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Movie making is not easy, man. Making the PFCOne movie is a big lesson to many armchair critics here including me who wax eloquently on where a movie worked, where it didn’t, blah blah blah…I made a couple of movies which are now listed among the entries. It was my first time that I ever attempted making a movie of any kind (excluding random home movies) and it was great fun.

Writing the script is the easy part. That is, once you have the idea or the inspiration for it. Otherwise it’s tough as hell. And writing a script is not something that you can will yourself to do, especially for me, even if it had to last only a minute. If it doesn’t come to you, you can’t help it. Agree?

But how does one write for a minute? I wrote a page of stuff and then tried to imagine all the shots that would go into the movie. Against each of them put down a time in seconds and then added them all up. Invariably this leads to the chopping off of scenes which if included, you are sure would win you the first prize. But anyway, they have to go.

Now for the casting. It is a deflating experience to find out that people around you don’t share the same enthusiasm for what you think is the best thing to happen since twenty twenty cricket. They listen to your script, laugh, make suggestions and then…disappear. Thankfully, both my scripts required only one more person (since I had decided to cast myself to save the effort) and I happened to owe my roommate a few thousand. I am sure you can put two and two together.

Now the technical part. I had a JVC Digicam with me but oh man, the constraints that we filmmakers have to work under. Since there were only two of us on the venture, both of us could never be on the same shot at the same time since one of us had to hold the camera! (I didn’t have a tripod or anything like that) And the fcukall lighting! The tube light was always in the wrong place. We never had curtains where we wanted them and why the bloody hell are we paying the apartment complex the maintenance moneys if they can’t even have proper lighting in the corridors?!

The direction part was great fun. It makes you feel real important as you keep making inane suggestions to the poor volunteer on the other side of the camera.

“When you say ‘responsible’, don’t worry about the pronunciation. You are supposed to be agitated, so say it…um…irresponsibly!”

“You are angry so stare at the camera….no! no! don’t blink!!”

Good fun. Not Acting though. Whatever you do, you will continue to look ugly. God wasn’t paying attention when he was making you and me.

Enough said. I can talk a bit more about the editing part which was quite a learning experience with the editing software available but let it be. All you guys who am sure are the real deserving entries in this competition please talk about your experiences as well.

And the rest, you still have a week left!

Hey, wait a minute. I almost forgot to talk about the reactions I got. Well, whoever I showed it (my first of the two) to didn’t understand what happened in the last 15 seconds. Dumb people, it was so obvious! Why didn’t they get it? I think I felt like Anurag Kashyap getting reactions about ‘No Smoking’. Though in my case, it was not the surreal or metaphorical nature of the plot but just incompetent camera work. Oh well!

It’s a wraP!

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