Frozen Journey-Part 1…
FROZEN JOURNEY…Part One…11th May 2008.
Toh bhai log, hum bhi aagaye…Kya karen public demand thee…
It’s amazing how things change? I remember chancing upon PFC site few months ago and couldn’t stop wondering about comments on Frozen. This was when no one had seen the film. And today I am here writing some stupid things. Well hello people this is me…Director of “Frozen”. I am really confused about what to write. Maybe lets start with the journey of Frozen. As Dabba mentioned that this is not Olympics but I would like to share the trials and tribulations of Making of Frozen. This is part one…
The journey of Frozen started few years back when I made my first trip to Ladakh. My friend Gauri accompanied me. Alan, my Line Producer and few of his friends were driving from the Rohtang Pass Route. I had driven from Mumbai in my Scorpio to Ladakh.
Driving on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad-Jaipur route was tiring but interesting with lots of turtle turned vehicles and oneself thanking your stars. It was a great trip and driving through the Jawahar Tunnel and Jojila Pass was exhilarating and sometimes scary. And of course a night’s stop over at Srinagar was unforgettable. Not because anything happened but just that unnerving feeling. Being stopped at various Nakas and check posts and answering the same questions 101 times was frustrating but that practice trained me well to talk to Border and Immigration Officers in various airports in the US of A. Anyway, going through Kargil and actually seeing the hot spots of the Kargil War was quite an experience. I remembered Major Vikram Batra’s “Yeh Dil Maange More” dialogue and got misty eyed when an officer showed me the Tiger Hill Top and in the same breath told me that I can’t take pictures.
Kargil was right out of the silk route or the old Central Asia trade route. Beautiful ladies and tall and gaunt men flocked the market area in all their fineries. I felt that suddenly hordes of marauding tribal men on galloping horses with swords unsheathed would enter my still camera frame. But alas, nothing of that sort happened. What happened was the first attack of AMS (acute mountain sickness). I was talking to the son of the owner of Caravan Sarai till late night and at some moment developed a headache. It had nothing to do with the talks as they were mainly centered on the Kargil War. People, who have seen Frozen will find some dialogues like the enemy is using our stock from our own market, like bread, eggs and peanut butter and targeting us. This guy told this to me. Apparently the hostile elements were using our market to stock up Maggi and other things. I found that funny and remembered to use it in Frozen.
I continued on my journey to Leh through Batalik, another hotspot of Kargil War. There I saw some Tribals who claim to be the descendants of Alexander’s army. They dress in a very peculiar way and consider themselves to be the original Aryans. I could find a lady like that during the shoot of Frozen and she is there in the opening frame of the Mela Sequence.
The roads on this high altitude terrain were like makhan and malai. Kudos to Border Road Organization for doing a marvelous and thankless job. Sometimes I feel that road building authorities from Mumbai should be banished to high altitudes of Ladakh…Kuch toh sharam karo…And there was no soul around for vast stretches. The headache continued and so was my popping of Disprins.
I hope this is enough as the intro…bahut bak bak ho gayi…I will be back soon…Doesn’t this sound like the saas bahu episodic dramas? And the saga continues….
Update:
I must say in the beginning itself that the Scorpio performed beautifully…I didn’t refurbish it just changed the tyres to tubeless..
I felt that I was the king or rather the emperor of the land…
If you have vehicle and you are in India and if you don’t do this then paida hone ka faydaa kya…
One of the 3 high altitude lakes. 25 percent is in India and the other 75 percent is in China.This gets Frozen in winters and the guys drive vehicles on top of the lake.The Ice Hockey sequence was inspired from this lake.
This route is susceptible to landslides…This is around 17000 feet above sea level and covered with snow throughout..
This was the 4th high altitude lake other than Pangong,Tsomoriri and Tsocar…
Early morning,around 5 am. I had camped overnight at Tsomoriri Lake. No one around…
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
No it doesn’t sound like a saas bahu episode. It sounds exactly like the Shivajee Chandrabhushan I met at IFFLA… (inspite of all the jokes I played on you)… Welcome aboard… Lovers of Cinema will love your stuff and will be egging you on beyond Frozen… this I’m sure about… how good will “Boiling” turn out to be inspite of round two of heavy discussions on the busy streets of Beverly Hills… who cares!
Welcome aboard!
Sivajee saar !!!
Vanakkum, vanakkum !!!
welcome aboard …
Frozen is doing gr8 in fests … saw it at MAMI !!
Keep posting for US !!!
@medium
Vanakkum Saar…yenaa??saukyama??rumba nanri…Well thank you…
i spent some time in Leh and around in 2004. it was beyond beautiful.
shivajee, what did you think of that place where the indus meets that other river (Zanskar?) turquoise blue meeting sandy brown. i tought it was gorgeous along with all the buddhist monasteries in the region. so beautiful.
now that you are a part of us, be prepared for some anonymous haters.
Rest assured, you are PFC and we fight.
welcome BOSS!!
@ shivajee –
by the way, WELCOME.
what part of the world are you in right now? if you ever happen to pass by new york, give me a shout.
Your experience with the festival circuit would make a post all by itself.
@superdabba
Yeah…and i have lovely pictures of that milan point of Indus and Zanskar…infact can i post some pictures from that journey? someone tell me…anonymous ho ya known haters…i love them all…thanks guys…by the superdabba and dabba are two different guys?
@DPac
Thanks dude.
Good one and welcome to the world of cinemoholics……………
Welcome to PFC Sir…
@dabba
I crossed NYC on my way back from LA-SF-MUM…but it was just coming out of the airport to smoke and take a beautiful snap of sun setting over NYC.
I will write about the festival experiences…some funny and poignant ones…
By the way am in mumbai now…will be off to Granada,Spain in the first week of June, then Munich and then South Africa…etc…
@ shivajee –
superdabba=dabba. some times, PFC gets tired of me and refuses to let me post, so i have to come on as the super.
we should start a tab for you monitoring where in the world you are. please do post any pics you have…from the region, the shoot, etc.. bhooke pyaase log hain yahaan pe. be a good samaritan.
arre bhai bhooka pyasa main bhi ho gaya hoon ek picture banaa ke…I will post some pics with my future postings…regarding the tab well I have done…Toronto,London,NYC,Thessaloniki and Athens(Greece),Rome,Brugge(Belgium),Vesoul and Paris(France),Tallinn(Estonia),Vilnius(Lithuania),Dubai,LA and SF. The places where I couldn’t go but Frozen went were-Pusan,Turkey,Hawaii,Palm springs,Rotterdam. I dont remember some…
welcome guruji. aapke baare mein bahut suna hai. in that context and reverence, I would have normally added a ‘ji’ to your name, but kya karein, you already come with one :-)
welcome aboard!
Welcome, sir… wonderful to have you here and looking forward to more posts from you!
so PFC finally meets SFC (shivajee frozen chandrabhushan )finally u r here!! warm welcome…waiting to hear more frozen stories and where r the stills!!! we know u r great with stills to!!
@Tushar
My parents were bahut door drishti waale…so they had put a ji anyways…
@Jahan Bakhshi
Dhanyavad…
@Phoenixnu
Yeah I am digging up the stills…
shivajee saar !!! vannakum .. Welcome sir …
have heard a lot about frozen .. eagerly awaiting its release ….
nice read … makes me wanna go to ladakh leh too …
Saar .. any pictures sir ????
Welcome Shivajee Sir, have read a lot on PFC recently about you and FROZEN. Look Forward to seeing it one day.
Driving from Mumbai to Leh and back is no ordinary feat,must have been a thrilling adventure.Try the Manali-leh drive sometime, its an out of world experience!
Thank you…well I have written only the part one. I came out of Leh from Manali driving through Baralachala and Keylong and Rohtang Pass…I drove through Baralachala at night which was a big mistake but did it nonetheless…I will upload pics in my future posts.
@sivajee
Naan saukiyama irrukaen…
Saar neenga mumbaile irrukaengala … Time irrundaal meetinga potiruvom (saar you mumbai beingaaa … if time being we put meeting ) { what say }
short PFC meeting ;-)
chari…me being here,you all being here…we can meet…time,place and agenda?if me free will attend…
…and, you seem every bit as interesting as other posts (by Dabba, OM, Oz etc) describe you
…
A lovely post to begin with(havent seen the movie)…
Looking forward to more stuff…
:-)thank you…you might get a shock after watching Frozen…why?ask those guys…who have met me…I sometimes wonder whether the personality of a filmmaker affects the films he/she makes? I remember in Vilnius(Lithuania)after the Q and A, I was out smoking and this guy walked up to me and told me that he was sure that my next film is a comedy…it was intriguing…I really wonder what will it be?
Yes, yes!!! Have also read that the ‘personality’ of the movie is opposite to yours…
oh teri bhen di.. one day away from PFC and “the boss” has made his appearance! vaango saar.. had no idea about your knowledge of tamil! phoenix said it.. i do remember you looking like quite the maestro while cradling a still camera.. do talk about your love of photography as well. and of course, bhelcome bhelcome!
Yeah…i remember that trip…and the journey so far…Way to go…I’m sure you can write a book someday…
Waiting for more…
Welcome aboard Shivajee…aakhir mein aana hi pada…waise bhi kahan bhaag jaate..PFC ke haath bade lambe hain ;)
Not seen Frozen yet..but have a strong feeling with your sensibilities it must be worth dekko..Welcome aboard and eagerlylooking forward to reading ur reminisces.
Thanks…OM haath pair sab bade hain…maan gaye bhai…
@krysh
release ho jaaye bus…
Update: I have added the photos taken by Shivajee during his trip.
Michael Palin’s Himalayas Documentary and a recent BBC documentary on Tibet, showed a lot of those regions. That is how I got to know how beautiful those region is. And those places looked very picturesque, well, the place is quite natural & unspoiled and I wished I lived their.
I just want to see your film because of the backdrop. I have just one question – why do you have the film in black & white when you have got a beautiful backdrop?!
well…I havent posted the black and white images :-)…I might write a post on why b nd w very soon.But I would say you will get your answer when you watch the film.
Welcome Sir!
Haven’t got a chance to see the film as yet… But definitely looking forward to.. For the reviews and ofc the “Danny” factor! Thank you for getting him back in action…
Did you shot entirely in B&W ? or converted to B&W in Post Prodn?
Looking forward to hear more from you!
Welcome sirjee,
How did SFO film festival go???
Hope you get addicted here…..
What can I say about the locations! They look heavenly! They remind of the road to Tawang, which is the 2nd highest, if I’m not mistaken. I’m really looking forward to the film, Shivajeeji (Boy how ridiculous I must sound
welcome sirjee. loved the pictures
@Pavan
The film was shot in color as we were not happy with the lab results of the black and white stock.We did lots of test shoots with all types of stocks.Also we have to order 90 days in advance for the B & W stock from Kodak. Another thing which has happened is that the color stock has gone through lots of advancements compared to the B & W one. We wanted to play with the gray shades and various levels of contrasts also so the decision was to shoot on color and then work on Lusture and then DI and then print it in B & W stock.The initial work was done at Prasad Labs,Mumbai and the final leg at Deluxe Lab,LA.So my negative is at LA and all my future prints will come from LA.I think I have to write a detailed post on why B & W look for Frozen?
@Varun
The SFO screenings were superb. I had missed the first one as I was in LA for the final night. I consider myself lucky to watch Frozen in Arclight(LA) one day and then Kabuki(SFO)the next day.I loved the projection and sound quality at both the places.Its so different from the so called state of art theaters in India. Specially the sound system. I think it has to do with the types of films which we make. Our films are always suppose to be loud.There is no subtleness to it.And to tell you frankly I had hell of a time trying to explain to the Final Mixing Engineer about the type of sound quality I wanted.He was a veteran of 400 films. Anyways…it was quite enlightening for me.
@Kenny
Tawang is in Arunachal Pradesh,if I am not wrong. The difference in terrain is quite stark.As Mr.D was psyching me to shoot the film in eastern part of India(Sikkim for e.g.);-)…but as the starkness of Ladakh was what I wanted and not the greenery,I stuck to my guns.Also to do it in winters.I was very cruel yaar,not the affable guy the PFC is projecting me…
Eeeeks! Somebody is here writing blogs! I use ’somebody’, because despite the hype that surrounds you and your movie, I remain in oblivion still to the greatness of “Frozen”. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t hide the fact, that I was anxiously waiting for your first (as they call it) post!
@Sami
Well you are not the only one…most of the cinema audience havent seen the film :-)
Hello Shivajee,
Welcome to PFC. A great place to be if you forget the Pfaff and a lot of the minute details.
I must say, am looking forward to Frozen and will dole out that 200 rupees the Multiplexes (@! #$%) charge me. Oh..Why cannot movies of upcoming filmmakers come in regular theater and not Tashan? We can pay less to watch good fare.
Hope you have as great or at least as good a career as your namesake who currently reigns over the whole of Tamil Nadu, Japan and what not :-)
Cheers, Deepak (not D@Pac)
The film apart, this post let me relate to you as an avid observer of things around. Great stills. Ladakh still remains an unaccomplished dream. Haven’t gone beyond Rohtang.
What’s the ‘dil maange more’ story? have never seen Border if it was covered in that. Will be looking forward to the B&W story.
Yeah, Tawang’s in Arunachal Pradesh. Right at the north.
“the starkness of Ladakh was what I wanted and not the greenery,I stuck to my guns.Also to do it in winters.I was very cruel yaar,not the affable guy the PFC is projecting me”
Sounds like the movie’s going to be cold and dark – I love that atmosphere. I’m eagerly waiting for the movie.
@Tushar
Do the Ladakh bit before it goes the way of Shimala,Manali etc.you know what I mean.
During the Kargil War (Late)Captain Vikram Batra after taking control of point 5140 commented to his commander at the base camp “sir yeh dil maange more”. This was telecast live over national television.
Captain Vikram Batra was played by Abhishek in LOC.I dont remember whether he used the line.It was a catchline of Pepsi.
Yes, I have been meaning to do that. But lets see. In here you either gotta be a Motorcycle freak or newly married to go the himalayan way. two extremes indeed. I ll try lookin for some mid meridian.
I keep reading about both of your movies – Frozen and Palak. And I cannot wait to watch them. When your movie is going to release at Delhi?