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The word “Sound” holds a different meaning for me post interviewing K J Singh.
A little introduction is necessary because this man has been associated with all the possible positions that encompasses music and sound in India. He has worked on Films Background Score & soundtracks like Satya, Maqbool, Rage De Basanti, Omkara, Black Friday and many more. Also he has produced the greatest Indian band ‘Indian Ocean’ and Rabbi’s Shergill debut album ‘Rabbi’. I would like to congratulate Mr.Singh for winning the National Award this year for Audiography for the film “Omkara”. (A full fledged discography of K J Singh can be checked here.)

PART 1 -Straight Q&A
From Guitar Singh (you were fondly known as that - why? any story behind that) of Graffiti to K J Singh Producer/Sound Engineer - how did that all happen? Tell us about your …

I didn’t really know how to begin this – a piece about the film I’ve tried to set up for 7 years, and finally it has got made and is now about to release. The part I’m actually looking forward to is when at least a few of the PFC readers see it and have things to say about it – so I can either defend, or elaborate, depending on what the comments inspire.
It is the debate, if any, that I’m interested in the most, as I cannot get that in any other media. And even more than the content of the film it is in that the film got made in the first place and what even a relative amount of acceptance to Hulla means to people trying to make their first films regardless of their background.

…

……and ye ye this time its for real!!! I know, the fake ones were damn entertaining. Hopefully the real one will not disappoint you.

Here is my latest theory on Ramu. The filmmaker who made Satya and Compnay died long back, most probably during a film shoot. An aspiring but less talented guy who was AD on the same film set, died with Ramu. The AD knew that now there is no way to make his debut and also because the factory closed down ( so no more ADs will turn director), the guy’s ghost got into Ramu’s body. Ramu’s ghost was ofcourse more eager to meet the menakas and urvashis of other world, so he never bothered to check the status of his body. Its no more “directed by RGV” but “ghost directed by RGV”. since its all black screen, one cannot make out the word “ghost”. we …

Possibly India’s “Crash”.. or i don’t know how else to describe it..Saw the rough cut , on Nishikant’s avid.. he wanted to bounce it off me and i was cleanbowled.. again the familiar feeling went through me.. why did i not think of it and why did i not make it..

The film begins in a police station with cops discussing sunil more(the marine drive rape case), one(Vijay maurya) of who is going on a holiday and the other(Paresh Rawal) counting his last few days in the service..then it introduces us to the computer salesman(kaykay) with his unemployed friends in a irani cafe talking about cricket and you also see that he has a phobia of muslims or probably distrust and hatred, then you see the bicycle coffeeseller (Irrfan) who is fond of perfumes and then the film introduces us to the bite hungry TV journo(soha ali khan) and her boyfriend …

Santosh Sivan is back. With a new film - Tahaan. A story of a nine year boy Tahaan and his donkey Birbal. Its set in kashmir, which is visual delight for any filmmaker. And if Sivan is behind the camera, then you know what to expect.

The film stars Purav Bhandare (kid), Anupam Kher, Sarika, Rahul Bose, Rahul Khanna and Victor Bannerjee and is scheduled to release in september. Till then enjoy these exclusive pics from the sets of the film and the theatrical promo. Do let us know what you think about it.

Its difficult to choose one or two films from the vast body of work of Santosh Sivan. But my two all time favourite films are Halo and Malli. Both kids film. And what a treat. If you havent seen them yet, do get the dvd. Am eagerly waiting for Tahaan now!…

YEAR 2, and “One” is back!!! We are proud to announce the Call for Entries for PFCOne 2008, PFC’s pioneered Online Film Festival for One Minute Movies!!!

The first year was quite a knockout. We never expected that we would get over a 150 entries. This year it gets bigger and better and we hope to see another huge wave of talent at the festival… because the festival is about you. The mission of PFCOne is to encourage the filmmaker in each one of you, PFCOne is our attempt to motivate you to get up and shoot your movie that you’ve been dreaming about for so long.

The Festival
From December 1st to December 5th of 2008, PFC will host its second Online film festival for One Minute Movies …

Dear friends,
So there is good news for all of us. Ajay TG was granted bail today, however, the release will happen tomorrow. Today Chandra Kumar Kashyap Judicial Magistrate First Class, Durg District, granted bail to Ajay today the 4th of August around five pm. The bail was granted under sec 167 (2) (a) (i), which is called statutory bail in local parlance. Since the ninety days had expired and the police had not furnished the charge sheet thus the magistrate who was authorising the detention had to grant him bail.
During the remand hearing on 2nd of August morning the police took further remand for the 12th . The bail had been applied for on 2nd evening itself at 4.45 pm as the ninety days period was over at …

Goodbye Chetan Datar

If you met Chetan Datar in the last months of his life, not that any of us knew it was going to be the last few months of his life, he was carrying the crucifix of the burden of sustaining Awishkar’s activity, Marathi theatre and perhaps the young people who flocked to him. The
slender body, had begun to develop a hunch. But he would prowl and strut, then welcome you with a warm greeting, and burst into laughter. Or he would cock his head, smile, fidget and twitch, all at once and bellow Ramu Ramoowalia, for all the world to hear. That was his pet name for me.

For those of you not in the know, B S Ramoowalia, was an Akali Dal MP (later independent) and also the man who read aloud to the Late Harkishen Singh Surjeet when his eyes started to fail. And so, I was …

Jan 1st 2001. The first day of the year. I was at I think one of the lowest points in my life. Ironically, I was standing at the highest point above the ground I’d ever been. Maybe 100ft and I was scared when I looked down. No not scared, I was shit scared. But I jumped. I mustered up whatever little courage I had left and jumped. As I hurtled towards the ground, I lost track of everything..time, my mind, my sight. It was only when the bungee cord pulled me back up did I regain my senses. The feeling was exhilarating. The throbbing in my head wasn’t. The sudden rush of blood to my head made it hurt. Actually, I was at the Andheri Sports complex where a bungee jumping camp was being organised. I had four hours …

I see at least one film everyday. It’s often a tall order and I have to plan in advance to have a supply of good films on hand. I am a member of two video rental shops, a big commercial one and one small art-house place. I also rent from the internet rental house which sends me 2 DVDs by the post, according to my wish list. I watch them and post them back to them and they send me two new ones. I also go to the cinemas as and when there are interesting films shown there. (rare)

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="288" caption="Pimwalee THAMPANYASAN as Koi"][/caption]
I saw Soi Cowboy yesterday, a film that was in the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section of the Cannes film festival this year. The film hasn’t been released yet but I was given a preview DVD …

It was 2001 and censor had refused certification for Paanch. I was angry and pissed off and I wanted to say a lot. On november 9th 2000 there was a new state of Uttaranchal and six days later on november 15th Jharkhand was formed. The 27th and 28th state. I was upset about everything, as to why these new states were being formed to why can’t i release my film to why do people fall in love to what is the point of anything. At that time my actor of Paanch, Pankaj Saraswat(now the creator of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge) introduced me to a part time model. His name was Raja Chaudhary. I never took him seriously. He had written a story on college politics, which was a nice story but nothing more and I told him so. I told him this story needs a milieu, where it is …

Before the Rains is a landscape movie, a sensuous story of love between an English spice exporter and his married Indian housemaid, shot and directed by Santhosh Sivan in God’s own country, Kerala.

Deepak Chopra in his recommendation compared the movie to E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” and stories like “In the Bedroom”, “Little Children”, “The Savages”, and was delighted to find such layered sophistication coming from India, via “Before the Rains”.

The official selection of Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival and Dubai Film Festival, Before the Rains has won 3 awards in the Houston WorldFest � Best Picture; Best Cinematography: Santosh Sivan; Best Music: Mark Kilian.

Mira Nair recalled the movie as “Unforgettable! A hothouse of sensuality, empire, class and guilt.”

NYT called it “A lavish, beautifully photographed film…”

New York Observer called it “A lovely, sweeping film. Stunning!”

And now, Santosh Sivan was interviewed by …

15 TRULY TRIVIAL TIPS FOR A WANNABE THESPIAN

1. When someone else is rehearsing, sit on the bench with sunglasses - and point an imaginary bazooka at passing actors. See if they die.

2. During a rehearsal send sms to yourself. Then reply. Repeat 200 times.

3. Every time the director asks you to do something, ask if it adheres to the Alexandria Technique.

4. Carry a dustbin to rehearsal and label it “MEMORY”.

5. Listen to Stanislavsky in Russian on your IPod; and walk non-stop through a revolving door.

6. At an audition, if you’re asked what you would do, if you were not an actor, please reply in a staccato voice: “have sex with a serial killer on a white stallion that is going to win next year’s derby”.

7. Finish all your sentences with “Viva la Muerte - Long Live Death”.

8. Read your lines - and ignore the punctuations. Take a break. And then …

A very good beginning… I am an amatuer blogger.

This is the beginning of a new chapter for me. One is always trying out new things in life and this is something that I am trying out for the first time.

I am not a regular blogger. I just have enough patience with my emails and looking up information that I want to read on the internet. Yes of course I try to keep in touch with my Yahoo group on my web site… not as much as I like to!!!

PFC was introduced to me by Anurag Kashyap when I met him at the IFFLA this April. I enjoyed reading it and wanted to be part of it…. so here I am.

WRITING is something that I admire in people. Sometime we have thoughts but to put them in words is not that easy. It has been always been a task to …

PRRO MATURE EJACULATIONS urf SHUKRIYA MEHARBAANI KARAM

Thought of this mind blowing title, keeping in lieu the spate of strange sounding titles that one is getting associated with. The films that are releasing are Summer 2007, Via Darjeeling, Bombil and Beatrice, Mr.Singh/ Mrs. Mehta, Colors of Passion, The White Elephant. And most of them are Hindi films..

Summer 2007 released to an entire array of critics who have so complained of its length and its similarities to another mediocre film like RDB, which was for me just a long drawn music video which only sustained because of the genius of Rahman. If I had heard the songs I would not have said no to it. That was what was sad, because Summer 2007 is not an entertainer like that. Comparing the two is really not done. I personally thought that the wisest review was given by Taran Adarsh who …

Indentification points

To be absolutely candid, the responses both in terms of quality and quantity far far exceeded my expectations. Heart bracing to know that there are even far more passionate Ray bhakts than I am.

On re-seeing Pather Panchali — albeit on DVD with a distracting logo of its distributor perched on the north-east tip of the screen — still find myself inadequate in expressing the emotional pulls and pressures that one goes through. Perhaps, it does the heart-catalysed response does have something to do with points of personal identification.

The shadow profile of the ancient aunty — the nonagerian sister of Apu’s father — is a precious image. The camera fulls back from the shadow on the wall of her hollow profile to see her gabbing away delightfully.

Another sculpted image — the old woman trying to thread a needle in flickering light, licking the thread to make it slip through the …

As I sit watching the edit happen on my movie Avakai-Biryani (Mango Pickled Biryani), I am reminded about how all of this first started��..
Back in 2006. Sekhar Kammula�s �Godavari� had just released to good reviews but to an unfavorable box office response, finally ending as an �average� film business wise. Having worked as both the executive producer and associate director on the film, I gave it my all and I mean MY ALL, shooting in the middle of that amazing river for a 100 days, with more than a 100 people on board 3 launches, bang in the middle of the monsoon, with the heaviest rainfall and floods being recorded ever, the production of Godavari was a truly life changing experience for me, something I will take to my grave, something that made me believe that we could shoot on Mt.Everest next if we wanted to�.something that really made a …

Okay, so an indulgently kind and persuasive cell phone voice, belonging to Kartik (surname not quoted), invited me over to blogland. Not quite techno-whizzy, I procrastinated. There were thel hmmms, i don’t know, I’m the good old ink and paper type, Remington typewriter was so sturdy..but yes, I can handle PCs with not a little help from my friends and colleagues. Since this is actually on blogprint, guess I’m smartening up.

���� Enough of I-me-moi. I’m here because to blog means�to express� whatever, I can’t on other platforms, and I’m not talking railway stations.

����� The column title ‘Cinema Ray’ alludes, of course, to my god of small and big things, Satyajit Ray. The intimacy he struck with his narratives of people..rich, poor and middle class, remains untouched. Pather Panchali..was a life-altering film. I�watched it at a film society screening in Bombay’s Tarabai Hall.

������ After that I’ve never looked at farmhouses zipping …

I had just quit whatever I was doing till then and had taken a solemn oath of eternal poverty and struggle. Cinema�..Was writing for someone those days�..donno what happened to that script. We were having a narration�..half way thru we had a sutta brake. The person whom we were narrating was a reputed editor�..he mentioned “Gulaal ruk gayee�..this was Anurag’s last hope�”�Did not know him then�and never imagined I would ever be writing this�..

There are many films you wished you were a part of. Like I always wished I was a part of Dil Se.. donno why�the feeling for Gulaal was the same�.when it was launched�..when it was stalled�.always wished�I wanted to be a part of it. June 28, 2008 am in Jaipur, already into the 4th day of shoot.

Gulaal for me was the beginning of the most exciting Director-DOP combo in the industry�maybe after Guru Dutt � …

Better late than never. Capturing R.D. Burman’s life in a documentary. And when it finally came out, what a way to do it! Brahmanand Singh does complete justice to the boss. We saw Pancham Unmixed at IFFLA 2007 and were blown away. Its the simplicity with which Brahmanand unfolds the flow of the documentary.

Following are two videos. The first is a 4 minute trailer of the documentary. The second is a 25 minute discussion we had with Brahmanand after watching the doc.

We’ve got to see one of highly engrossing and moving documentary in such a long time. Now if only you could… the rest of the world doesn’t know what it’s missing.

PANCHAM UNMIXED : The Promo

 
PFC talks to …