Lessons on filmmaking : from the office peon
iview Author: Hardik Mehta (Mumbai, India)
Email: hardik.kalakar [at]gmail.com
Content: Lessons on filmmaking : from the office peon
Now we all know how in most cases a student fiction film turns out to be – it’s almost an exercise in testing a viewer’s patience – (except a few rare student films or filmmakers who have genuinely dished out brilliant stuff.) The rest of us learn the hard way. Thus, the first cut of my final graduation student film was no different – it had some really bad editing, wrong choices of camera lens & angles, pretty ordinary framing, wrong lighting, continuity errors and if that was not enough – there were the wonderful amateur actors!
Agreed the thrill of working with a Super 16mm ARRI camera, the different kinds of lights, the AVID editing machine etc is something you wont get to do daily in life, even when you are into the film industry – but at the helm of everything lies the story – even with all the blunders you make while making a film – it is important that you are able to tell a story. The normal audience is not going to react to your ordinary lighting or the one odd bad cut. If the protagonist or the characters are not going to appeal to the audience – then it can be termed as a failure. Even the best of the equipments/filmmaking tools are not going to save it. Thus with all of this in mind, when I watched my final film made a year back, I thought it just doesn’t work for me now – along with the technical errors, which I cant undo now, the film was just way too long and dragging at times (which I think is a recipe for disaster for a short film) thus I thought its time to re-cut and trying seeing it in a new light. Probably adding a few aspects, which I have learnt by being in the film industry since last 7 months. With these thoughts in my mind – I started re-editing the film – thanks to the availability of an editing machine (read: FCP on Mac Pro) from a friend. Now when you have had made the cuts for the day, as a principle I never watch it then and there before retiring. I always prefer watching the next day – and see whether I can still stand those cuts. Its something I picked up from copywriting – if you have written a tagline or a copy for any product – if you read there itself, its always going to look great. But if you come the next morning and read it and even if then it appeals to you – then that line will be a winner, if not – its time to re-work. So with that thought in mind, when I was doing the re-edit of this film at a friend’s office place – the only person who came early morning there was the peon of the office. Now he used to see me working in early morning hours – but he kept himself busy in his daily chores but obviously if a film is being cut who can resist their eyes and observations. One day when I came and started watching the film, the peon joined me and I told him, am yet to cut so please don’t see and he said its ok, he wont give any reviews on it. After we finished the screening (read:15 mins) he was smiling, I looked towards him from the corner of my eye and as I was just going towards the computer, he said.
“itna achcha toh hai, badal kyon rahe ho?”.
How could I make him understand all those technical errors, which I just mentioned above and my desperate attempts to try and restructure the film – but as I started conversing with him, I realized probably for him as an audience this is working. He loved the fact that the Boy in the film is running and is tensed because his mother may get angry with him. What we call “empathize” – he could do with that character. I agreed to his points and didn’t touch the film then. The result is this:
The film is called “The Homecoming”.
Part 1
Agreed, this doesn’t make the film the way it had to be. It doesn’t make the film a good one. But what I learnt is as they say, “you never know how an audience will react”. I couldn’t judge how a normal film viewer may like it. I was always under the impression that if you have to show it to your contemporaries then what are the faults they are going to see in the film rather than watching the film. Have heard stories of how filmmakers say that “you should always make what you like to see” – and that’s why I was trying to modify but in the end I modified it a little and left the rest as for some particular individual it was working. And this aint an excuse to make a perfect film with all the technical finesse and the right tools to use while telling a particular story – but it is just one of the observations that I would like to share with the future filmmakers. Hope you like the film.
Tags: diploma film, Editing, Short Film, student film
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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
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Satish Kasetty
@ Hardik: thanks a lot for sharing ur valuable experience. will komment on ur film after i finish watching it a lil later. a copywriter has a million things to do! Wut say?
yeah magik i agree…especially when the deadlines are given as “yesterday”…:)
Hi Hardik,
Just watched your film and it was good.
Technically there is no glaring glitch; shots and scenes flow smoothly; there are few instances where the edit is “felt”; the framing as you have pointed out does tend to lessen the movies impact; the use of wide angle-the excess space in shots; the distance from the subjects, lack of close-ups makes the proceedings distant but it still works because the actors especially the mother is forceful and negates the looseness of shots;
As far as the story goes it was engaging and it did create a distintive universe – the audience does enter a new world (of course the idiosyncrasies of Parsi culture helps immensely); the sense of emasculation is real and one does feel for the main protaganist. However there are two issues that make the overall movie less than great
1. The love for the girl is not fully explored; there are no scenes between the boy and the girl that are as interesting as the mother-son scenes and as a result the mother is always a dominant character; so as a result when the boy’s dillema arises between choosing the mother or the girl when he is at a cross-road his choice of the mother seems destined; one does not get the feeling that he can choose other wise;
2. I am not sure I understood the scene where Jehangir actually starts lifting weights. Am i to assume he is reclaiming his manhood and is this what is made evident when he greets the barber? And is this then the shift in the character which leads him to pause at the cross-road because if it is then it needs to be better explained.
I myself am a student at NYU film school (part time) and am learning the craft and i am very happy to see that the movie you have made imagines and executes a story which empathizes with its character and is technically competent to make the craft of movie making seem transparent.
Good Job!
great stuff!!!
Hi KV,
thanks for those observations. yup! u are absolutely on the spot when you say that Jehangir lifting weights – is he seeing himself as someone he wants to – the way he has imagined those exercisers to be – and if u see the arrangement of the shots – after he sees these 3 visuals of him joining them – he smiles at himself and as correctly pointed out that he s now firm on his decision to call off with the girl- and so the barber bit – and as soon as he goes to her house – his resolve starts dissolving as the girl comes near – and then the clock strikes – and he gets paranoid – i agree that the idea is right – coz its written by Mistry, the great – but treatment wise we werent right on top – as a result you went through this doubt.
actually we also shot an ending where Jehangir runs back to the girl after that crossroads – but it was not shot properly and in the end we thought it better to end at the fade out.
thanks for your comments though.
cheers!
hmm, nice film.
btw, u hardik from jamia mcrc?? 2008 batch?
Thanks Hardik,
Also another question. There is a shot where Jehangir is watching what looks like a volley ball being hit back and forth across the window. Is this symbolism in the book or did you guys try to underline the vacillation. Overt symbolism is seems to be kind of passe nowadays so i was wondering the rationale behind the creative choice made here.
Regards
hi animataur!
i am from jamia, mcrc, 2008…how do u know me?
and KV, – that volleyball is something that we were trying to reach what was written in book – but on film we tried to show whether how jehangir wants himself to be distracted from what he had been practicing outside near the door – but i guess we couldnt make that very clear… but we tried by keeping it a silent kind of a mood – much intrusive to himself – but i gues s the treatment wasnt the right.
Hardik,
Nice movie.. congrats to you and the others involved.
Btw, I didn’t get the scene where Jehangir is watching those guys lifting weights and imagines himself doing that. After that, he gives a sheepish smile, gets up and asks haal-chaal of the barber.. And then at the girl’s place he is back to his quiet self…
yaar main siddharth, from animation deptt. i did the lead in 2 of vibha dhaam’s movies. u rembr??
kahan hai bhai? mumbai mein kaise?
a lot of useful information in this post about your experience with shooting film. Like you said it’s important to remember to balance what you like with audience expectations.
Even I have time I’m definitely going to watch the films you linked to in your post.
-Timothy
hey siddharth – obvio i know u man! – the painter who is painting in the lawns and sees a woman roaming in white…:) -
Oxy:
what we had thought on script level is that – Jehangir decides that he needs to call of the relationship but as he goes to her home – he suddenly gets a little nervous – the way it happens to boys…and telling her such a huge decision is not going to be easy – so u see – one may practice and do very well in rehearsals – but when on stage – the best of hte people get nervous- and jehnagir was always a shy guy in the first case – right!
nice to read ur experiences….but, i partially agree…..technical errors are the least to be noticed…the success of a film heavily depends on content & treatment…..& at the student level, technical errors are the secondary things…& believe me, these are not said to defend the blunders that we did during MOHANDAS….I still like my Mohandas….he looks even better with the technical errors….
nikhil