How I learnt to start worrying…
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I have just realised that it’s far, far easier to write a screenplay than a blog! For the last 6 hours or so I have been trying to find THAT perfect start to my first ever blog but like fuck if that’s going to happen in this lifetime.. so let’s just start..
I am here to share my experience in film-making and in making ‘Aladin’ and hope it helps someone in their pursuing of an impossible dream, for that exactly what ‘Aladin’ was – an impossible dream. Charles had told me that it takes time to make a movie like ‘Aladin’. The first rule of the game is … ‘slow the fuck down!’
There is no rush. And if you are in a hurry… make another movie. It’s a little more than fours years now… a year or so to script, year and a half of pre-production, 149 days of shoot, a year of post-production and finally it’s ‘SATYA-KALPADROOM!’ The tree of imagination has come alive!
There are many reasons for me joining this industry… namely(in no particular order) Rahul Dev Burman, Kishore Kumar, Balraj Sahni, Anand Bakshi, Satyajit Ray, Naseeruddin Shah and Amitabh Bachchan. And of course the man who gave me admission… Mr. Pritish Nandy… the dude with balls of steel who took a gamble on a newcomer and a film called ‘Jhankaar Beats’.
I cannot write anything about myself without writing about Pritish Nandy first and, in particular, one incident which taught me about believing in what you do. To stand by what you believe in.
Because in this life, we can only do what we believe in.
FLASHBACK TO:
The Censor Board had just seen ‘Jhankaar Beats’ and it was that awful moment of truth. What cert are we going to get.. we were desperately hoping for a uni-versal certificate, however, deep in our hearts lurked a small fear. JB was the first film to have a blow-job in the movie and it was something which was re-quired. In the movie, that is… to establish the normal healthy sex life of a married couple. A couple who loved each other very much and did not shy away from showing it physically. And since they didn’t … they were, well, ‘caught’ under the radar of the Censor Board.
The Board loved the movie and wanted to give an universal certificate barring that one scene. We tried to reason… here Mr. Nandy was definitely an Oscar candidate when he tried to convince the board that Nicky (the wife) went down to look for a tiffin carrier she had dropped on the floor of the car !!!!! it was a price-less moment… we all sat there trying to look serious and nodding our heads in agreement… but the Board was far too experienced and responsible to let such matters through.
So the choice was simple: remove 48 frames and get an ‘U’ cert or keep and get an ‘A’(48 frames is exactly 2 seconds, by the way). Mr. Nandy chose the latter because he believed that was needed for the film. For 2 seconds he gave up what could be half of the possible revenue. Because he believed that the charac-ter of the film will not have the edge without that 2 seconds. He was in the game to make films. To make dreams happen exactly how they are dreamt. And he was right…
‘Jhankaar…’ went on to create its own destiny. It is coined the ‘father of multiplex cinema’. Would that have happened if we deleted the 2 seconds? I don’t know and I don’t care because I love my film how it is. I am absolutely, totally and fully in love with ‘Jhankaar..’ and ‘Home Delivery’ and ‘Aladin’. These are my children and I will never stop loving them. Good or bad, they are mine.
And I have no qualms in bowing to Pritish Nandy every time he passes me be-cause not only did he give me my film, he taught me to believe.
END OF FLASHBACK.
And that’s how ‘Aladin’ happened.
Two people sat in the coffee shop of Mariott and believed that they will make a film which has never been see before on the Indian screen.
A visual delight. It will be like eating ice-cream with your eyes.
They had met for the first time and they knew that between them they brought jackshit to the table. But they believed they could do it.
I had just come out from watching the premiere of ‘Masti’ and I knew I wanted to work with an actor called Ritesh Deshmukh. His comic timing was immaculate. I got his number and met him that night at the BBC in Mariott. And we decided we will make ‘Aladin’.
It will cost a lot of money but some how we will raise it. It would be as good as a ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘The Lord of the Rings’. I think we paused for a bit and laughed our guts out thinking what an insane path to embark upon but we wanted to and we did. Both of us had other dreams to pursue at that point… Ritesh had some 3 films he was committed to and I was pursuing my biggest ever dream…
To work with Amitabh Bachchan.
That was the reason for me being in the industry. No point being a director if I don’t get to work with Amitabh Bachchan. I was hoping to make a film called ‘Borivali’ with Sir. The film was set in the future and I was going off to London to meet this man called Charles Darby and see if he would consider working as an FX consultant on ‘Borivali’.
Just the day before I met a mad action director called Wiliam Ong from Malaysia who agreed to do the stunts for ‘Borivali’…
Ritesh and I left the coffee shop at Mariott thinking about what we had just agreed upon. At least I did… for all I know Ritesh could have been thinking about the huge bill he just footed. But I jest.. he never gave up on ‘Aladin’ and neither did I. We may have paused in between but we never stopped till ‘Aladin’ hap-pened and I promise you.. you have never seen anything like this before…
(To be continued …)
Tags: Aladin, Sujoy Ghosh
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
Welcome Sujoy.Welcome to PFC.:)
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we’ll when i first saw fx of aladin in trailer i was reminded of Ubisoft’s Warrior Within game and that is a compliment… but dear sujoy aladin trailer somehow doesn’t have gravity of HP or LOTR … also Amit ji’s comic act is ummm im not too sure …will check out Alaldin asap
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Welcome, Sujoy… and good luck with Alladin!
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Welcome Sujoy!
Hope to hear a lot of Jhankaar in your posts and lots of insights on the Genie! Admire you for your Passion for the Boss (and even sharing that with us on Big Screen)..
Wishing the best for Aladin! I hope and wish you wont disappoint a big Aladin fan like me..
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Ah..here’s Sujoy..welcome…a good start..would like to know more..and more!!
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A warm welcome to you Sujoy- please continue to share your thoughts and experiences. Also it would be great if you could share the script/screenplay (any draft) of Jhankar Beats…
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Welcome to PFC, Sujoy. Loved Jhankar Beats…looking forward to reading more about Aladin.
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Sujoy…welcome to PFC…have a great time blogging…
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Welcome to PFC Sujoy! Am so happy to see you here. I am one of the biggest Jhankar Beats fan.
Lost count of how many times I have seen it. Believe me, you are a big inspiration for advtg guys who want to make a cut in films.Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences here. Best of lucks for Alladin. It sure will rock! BTW, wutz ur take on Basanti’s gig? Was it her love or… LOL.
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Welcome aboard Sujoy.Loved Jhankar Beats and I’m looking forward to Alladin.Please do keep the flow of your thoughts open so that we are able to soak in & absorb as much as possible.
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Jhankar Beats is one of my favorite films…
a very very warm welcome Sujoy
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Wow !! A hearty welcome Sujoy ! One of the best news to me since I have joined PFC myself !
The moment I saw Jhankar Beats, I realized what a passionate film maker you are. A film almost dedicated to R D Burman ! A film which had so many “crisp” moments. As you said a film which gave life to multiplex cinema. A film which gave a new life to Amit Kumar. Oh so many memories.
To top of all, I read your above blog with utmost eagerness. I like the way you are being honest about yourself. I loved the Pritish Nandi episode ! It speaks volumes of PASSION !
I am eagerly awaiting your second installment of the blog.
Do keep writing and welcome once again
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welcome to Pfc sujoy…loved reading the Flashback…would love to know about alladin
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Cheers for the first blog
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Guys!! Home Delivery rocked too .. I’m sure honhaar is with me on this
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Welcome Sujoy sir on PFC. No great work of art is a fruit of shortcuts and manipulation.I hope that a story of making of Aladin would be shared to us by you. And also we need lot of producers like Pritish Nandi who have guts to experiment with the films and can give chances to newcomers on talents (not family connection) .
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Hi Sujoy. Welcome to PFC! Real nice to have you bloggin’ with us.
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Sujoy… Welcome and very best wishes for Alladin !
I watched “Jhankar Beats” in my college days … some 25 gals packed in a hostel room .. 2 big bottle of coke and sprite .. … we all felt the Jhankar in us !! it still gave the nostalgic highs Thanks for that !!
But Boss.. one thing I am yet to understand.. why is it so that there is no point being in industry if u didn’t work with Big B…. My fav 5 contemporary movies don’t have Big B in it.. and I believe that will be true of majority of junta…
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Great post!!
and suswagatham to blogging in PFC.
Please let us know how you are going about
conceiving and communicating your ‘visual icecream thoughts’ too.
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Welcome to PFC.
All the best for ALADIN
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ScrapManic@17 – Forget the contemporary cinema for a moment. Yaar(ok?) it is common sense that “some” people in this world like to fulfill their lifelong wish by hook or crook. If I was a filmmaker, I would die for working with the legends like Amitabh, Naseer, Dilip Kumar, Lataji, Ashaji, Manna Dey, Khaiyyaam, Ravi, Yogesh, Neeraj, Pyarelal, Anandji, SumanK, Shamshadji, etc etc. I don’t care if the end output is not good or if people don’t like. Only for these kind of people, else I will always acknowledge/fulfill people’s choices.
It is such a common sense ( to respect other people’s wishes and actions – especially which have an emotional touch ) that I fail to understand why people should even question others in this regard.
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Welcome to PFC, Sujoy! Hope you have an awesome time blogging here :-)
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Hey Sujoy welcome to PFC.I really loved Jhankar Beats.It is one film I never get tired of watching.Wish you all the best for Aladin.
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Welcome to PFC Sujoy. btw, i plead guilty. i havent watched JB in a theatre, only on TV, and unfortunately, that BJ scene is never shown. Till date, i never realised that scene even exited in the movie.
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hmmm, im getting the DVD today itself.
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Satyendra – dies it make you feel dood :-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czjBHwPbsgI
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Welcome Sujoy! Hopin you’d have a great time here…keep writing…
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everybody.. thank you soo much. i wish i could reply individually to all of you but no clue how to. i shall diligently ask PFC if such feat is possible. but it feels really good to know that all of you love jhankaar so much. i shall always be indebted for that. infact JB was a success because people like u went in and then dragged others in(and why was satyendra not dragged in remains a question) so i shall keep writing till u guys tell me to stop. and i sincerely hope that whatever i share becomes useful to someone even if under the heading ‘what not to do’. kuch toh kaam aana chahiye. ta ta bye bye
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Welcome to PFC Sujoy! (My previous welcome comment vanished somewhere.) Keep writing, and I think we understand that it might not be possible to individually reply to everyone, so no sweat there.
Mundu ki jai!
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Welcome Sujoy…
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just wanted to say..i LOVED ‘home delivery’.
it hurt everytime i heard a negative comment on it. To me, if there ever was effortless humour on inian cinema, this would be it.
I found jhankar beats somewhat cliched and spoilt big time by sayan munsi
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Home Delivery is miles better than Jhankar Beats. Anyway, Aladin ne aapko… Ghar Tak, and hope Aladin plays the Jhankar Beats for you.
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sujoy sir waiting for your next post
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Welcome to PFC, Sujoy!
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that was such a delightful read..:)
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welcome. looking forward to aladin.
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i loved home delivery too! And of course jhankaar beats!
waiting for alladin
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welcome aboard, Sujoy! mi casa es su casa!
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Sujoy
Welcome to PFC.
Thanks for Jhankar Beats.
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“JB was the first film to have a blow-job in the movie and it was something which was re-quired.”
That scene reminds me of a scene from I guess Father of the Bride was it, not sure? Steve Martin and Diane Keaton. Or someone else. Ok if its the 2 then the scene was something like this.
Steve Martin really stressed with all the marriage expenses, driving, tense, a little stuffy and in an effort to loosen him Keaton goes down on him and Martin loses control.
CUT TO :
Car banged, police officer around. Asking what happened?
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@KCP
Thanks for giving your thoughts on my comments.. but I need to say you are going little overboard to what I asked ‘Sujoy’.
I surely understand and have the capacity to relate to that any filmmaker can die to work with legends of their dream.. there is really no scope of questioning that zest of a filmmaker.. I salute likes of Sujoy who can go to any extreme to work with their dream icon..
I again repeat my hitch was understanding the statement .. “there is no point being in industry if u haven’t worked with Big B”.
Anyways.. it not that worth a cent to argue on this small bit.. I tried pacifying my point again..if u still disagree with me my apologies..
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Welcome Sujoy,
Just one point,
JB’s biggest claim to fame was to resurrect RD back into our lives and we thank you for that.
However, the BJ shot in JB is not what made the film. JB would have been just the same film even without BJ.
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hey dude,
delighted to meet you here. keep writing.
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I think i am too late to say u welcome !!
well, i would personaly like to thank you for sharing this, and your other posts… because right now i m in between a similar situation.
chasing my dream film, which feels like some unimaginable dream at this time.
to clear the matters, let me tell you.. i am 18 years old and making no harry potter.
i don’t even have any camera right now, and the best i can hope is to get is some hadycam… but damn that isn’t stopping me from dreaming.
let me tell you more about my dream, this is if you ever read this
it is an 45 min movie called
24 : dreams, desires, disaster && destiny !
it is about Sidharth Roy, and the toughest 24 hours of his life which changed his destiny for ever.
well what is so special or impossible about it then ?
hmmm… it is being made by an 18 year old, an engineering student, and the maximum they are supposed to do is to make a 4 min student short on environmental issues.
How is anyone going to make an 45 min movie, which can be classified under Action genre, and that too without any budget at all ??
well, i think you faced similar problems at some time, 100 times bigger in scale, and i take inspiration by your experience and here by take an oath that i would never stop chasing my dreams, and would some day see them realized, hopefully
well i have made an promo of the above mentioned movie, the only part we ever managed to shoot.
u can chk it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvWELkb10Lg
i wld love if u ever replied, or seen the video above (only one and a half minute)… you might not know, but even your one line would boost my confidence 100 times.
Wishing you best of luck for Alladin.
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