It had to begin somewhere! So it all started a month back, when Amit & I, two techies, colleagues & friends for a few years now, decided over a casual cup of coffee, to create a short film as an entry for the Anurag Kashyap short film competition on Tumbhi. We started thinking of stories, and in couple of days we came up with one which we felt had some substance. Then followed discussions, debates, tying loose threads and strengthening the plot. Amit spent the next weekend penning down what became the script for the movie. In the meantime, we discovered that the deadline for Anurag Kashyap competition was already over. But we thought, we were truly making the movie for ourselves more than him, so lets go ahead with the project! We now had a story, but we needed a good camera and a person to operate it. One of Amit's friends, Musheer, who is a budding fashion photographer, and met both requirements, was roped in as our camera operator. A Canon DSLR 7D became our primary camera equipment. We decided to call our team White Shadows Productions or simply White Shadows.
Our journey had only just begun. The next challenge was to find actors for our movie. We decided to go with amateur actors from within our company. At the back of our minds, we also thought that if the film gets completed by 24th Sept, we would be able to showcase it in our upcoming company annual day. Vijay Kumar, who we knew was also an amateur theatre actor, was chosen for the role of the main protagonist. The next to join were Suprita and Priyanka who also took on the roles for the newsreader and another lady character in the movie. And we were set!
The mahurat shot for the movie was Vijay climbing up on to the parapet of a tall building and jumping (which was also our climax scene). A few days were spent just trying to figure out how we could give the impression of height and get a good shot. We gathered for a shoot at 4.30 AM on a weekday on my terrace as we wanted it to be a dusk setting. Took about one hour to get the lights set up. Our lighting kit was essentially two lamps of 300W and one of 500W along with an emergency lamp, all of which I was incidentally hoarding at home for many years! A couple of hours and a few shots later, we began to appreciate the intricacies of getting a shot right. The location, light (natural & artificial), sound, camera, actor, direction, all have to blend in perfectly to form one successful shot. We also began to see the technical limitations we had, and as directors we realized that this might even mean altering our script from what we had originally planned it to be. Being typical IT consultants, we started thinking of workarounds to move the project forward.
The next few days wre spent wondering how to shoot the scene better and we decided to shoot it again at dusk in a few days. In the meantime, we decided to go ahead with shooting the newsreader scene that Suprita was to do. We got together in the office on a weekend. The board room became the backdrop for a newsroom. One and a half hours later, we were still setting up the lights and deciding how to take the shot. Six hours later after multiple re-takes, and some hilarious ones, we packed up with a successful shot under our belt.
The next major set of scenes were with Priyanka, which included one with her picking up the note from the road at night, where we faced a different kind of a challenge. Since it was an evening scene we had to shoot it at dusk. But where were we to find power for our lights in the middle of the road? Again, with an innovative brain stroke, we decided to use our car headlights as the lighting for the scene! That, followed by a few interior shots, we were done with most scenes we needed to shoot for Priyanka.
Is this way, we finished shooting whatever scenes we could whenever we could get everyone needed together. Most decisions were runtime (thought of on the fly) as we had a 24 Sept deadline to meet (remember our annual day?). Musheer, being the key person shooting the film was always co-operative enough to come over at odd hours and on short notice. By the 23rd Sept, we had finished a large portion of the movie but it was still not complete. It was then I decided that we should at least screen a trailer for the movie at our event even if we're not able to show the complete movie. So even as Amit continued the tedious process of putting together and editing the scenes that we had shot, I began to put together a trailer/teaser for our upcoming movie. It was 12am the night before the event when the idea for the trailer struck me. After running it by Amit, I started working on it. By 4.30 am, I thought I had a reasonably good trailer that we could present. We screened the trailer at the event, and as we hoped for, also got some interest generated in the movie.
Both Amit and I were also heavily involved in organising the company event, so once it completed, it gave us some more time to get back to the movie. Amit then spent a couple of person-days (read actual time spent working - not real days) editing the scenes and bringing the movie together including adding cool visual effects. We had a couple of other scenes that we needed to shoot which we also finished shooting in the nick of time. The idea was to have the film ready for release atleast on Ganesh Visarjan day. I spent the whole day working on arranging the music and the effects for the movie. By the end of the day, we had a completed movie that we could première. We premièred it first with family on my projector home theatre!
That brought to end a project that consumed us completely for almost for a month. Considering that we did made the film part-time, and for the most part, we were all first-timers, we thought it was decent effort. Thankfully, we were able to complete it to see the results of our efforts.
Here are some trivia about the movie:
First & last shot scene: Man climbing on parapet
Most (re)shot scene: News reading
Costliest scene: Man buying pizza (Yes, we actually ordered three small pizzas and waited for the delivery boy to turn up to shoot the scene)
Highest paid actor: Shiva (Amit's watchman, Shiva, whom we paid 100/- for his effort!)
Actual person-days spent: still figuring out the effort!
The last one month took us through most of the highs and lows of film-making, but more importantly gave us a deep sense of appreciation for this form of art. We also began appreciating the fact that whenever you wish to do a good job, the devil is in the detail. The location, the light, the equipment, the expressions, the camera movement & angles and a million other things all need to fall in place to move the story in the direction of the plot. Would we make another movie? Its like asking a student who has just finished the last paper of his 12th Std exam if he would like to take it again. Too soon to say. But we have been bitten by the bug so it may not be long before you see another White Shadows production.
Last but not the least, a big thanks to all those we were not able to credit in the movie but had to put up with us during our period of madness. Firstly, our wives & families, who had literally given up on us for a while. Next our bosses, who initially thought it was a company event film but co-operated even when they found out it wasn't. And finally the actors who had to be prepared at short notice for the scenes. Without all these people and their encouragement, this project would not have been possible.
The film is now live on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ4l23qRem4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ4l23qRem4
Until the next life changing event....Cheers!!
