What's the point?

Lonely and hurt,

Broken I remain

Residing in hell,

living in pain...

Masked by lies,

I slowly fade away...

The nightmare I live with,

each and every day

The meaning of it all,

to which my mind attends,

Has not one answer

that I fully comprehend...

The bottom of my mind

holds the answers which I call,

I keep reaching towards it

in this never-ending fall...

"Stay strong and keep going,

it's never too late"...

No one seems to realize

that it's not worth the wait

There's no such thing

as help outside of your mind,

It's you against yourself,

with your demons intertwined

It's a battle, hard fought,

but never to be won...

Either way you end up losing

when it's all said and done

"Too late" came and passed...

and, of me, nothing more

I wrote my own ending,

and I shut my own door...

"Live your life to its fullest"

that's what they all said,

But what's the point in trying

when you're already dead?

Marriage Hassles!!

Today three of my friends are getting married. Am I happy for them? Hell yeah! I am so damn happy! But the moment someone hears it, the next statement that stumbles out of their mouth is, "Now get yourself a husband too..." OMG! No!

I am happy for all the people getting married but that doesn't mean that I want to right now. More over, married to whom? There should be a person that I want to get married to, right! But no, the Indian society supposedly doesn't work that way. "You are of age"- they say. What age? People start their career at 40. What age!

An Indian household goes through a complete change once the daughter of the household steps on to her twenties. Suddenly the "oh so independent" parents, who have till then supported and rooted for their daughter's equality and position in life, suddenly turns and starts stressing more on how it is important to have some one else to take care. Why do we need someone else to take care, we are capable. You have brought us up to be independent then why can't we take care of ourselves if we want to?

And God forbid if by chance you have stepped to the dangerous age of above 26! To top that up you say that you are busy with or perhaps still settling your career! O my poor friend you have invited trouble. Suddenly the same parents and well wishers who were praising you for being so keen on having a career suddenly shift stands and says ". But career isn't everything!" But what I fail to understand is that who is saying career is everything here? I am not. But it is important to me and I want it to be important too. And another question, is marriage then everything? What's the harm in being single till you find the right person!

Right person- now this is a term which has become a joke for me since my mother had started looking for grooms for me from the different matrimonial sites! Everybody claims that He is the right person. The write ups are hilarious! First of all bongs who are not fluent in English trying to write about themselves in English make hell of a laughing stock. 

This profile belongs to a guy who has a Phd degree and then says the last line.
"THOSE WHO ARE SERIOUS GIVE ME A TOUCH........."

It becomes hilarious to even go through the profiles. But one thing that hit me very hard during the initial days of this ridiculous thing was the fact that how still society looks at women.

I being a modern girl and being brought up in an urban setup thought the society have changed a bit at least but I was proven completely wrong once I started going through the profiles and the column where they write what they desire in a bride. Somehow the words that kept recurring were "Homely, conventional, beautiful, fair." Is that all society looks for in a woman. If I seriously posses these few traits would I be a perfect human being? It was very demoralizing to think, where I was working my ass to get a proper place in this society, this society thought and expected so less from me!

More irritating perhaps are the friends who completely go through a marriage mental shift. The moment they land up married suddenly they gain all knowledge of the world and starts pestering you to get married too. Why?! It was only few months back that even they were complaining about their parents pestering them to get married!

I am on the verge of thirty and I have nothing against getting married. I want to get married. To a person I am in love with. With whom I feel I want to spend my life with. Not with some random guy that I don't know. And if this society doesn't accept me this way....well they can go F@*k themselves!

It's not over...it never will be

Lensing and Lighting workshop WITHOUT Tanmay Agarwal

When this sem started we were given a schedule. It was a difficult schedule. Back to back workshops were lined up. We were excited. In the big list somewhere in the middle was the "Lensing and Lighting Workshop". We presumed we were going to learn about lights and lenses. Then came Tanmay Sir and we got wrapped up in a magic created by him. We learned not only lensing and lighting we learned to be a film maker. He took us to a level where films were not merely a camera pointed at subjects and text book correct set of rules to follow; it became the magical experience it is supposed to be. He pushed us and pushed us so hard.....we stumbled but he would pick us up again and still make us go some more. He trusted us.

Sir doesn't like when we go on and on about how we like the workshop or subjectively describe it. He wants actualities. But today, I would go a little beyond that. 

Last three days were the shoot for Hari, Sreecheta and Mainak. I just want to repeat what ever was said in the begining when they walked out of the workshop. "They just didn't get IT". We seven have gone through a curve and the changes were right in the face....we have practically changed our life style up and down. Right now I am sitting in my room alone and instead of doing facebook or chatting with random people, I am actually writing the blog, not because it is a homework or not because Sir had asked me to. I am writing this blog because it gives me a sense of happiness...perhaps a sense of being me.

They way they shot was so different from what we have imbibed in us through this workshop that it as a huge jerk(rightly put by Sumana). They still thought it was about getting their work complete. They still didn't give space to actors to get themselves in a zone. Still there is no trust or sync among the crew. And lighting and lensing......well.......I can't really comment on that.

It started with Ground Rules but Sir always wanted to set us free, free from our own demons. It has been a hell of a journey. A journey so great that it does not seem like just 2 weeks. Today Sir leaves but does the journey continue? YES. It's bigger than the resounding yes that I voiced when I said that I trusted him and I am so happy that this time I know that there will be six more voices echoing it.

It would be a great challenge to exercise all that we have learned and retain the things but what the hell, I am sure we can do it!

There was a big fuss about the fact that Sir had asked us to salute him. It was compared to anarchy, fascism and what not. But today I salute Sir from the depth of my heart. For making Himel find friends. For Sumana and Ashok grow. For making JJ patient. For making Hindol believe. For making Kirti open up. For making me close to myself.

Thank you Tanmay Sir!

Final Curtain Call

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 15

It was Kirti's shoot. I was doing the camera. So, the night before the shoot we sat together to discuss the script. But where was the script! Kirti had a script which now she found cliched. So we sat there brain storming and coming up with numerous ideas. But the moment we sat down for the action or shots all seemed like TV serials. After a point I realised this whole attempt to come up with something new at the last moment was futile, so I advised her to work on the ready script. So, it was already 2:30 pm when I left Kirti in her room to ponder about the script she kind of not liked any more.

Morning got some senses. I got up to find Kirti's message telling me to meet to discuss the shots. We met. As we went through the story we fell into a sync. Sir states it right when he says that mutual trust can overcome a lot of things. We went to the floor and started working. 

I am not one of the best ones to do camera but somehow, Kirti knew I would do my best to get what she wanted and somehow I too knew that I would actually push my boundaries to deliver her vision. Not only both of us, everyone else too were in sync. There was a certain degree of peace on set. We didn't have to talk much. Hindol was helping me with lights, and say something I didn't like in frame, I just had turn and look and somehow magically he would understand. Kirti just had to say, "But Soumee..." and I would understand her point. In bengali there is a saying which goes like, "Bissas e miloe bostu torke bahu dur"- meaning if you trust completely you will find a lot of positive things but if you keep doubting and bickering you will reach no where. TRUST is not just a five letter word I believe. I think it's the one word that can transform you and the people around you.

We chose our lens and started taking our shots. We were shooting on 18mm on P2. We had to re create the morning light, but we did not have access to the schemers. So Hindol tried bouncing the light (1k) from the walls and also used thermocol to bounce the light. I wanted a patch of light coming from the window and for that Hindol arranged for a 1k outside the window and used gateway paper and barn door to get what was necessary. We also used the china bulb for fill. JJ did a commendable job with the boom. It was a complete well oiled machinery.

Sumana and Ashok were acting. Kirti did a very good job of handling the actors. She not only guided them to their zones but also took care of them. Himel was second in command, even he took real good care of our needs like water, coffee and smokes. We broke for a quick lunch.

Only one major shot was left and it was a track shot. We took some time to get the tracks set. I was sure about what Kirti and I wanted out of the shot and why we were going for the shot but I was not so clear about the movement. We were going for trolley as we wanted us to move from Sumana's space to Ashok's space along with Sumana. But magic was not happening. I was in a bit of a fix. Sir intervened and said that why don't I try a reverse trolley. I was a bit apprehensive that it might create a jerk but once I tried it out I realized that this movement was better in leaps and bound from the movemnet we had been breaking our heads upon.

It was a difficult shot, there was trolley movement, character movement, pan tilt and then reverse movement too. A lot of co-ordination between me, the key grip(Himel) and actors. But Himel did a very nice job.

The shoot got over before time. We packed up. The last shoot was over. From the next day Hari, Sreecheta and Mainak would be shooting. We were skeptical about our involvements.We were kind of sad too that the workshop was ending. We did not disperse. We sat in CRT to watch Tanmay Sir's film "Chal Chaliye..."

Chal Chaliye had everything that Sir speaks about. Organic nature of acting till the use of close ups. The beautiful use of spaces. What I liked most was how he dealt with 3 timelines and mixed them.

We went to Sir's room. Subhodro Da was also there and he rightly pointed that our hands were missing a can of beer. JJ and Ashok readily agreed to fetch them. This was a kind of wrap up party. But somehow none of us wanted it wrapped up.

Subhodro Da spoke a lot. He spoke of Unseen Images. He said that the films are made by the unseen images. But we as film makers tends to concentrate only on the seen images, but more of our concentration should go to the unseen images as that is what the audiences would construct in their head to build up the story. Subhodro Da had spoken about this earlier too during our exercises but never have I understood it so well. He had said that start late finish early. Same thing - creating the Unseen Images.  

He also spoke how recent generation of student have a lack of original ideas. He pointed out that perhaps because we know our technique a bit, we know that no matter how cliched the subject we would be able to pull it through thus the hunger for something original and innovative has decreased. To this Tanmay Sir added that we all should do an exercise. We should take our scripts, and strike out each line which is a cliche. If we do that we would understand where we stand.

Subhodro Da delved into another level when he said that we cannot do away with cliches. But we have to find an unique way to show it. It's the mix of these two which would create magic.

Personal take away:

After a very long time in my life, today at floor I really felt I belonged somewhere. That I was a part of a team where if anything happens to anyone people would genuinely care and not fake it. And what irony, a by teaching us how to be a professional Tanmay Sir had some how taught us how to get personal peace.

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.

Let there be lights..

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 13

The started with my remaining shots. We have decided that I would shoot in the first half and JJ would start his shoot in the second half. 

We have become a it lethargic. And our blogs take the toll. Everybody was writing the blog and not responding. Sumana was finishing her blog, so JJ opted for being the camera person for the mean time. But electricity was not there.

We started the day off with a grammar lesson - Verbs. Sir pointed out that there are Active verbs and Passive verbs.
[For more details check: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/activepassive.html]
He asked us to underline all the verbs in the script once we did that Sir said we generally write in Active verb but sometimes we falter and write in Passive. That should stop, there cannot be a passive sentence for an action line. "The kettle was put on the stove." Arre by whom? Or did the kettle magically appear on the stove! "The tea vendor put the kettle on the stove" - that's the way to go. Subhodro Da who was standing by, added that we can write what ever but directing has to be in Active verb as we have tell the actor playing tea vendor to do it.

The remaining shots for me were all interior. The first shot was of Kirti moving the files and sitting on the sofa and giving a look at Hindol. JJ framed and took the shot and I loved the moment captured but it was a rough take as the lights were not up. Sumana came in the middle and took over the camera. I told her the shot, but she just didn't give me what I wanted. I showed her JJ's shot too but every time she gave me something else. Anyways that shot was done in some time. But I was getting impatient.

We moved to the next shot. This was a dressed up shot. I had designed it in a way where the bottle would be in the fore ground and the first chunk of dialogue would happen on the bottle, then there would be a tilt and focus shift to get her face and second chunk would be on her face. This was definitely a dressed up apple. Sir asked me what the shot was about and I told him. He asked me to get the actor in the zone. So I asked Kirti to do the action for me once. She got into the zone and did the action. O my God! What fool am I! the whole action was so potent in itself, and here I was, dressing the shot up for what joy only God knew. So before Sumana set the camera, I actually went to her and said, "Kuch bhi lele, bottle shift focus kuch nahi chahiye, mujhe sirf moment dede."[Just take the shot, I don't need any bottle or shift focus, just capture the moment.]

Sumana set the camera at a low angle, below Kirti's eye level and also at an angle where it was not anyone's POV. After seeing the frame, I took Sumana aside and tried telling her that I didn't like the frame as it gave a distortion to the character. Obviously, I had no clue what I was talking about except for the fact that I didn't like the frame. Sir intervened. Sir let Sumana take the shot, while he asked me if I had a sweet spot of my own from where I wanted to take it. He also clarified that, I had said too many words to Sumana and that just showed my impatience and also portrayed disrespect for for my camera person. He said, to speak in Active verb. "Tell her what to do to make it better or don't speak at all." Then he told me to find my sweet spot for this shot, which I did. By then Sumana had made the frame from her sweet spot. Sir asked me if I wanted to stop her, I didn't. I decided to let her finish and then we can try the other one. 

But Kirti took the cake away. She was completely in the zone and what ever she did it just looked beautiful. Once Sumana had taken the shot, as Kirti had acted so well, though I wasn't satisfied with the angle, when Sir asked me if I wanted to take from my spot I said no. But then Sir started explaining. 

When characters are interacting there is an energy transfer happening. So when one characters is talking to the other a cone of energy is being emitted towards the other character. To get the emotion or the energy we need to be in that cone. This cone is created between generally between the eye levels of the two characters and it starts from the character speaking and diverges as it reaches the other character. Next choice is whom to be close to - or whose POV are you talking about. So, who ever's POV you choose, you need to be closer to that person.

We took the shot and moved to the last shot of my shoot. We wrapped it up quickly. I felt happy. I hugged Sumana and told her it was a good shoot. Sumana replied that she was happy that I was so happy. Isn't it all about that. The point where we had started this journey from. In pursuit of happiness.

A quick lunch and we were back on floor for JJ's shoot. We gathered props and set things up. But this time the rules were changed. We would be using dramatic lighting scheme. That is we would be concentrating on lighting up the characters and object and not the background. We would be using the artificial lights. So, we went ahead to get familiarized with them. We got introduced to a Solar(2K), Panja (5K), Baby (1K) and Dinky (300 watt). These were all fresnel light.  There was knob which could make the light hard and soft, this happened by moving the bulb back and front. The other type of lights were the Multi 10, Multi 20. These were not fresnel. We went ahead to mounting and setiing up these lights. We tried our hand with barn doors, cutter stand and wires. We learnt about fall off. Fall off is a factor which determines how much the subject os getting light and how it varies as the subject is moved horizontally as well as back and front. We figured the max light is recieved by the subject when the subject is bang in the centre of the light beams. As the subject moves right or left slowly the light decreases. Similarly, the light is greatest when the subject is bang in front of the light and decreases as he moves away. 

We decided to go with an aperture of f11, so that we could achieve greater depth of field. We would introduce more lights to compensate. JJ had not thought of such dramatic lighting scheme. We started arranging for a shot but it was too late. So we packed up for the day.

Today JJ shoots. With many many lights.

Me in frame

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 12

Today was my shoot. We were a bit late to start with. Sumana and Ashok were doing camera and sound respectively. 

Generally when I go for my shoot I am calm, and I tend to trust my camera man a lot. I have always believed in working in a team and trusting it completely. I have always told my fellow mates that I would rather go for a person I trust as a crew member than going for a person just because he is the best. So I was pretty much happy with my conduct with the crew. Though I know I must have goffed up here and there but that's fine, I am still learning after all!

I had made up my mind to shoot with lamps today. I chose 18mm on P2 as my lens. The first thing I did once I fixed the lens was to measure my angle of view. With that set we went forward. Hindol, Kirti and Himel were acting for me. We started with the exterior shots.

Sir generally let's the Director of the day to start the shoot and get his conduct right, only when he sees that it is going towards messy waters that he intervenes. So, Sir came in at a situation where there was a bit of a confusion about a shot where I wanted to establish that the door of the house and the teashop were bang opposite to each other. This shot was a safe shot that I had planned on the go. I for one was not really sure of the shot thus all I could visualize is a long shot. Sumana started working on the shot and it became more complicated. Now we had a situation where a whole shop needed to be propped up for this shot to be taken, which ensured that a lot of time being wasted. I should have taken a call but I was not sure myself so I was trying to get a hang of it. Tanmay Sir came to rescue with his exact questions. This is one thing about Sir that he generally doesn't provide you with answers at first go- he provides the perfect questions and lets you come up with the answer. He asked me simply why I wanted the shot. Once I explained the reason. He asked me about the shots I had taken before. After patiently listening to my shot he looked at me in that one eyebrow raised way that he does and said, "Then why are you taking this shot. Tune fir itna mehnat kyun lagaya pichle shots mein? What more would you establish from this shot?" And the beautiful part of any confusion is always that you actually know the answer its just that validation that you need. Sir went on to explain that if you show everything as an apple for an apple then nothing is left to imagination- the space is fully defined. JJ enquired about which was better. Sir smiled and said, "You decide!" In spite of Mithoo da and the others working so hard to set the extra shot up, I gave up on the shot as it was JUST not needed! And I am terribly sorry for their hard work going to waste.

Moral: 

• Do not take a shot if you are not sure.
• Do not take a shot when that shot doesn't add to any information in the narrative.
• It is always better to leave somethings for the audiences' imagination.
• Take control of the situation when things start getting confusing. Ask your self why it is confusing. More times than not, you would discover you are not sure what you want of the shot.

Now, the last point of the above set of thoughts brings me to an important thing that I am not addressing for a very long time: Positive approach to a Problem.

First identify your problem. Once the problem has been identified, think of the positive actions that can be taken to solve that issue. You can either break down the task to be taken to solve the problem and delegate among the others or if it requires your own intervention, you go about it.

Sir keeps re iterating this point so like in my childhood days I choose to write it down to make this real, so that I can follow this approach.

Once the exterior shots were done, we moved to the interiors. The first shot was of scattered files where Hindol's hand would come and search for a file, find it and leave. I had designed a series of these kinds of shot to prove my point that this man did not care about the call he was getting, instead he chose to be busy with his work. Sir presented his barrage of questions.

What is this series of shot about?

To prove my point that this man did not care about the call he was getting, instead he chose to be busy with his work.

So, what is it actually about?

Him being busy.

So, you want to say that he is busy?

No, I wanted to show that he didn't care about the call.

So, what are you wanting to show?

His aloofness.

So does this series show aloofness? Yeah probably it does, but how much screen time would it take?

A LOT!

Now Sir started demonstrating the same point across but in a much precise manner. He designed a shot where the phone is in frame and as the phone rings we go for a small track out to get Hindol's face in frame, where he gives a wayward look at the phone and then puts on the earphone. Tough we did not take the shot then but the moment Sir said it I could visualize and in Himel's words, "The juice was there".

Moral:

• Be sure of what the shot is really about.
• Be precise about the information you want to give.

We broke for lunch. Some food and some smoke down our throat, we were back on floor. We decided to take an easier shot first and then go for the  track shot.

This shot was of Hindol typing in his laptop while listening to music, while he notices Kirti knocking on the window in front of him and thus he looks up. We had taken Kirti's knocking on the window shot separately so this was fully about Hindol's action. I personally wanted a close up but Sumana couldn't get a proper angle - so, both of us settled for a ticght mid close shot where a part of the laptop is seen and the table lamp is seen. Once the shot was taken, Sir asked again the same question, what was the most important thing in the shot. It was obviously Hindol but we all realized since the table lamp was the most brightest part of the frame, that over powers Hindol's action completely.

Here, Sir demonstrated the different things that grabs our eyes in the frame. He asked us to close our eyes and open when he asked us to. At first go we opened our eyes to an image with a single bright source of light, and after a glimpse we close our eyes again. We all had noticed only the bright source. Second time around the image had a bright spot but then the eye is drawn towards the lines which were the sharpest part of the image. Third time, our eyes went for the movement in the frame. These just proved that our eyes perceive information in a certain manner and unless we can place information properly in our frames we would not be able to express the correct message.

In this shot there were two sources of light. One was the table lamp and the other was the laptop. While the table lamp was tungsten, the laptop gave a blue light. To top it, the blue light was very faint. So, we decided to use a Dinky(300 watt fresnel light- tungsten) to simulate the laptop light. We used a blue gel but still it was  not blue enough. We threw in more nets and blue cellophane, even we tried using a thermocol with a blue cellophane but it just didn't work. The light was still more. We could go for a white balnce to tungsten approach, where the tungsten table lamp would seem white but the blue would look more blue. And then we could go for a 85 gel on the table lamp to make it yellow but that would take a lot of time, finally we reached a point when we decided to use a florescent rather than a tungsten light. So a Kino was got in position and we used a thermocol and a blue cellophane to diffuse the light. This gave us perfect simulation. Sir told us to try and simulate the lamp light by using the Dinky. But no matter what was done I was not getting satisfied because the light became more and more forced. So I came to a point where I stepped in to say I liked the lamp light much better. This just proved a simple point It was always better to use practical lights. With film cameras a lot of light was required to get proper exposer but with today's digital cameras which were highly sensitive even to low light conditions, it was better to use natural sources of light rather than trying to simulate it.

Now, as Sumana worte in her blog, that there can be 2 types of direction that you can give your actor.

• Active actions- Where you give concrete actions to your actors which are doable, visible and simple.
• Passive actions- Where you will tell your actors about the emotions you want to convey through his actions. Here you don't really give exact actions to the actors. The actor himself has to interpret and do the actions.

Sometimes, a passive action does not come out the way you want. Thus its easier to give active actions. The same thing happened with Hindol in this shot. He knew the whole pretext but the emotion, that he could have got the phone call but he chose to listen to music other wise was not coming through. Sir instructed Hindol to actually sing a song in his head and then type. He did and suddenly the typing became less important and the listening to song became more important and the emotion came through.

Once we got the emotion right. Now came the question that if he was so engrossed in the song how would he notice that someone is there at the window, and say if he does notice how do we make the audience notice it as well. Thus it was decided to use the Dinky with a 85 gel to simulate a street light and Kirti would stand at the window to cast a shadow on Hindol's face which would be captured by the camera. 

Personal realization:

During this above shot, at some point while checking the frame I found it too tight so I kept on insisting to go a bit loose. Sir turned and said, "You are scared of going close to people!" For few seconds I didn't know how to react cause Sir had just said a truth that I just couldn't deny. This made me wonder how much of ourselves we put to display when we make a film. We think we are telling others' stories but actually each of our frames are about us being in frame- a part of us for everyone to see.

We went for the track shot at the end. Sumana was having problems getting a proper frame, so Sir stepped in. He chucked out all unnecessary details from the frame and went for a beautiful shot. Though we had a late pack up around 6 and the floor dadas and the light dadas were annoyed, we had a great day! I was happy! 

Extra things we learnt:

• Dinky - 300 watt fresnel unidirectional tungsten light.
• Baby - 1000 watt fresnel unidirectional tungsten light.
• Kino - Kino Flo is best known for its fluorescent tube arrangements that are used for the color of film and digital video. These lights provide a relatively compact and efficient way of providing soft lighting. Compared to the original workhorse of motion picture lighting, incandescent lights (and, more recently, HMI lights), Kino Flo tubes produce less heat and fit into smaller spaces, two significant advantages that have made them popular with professionals. [Information Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kino_Flo]
• Fresnel Light - A focusable spotlight used in film, television, and theater lighting, which can be adjusted via a knob on the back of the light from "spot" for a narrowly focused beam, to "flood" for a wider beam.  This type of focusable lighting instrument is called a Fresnel because it features a Fresnel Lens, a glass lens with concentric ripples that is visible on the front of the light, casting soft, even illumination across the light's beam.
  The Fresnel Lens is named for its inventor, the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), who designed the Fresnel Lens to efficiently project beams of light from lighthouses.  [Information courtesy: http://www.3drender.com/glossary/fresnellight.htm , ]
• Examples of films that use natural lights: Barry Lyndon, Jesus Christ Superstar, Amadeus etc

Later, once the shoot was done Kirti, Sumana and I were sitting down for a chat with Sir when Sumana popped a question which was there in all our heads.

Is there any exercise or process that we can follow to practice finding actions to replace the emotions in our scripts?
Try thinking in terms of metaphors. Not literal ones but visual ones. An apple for pear. 

It doesn't come easy but I am definitely going to try it!!

It was a good day and thanks to my whole crew for making it possible!! Cheers to us!! Tomorrow we shoot some remaining portions, and I am sure it's gonna be fun!