saying we were late and then it seeped into all of our brains what he was talking about. We were physically in time but were we actually ready. We had it in our mind that we needed to be in time so by hook or by crook we made it on time- without brushing, without breakfast, without bathing etc. Was that being ready? Half of our attention was on food that we didn't eat or probably sleep that was incomplete. Half of us were still posting their blogs at the last moment. We were just being in time because we had to be. This was not a part of us and it would die the moment Sir left. So weren't we late? Yes, we were being very late. But, I just hope we were not too late to mould ourselves to what Sir was trying to teach us!

Once we established that who was the boss, Sir asked me to Salute my Boss and I did. Now he wanted all of us to salute him at once. We started our efforts to to sync our movements for the salute. Even in this simple things where all of us were out of sync, we were not stopping to point out and say that others were not in sync, in the process trying to hide our own fault. Sir compared Film Making to military regime and asked us to choose a leader and Hindol was chosen by us. Now started our training. Suddenly in front of the department door we were lined up in two lines and Hindol stood at front giving us commands of attention, at ease and hoping this would lead to a synced salute at some point. It was so difficult to fall into any physical routine. Everybody thought he/she was doing a perfect job when in actuality the group was performing as a team very badly. Hindol with his misplaced sense humility could not move ahead and passed the baton to Ashok. Though its started off in a better not, it unraveled again. Mainak was the next to play leader and did it for a long time but still did not reach the salute. Neither we were capable to lead neither to follow.

At this special juncture, "The Sreecheta Case" happened. We had to now collectively decide what was to be done with Sreecheta as she had chosen to be somewhere else in spite of knowing that there was class today. Not only that she had written a pompous mail stating how we were at fault as we didn't inform her of class early, she got it all wrong. The bigger purpose for what ever was going was eluding her completely. On a collective census it was decided that she was at fault and she should not be attending rest of the days of the workshop. Though the measure was taken to make her realize but we knew at that point that this will create a hell lot of hullabaloo.

I had always stated to myself that taking a stand was important. There can not exist a person who is neutral. But probably I realized yesterday to come up with the right stand is equally difficult. While everyone chose that Sreecheta should be out of the team, JJ and Ashok thought she should be given another chance. Sir asked a very important question to them. He asked that if that was their stand would they also be thrown out of the group along with her because of this stand. Immediately their answer changed. We as human beings are very self righteous. It's a process of stroking our own egos. telling to one self that we are above than the others. It is also a fear that we should not held responsible for someones misfortune. But when push comes to shove self righteousness doesn't hold good, and u run tither hither to save your ass. JJ and Ashok's case was a classic example of that. They immediately changed their stand.

We had just got that over with and Sir had just started explaining how our blog had dropped its standard. How we were avoiding discussing our problems. How we were not even up to the mark with the technical part of it too, when Sreecheta appeared. I was send to tell her of our decision. I was scared not of Sreecheta but of the situation this would lead to, but anyways I went forward. I told Sreecheta as a group this decision was taken. Even before I had a chance to explain anything more, she just left. I returned empty handed. I was sure Sir had sent me so that probably i could make her understand but that didn't happen.

Back among the group, Sir showed us a video he had made about us. It started with the footage of our first day's Stick finding, then went in to the part where we were using our pin hole cameras outside and the last parts had a voice over to it. It was Himel's voice. Himel had somehow confided in Sir what he felt. He spoke of his friendless situation and his craving to make more friends. And it struck me how all of us were in the same situation. Maybe some of us had few people the spoke with, maybe some other had few more people and then there was Himel who said who didn't have any friend- but the crisis remained same. This institute is actually too big a place for us. We all have our idiosyncrasies and quirks. Some of them we r comfortable to showing others but for some of the other ones, we are not even comfortable to admit to ourselves, thus in the process we have all made ourselves into an island each. And to justify we have erected so many walls of reasons. Until and unless we were to break it like Himel did, probably we wouldn't move an inch.

Sir stated clearly if we do not finish our blogs we don't proceed. So we started with our blogs. Hindol and me were sharing a smoke when JJ came over and asked us if we thought if What was decided about Sreecheta was justified. We tried to explain to him that it was because she needs to understand certain things and if she did it would be her success. So by stating whatever we did to her case we were actually rooting for her to rise above the situation. JJ was confused and said for him this work shop was very important and we stopped him there and simultaneously said that it was not about the workshop. it was about life. And suddenly JJ understood. He turned as if in slow motion talking to himself that it was about life and he hadn't realised it yet. JJ was a transformed man!

For the first time in SRFTI 12th batch history, the whole direction batch went to have lunch together. As we crossed the bridge in front of the guest house, I instinctively knew that Sir would be definitely looking at us from his room balcony and like in movies right in time he came and stood in the balcony. It was a nice sight, the commander looked on as his soldier marched together for the first time.

We came back and started finishing taking pictures for the previous days blog. We needed to brush up the previous day's blog. Sir came by and we started to go through the different terms that we encountered while using our cameras.

Metadata is the information of every image that we take - it consists of the aperture, f stop, histogram etc, there is a little button to guide us there.

Modes on a camera are the different modes in which we can shoot – it is like how we want our camera to work – do we want to shoot it in aperture priority mode? or automatic mode? or manual mode? 

Shutter speed is the time for which the shutter is open – and is represented in fractions of seconds or in seconds. This is a factor in controlling the light of the image. By controlling shutter speed we can also do motion blur and motion freeze photography.

F stop is the ratio of the focal length to the diameter of the entrance iris. Exposure is measured in terms of f stops. 

Aperture is the opening through which light travels, greater the aperture the lesser the depth of field. This we already realized in the pin hole experiment when we increased the diameter of the hole. 

In traditional (film) photography ISO (or ASA) was the indication of how sensitive a film was to light. It was measured in numbers (you’ve probably seen them on films – 100, 200, 400, 800 etc). The lower the number the lower the sensitivity of the film and the finer the grain in the shots you’re taking.
In Digital Photography ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography – the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain.
Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds.

Exposure meter is the scale that tells us the exposure. It is a linear scale which has a pointer and it can move left and right showing if the picture was getting under exposed or over exposed depending on the various setting of shutter speed, f- stop and ISO.

Picture style are some pre set styles that can give the picture certain look, like monotone, duetone etc.

White balance is how the camera treats white. Now white is a color that is usually not confused. We need to pre decide how we want the camera to identify which is white. We did a small experiment on this – We tested shooting a tungsten source of light with tungsten white balance and then with fluorescent white balance. The result was – the one we did with fluorescent white balance was much better. 

Taken with white balance as florescent

In this video what happens is that, the light from the from the tube light is taken as white. So, we can still see the tungsten light as yellow and thus the skin colour also remain the actual skin colour.

Taken as white balance as tungsten

But in this video what happens is that the camera takes the tungsten light as white.

This is till where I have been able to explore. Maybe as I explore the other terms which still remains I would be able to understand them as well.

This was followed by our truthful and whole hearted attempt to started our journey of getting ourselves exposed. We made up our mind to hide nothing to go for the whole log! 

I know there would be many more hurdles along the way and this was just a Baby step but still I am very very proud of us for getting this far. Kudos ORGANISM........ one baby step at a time and we would reach a long way!

NB: The biggest congratulations of all to Himel, not only for buying the brand new camera for making so many friends!