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‘Brahm’ would fall in Drama genre, with addition of thrill, suspense elements. Dino and Milind are playing the roles of brothers. Dino been the younger sibling. The elder brother is a demi God for the younger one. Sheetal, who is playing a super model, comes into the life of Dino. Her past takes a weird journey in a flashback, creating tensions in Dino’s relations with Milind and herself. Pushing the characters into an illusion.

Sheetal Menon is a model herself and has completed an acting course. Pavan was convinced Sheetal would be able to do justice to the role. Originally she belongs to Trichur, Kerela. Manglore is her mother’s native place. She grew up in Nasik. Now lives in Mumbai. Shirdi is a special place for her family. Her family often visits the temple to seek Sai Baba’s blessing.

On the sets, Pavan, Hiroo, Dino, myself and others discuss Cinema. From Hitchcock, Ray to present Bollywood directors. Pavan’s favorite director is Roman Polanski, who is my favorite too! That’s a good connection. Both of us have not seen Repulsion, which is supposed to be one of Polanski’s best works. Anurag has a huge collection of DVDs. If I remember it correctly its close to 9000. I plan to borrow Repulsion and Duel from AK. That’s the other movie recommended by Pavan. Hiroo was mentioning that the 80s was the worse decade for Bollywood. Guess why? The zoom lens was been widely used or rather miss used? Talking to FTII alumni Hiroo, his assistants Akilesh and Shubra, I am trying to get a feel, what it is like to be at the premium institute. Hiroo had heard about FTII from a friend. He failed to get in FTII in the first attempt. I asked him, what kind of portfolio had he made. He said nothing. He told the interview committee,” I want to join the institute to learn. If I knew the craft, why would I join it?” Wondered what he made for his portfolio the second time. Nothing was the reply. The committee could not ignore him again and was selected. FTII is a place where so many creative minds come together from different profession all discussing cinema. For eg. Akilesh was doing PhD in Biology, when he realized he has to do something creative. Been a photographer he was inclined towards Cinematography which is its extension. He told me of a colleague, who was a major in army before he joined FTII. Akilesh was a topper at FTII and has directed two short films, which are circulating in various festivals! At FTII works of master film makers are shown and discussed. Earlier two films were screened in the institute in a day, one at 6pm and the other one at 9pm. Now they screen just one film at 6pm. Talking to so many people involved in the industry, I feel a film school is not a necessary requirement if you are learning the craft by other means. It could be by working in films at any position or may be just watching lot of films. But it’s good to know the basics of film making, which would make you observe the technical aspects involved, while watching the film. It would make you think as a film maker rather than a viewer. That’s my personal experience I have undergone after doing a short film making course.

If I could go to a film school I definitely would have? Discussing with the people involved in the craft of film making is also essential in the grooming of a creative mind. PFC is also serving a good purpose in this case. No kidding here! The technical things involved are not complicated at all and one does not need to spend huge amount of time on them. A film school would take 2-3 years time. Most of the time would be spent on grooming and refining the creative mind. As suggested by Hiroo, I plan to do a cinema appreciation course at FTII, which would showcase and discuss the great masters and also give a feeling of what it feels like to be there. It would be a pleasant getaway!

Film making is no doubt an expensive thing to do. One can not pursue it as a hobby until unless one is very very rich. The other and only option left for many like me is to jump in the field full time. Pavan says every other creative profession you look at; the artists are allowed to redo their work. Painters spoil their canvass and use a new canvass, writers waste so much paper and so on. But a filmmaker is not given a chance to re shoot. People say film maker does not know his job if he does so. Earlier the films were made for years. There were budgets allocated for reshoot. Shooting long portions of the film again was the process of film making. Presently films are completed in max 65 days for big budget and as less as 15 days in case of extreme low budget films. The actors pay check forms the major part of the budget. The money spend in visuals is fraction of the amount going to the star cast in a big budget film. Making a Mughlae Azam would be impossible today.

Do you people remember the AV (audio-visual), where a painter illustrates Gandhi ji by making a curve for his bald head and 2nd curve for spectacles with ‘Raghupati raghav Raja Ram’ played on flute in the background? Doing a perfect portrayal of ‘Bapu’. That piece of AV was directed by Pavan and was nominated at Cannes. I remember in schools, when we use to have drawing competition, national integration was a regular topic. A lot of children would draw the same Gandhiji’s cartoon. It remains one of my favorite AVs!

Antara’s apartment location shoot has been finished. Next location is a Madh Island bunglow. Keep tuned for more;)

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