My Dev.D Diary
My DEV.D Genesis
First heard of Dev.D on the last day of shoot of No Smoking @ Kamalistan. It was lunch time. KK and Smriti of PFC were there too. AK happened to mention he plans to make a modern version of Devdas. Paro would be rustic and a strong jatni and Chanda an escort in Delhi. Of course the way AK narrates one does get a little inquisitive. A little more than that I was, inquisitive is just putting it mildly.
It was 2 am in that night and I was bunking at AK’s place. Me and a friend were sleeping in his room while he was busy writing. Eyes opened he was writing. He wanted to narrate. He did. He was around half way thru. Loved whatever he was narrating. Someone should record it and put it for reference. He is one of the best narrators. Sometimes everyday scenes seem so damn interesting when narrates them. They seldom are boring or mediocre but then when he is on song one seldom notices. It’s only in the 2nd or 3rd readings that one notices and starts nitpicking. But then that’s the process as he always says when we get overly critical or generally hyper over our view points and suggestions. “Sab process hai re …shanti rakh…aaisa hi hota hai”. Anyways he finished in an hour, took some feedback and we went to sleep. He was up. The next morning he narrated the complete second draft. The second Dev.D draft was I guess written in less than 8 hours. A previous one by Vikram was already there. This was AK ‘s trip. And a trip it is. Quirky, slick, stylish but with a simple love story to say. A tale of love lost and self-destruction. A new millennium Devdas. A Devdas in the era of Internet and rampant consumerism. An Devdas in a generation which believes in instant gratification be it clothes, be it food, be it sex, be it Love….
MERI LAAG GAYEE!!!!
And as for my diary. My trip to the abyss and back had not even started ïŠ
I knew I was absent minded and a bit clueless as a trait. I can’t improve on it. But being a clueless and absent minded Assistant Director. Hmmmmm…that’s something else.
Preproduction started. Casting. Gautam was the casting director and in many ways has been instrumental in making me a little more responsible. He and Raj Kumar have always been after my ass for this and I am indebted. Thankful. Seriously working on being a bit more there than a lost case. I can go into zero zone at will, in my own dream space without a care or worry about the surrounding. And that seriously can’t be done with shooting for a film and with AK at the helm one better be as alert as a deer. That was surely a very very tough call for someone like me.
Shoots can be taxing, all consuming, tiresome but it’s one of those great moments one will always cherish. I’ll hold on to them for all my life.
The Punjab schedule was an early morning one in the first half. Get up by 2:30 in the morning sleep by 12am the next day….get up at 2 again and ready to roll. The camera team always leaves first and it’s the AD teams duty to be there before anyone else esp. the cameraman. Rajeev Sir is one of the most disciplined and cool DOPs. It was a perennial race with him each morning. His team would be up and ready…and a little early most of the times. We had to rush to keep up to his timings. That was the ideal jolt one needs for a long relentless day that would await us.
I was looking after ART from the direction team. Making sure each prop was there and the continuity maintained. Takes a lot of focus and regulation to take care of it on a day to day basis and my fuck ups started right on day one.
THAT FUCKIN YELLOW PLASTIC BAG.
We had already shot with that plastic bag on day one. The bag with flowers hung on Paro’s cycle. Day 2 morning 5 am. Shoot to begin. Fucking hell my art help forgot to get it. My checklist incomplete without it. Continuity. I was shit scared. The whole team Anubhuti, Anshul, Shlok were around me asking what happened. Why am I looking jacked. “Kya bhoola…” was the first thing Anubhuti asked me. Of course I forgot something. As the shoot progressed one look into my sad eyes and people knew I was upto something.
It was a sunrise shot and the shot will last for a few minutes and of course all props had to be in place and there was no time to wait. Nature can’t stop for anyone but it did for me. Heavy fog. Heavy fucking fog. The shoot got stalled for 2 hours. Till then I got my bag. Even now when I see that shot I have a lump in my throat.
That was just the starting of all my woes. Fuckin day after day keeping a track of props and keeping in mind their continuity. We do take pictures to help us out but when one shoots at the speed of light and with the AK-Rajeev Ravi combo there is hardly time to think, watch and rearrange.
MY LEARNING FROM THE 36th Chamber of AK Shooting Methodology.
One great thing about working with AK is to know the importance of options. OPTIONS, ALTERNATIVES and SPONTANEOUS thinking is his strength. That’s why he can wrap his films at such budgets and with great output. One of the biggest tools to be learnt from this is SINGLE SHOT scenes. It can backfire if not done properly and directors usually take the safe route of taking shots from all possible angles so that one is not jacked in the edit for lack of options. AK dares to do that. SINGLE SHOTS. That adds speed to the proceedings, gives great scope for improvisation and gives the actor great energy to give it all and great space to perform…and then maybe just one close or a cut away for the editor if there is a need for a cut anywhere.
I always keep gushing about Mani Ratnam and RGV single shot scenes to KK. AK too does some amazing spontaneous long single shot scenes. Watch out from them in Dev.D…..great learning and of course I drool on them in Gulaal.
More soon…..
Tags: Dev.D
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
Interesting article Vasan. Working with AK must have been a great learning experience for you, and we’ve seen the results in Automa##.
Where did you shoot in Punjab?
very nice read
keep them coming vasan
guru D needs to teach classes and/or write a book on narrations. imagine how much strugglers would benefit!
great write up chhote guru. especially love the bit about single shot scenes.. love doing those. it’s like theater. the moment, the space, everything.. is yours.
Vasan,
thanks for sharing,.
put some photos boss,
if you have any; while shooting.
yeh tho bada zabardast diary banega…sahi hain machha..i always used to wonder, what would an AD do almost zero experience of being on shoots, etc..now i know..They wait for Fog..ehhehe…j/k
Keep it going..this diary is engaging
more more more
yeh dil maange more…saala foggy fatass…abhi start kiya padhna ki khatam ho gaya….kya starter hai, by gowd!! aur lao..jaldi jaldi…aur kuch photo shoto mere bhai!!!
Quoth the Shekhar “More & More”
You’ve “COME ALONG” a long way my friend. If Dev D means anything to me apart from being an AK Film is your presence in the credits of the film, clap, clap.
“I knew I was absent minded and a bit clueless as a trait. I can’t improve on it. But being a clueless and absent minded Assistant Director. Hmmmmm…that’s something else.”
—-hehe pure gold dude i can totally identify with that line…..
great write up!!
interesting read
to quote kk and shekhar…..”more more more & more”
waiting for the next installment
Vasan,
More more more….
everything thing has a shelf life. Lets hear it all before new memories overwrite these.
nice read but y ur putting the f world here n there…just for sake of it??
regards
mars
Gattuji, kya baat bol di!!! Yeh it does feel like travelled quite a distance…..long long way to go.But your words will keep me motivated and going no matter what
thanks a ton….brings back the Anand Theater days…..Mount Road…Chennai 
aa aha….
Mars. Sorry will keep check henceforth…
Will try and keep adding more…..ASAP.
more dope. more dope.
god..i thought my part in the delhi production was the most taxing one..but you did a lot more shit than that
i’m happy that you are writing about your experiences in the blog. there’s so much to learn from posts like these…for instance, the continuity like u explained…but i really had a great learning experience with you guys (i can’t forget Gautam and his tummy problem)in Delhi…
Thanks Vasan…you’ve been a really nice guy…thanks again
Vasan… I was the witness to what you underwent during Gulaal rehearsal scene with students… but you said that always happens… so I can understand what it would be like when you say tough! MORE is the word!!!
Vasan, Talking about the budget, was curious to know the figures. Dev.D has a good visibility everywhere. Like always UTV has done a good job in promotions. My guess would be atleast 1.5 to 2 crores a figure of OLLO pubilicity. What about the production budget of Dev.D? OLLO had a budget of 8 crores. So is 8 cr a ball park figure?
Its not a tough job actually if one is focused and regulated in ones conduct…..am just too all over the place I think hence felt the burden a little too much…
But then whatever makes one tick . I don’t think I am a good AD per say. Kind of unreliable
But I love being on a set…I can do more gadha majoori than some constructive work as an AD that is. I love giving the clap and generally run around to fix last moment fuck ups…last moment demands…thats more of a thrill for me to come-up with things in the last moment than a planned effort…which is a must if you are an AD and the prime duty is to avoid the last moment running around…what to do?? as a personality trait I am incapable of being a good AD…sigh :( but will always cherish my days as an AD.I got more than my deserving share to be of any help to the director…I loved it…learnt important lessons…came to know my weaknesses….THANKS A TON Sirjeee. no amount of discussion and blah blah can replace the back breaking toil on a film set….that’s some learning….some basics on cinema…a relationship with cinema than just pure hollow infatuation…..it puts your head in place…puts one into serious introspect….
and darn need to get back to work and complete my deadline….today is the bloody 15th.enough of blah blah
Manjeet – money matter – no clue man…
Sahee..interesting read
Dear Vasan, I think you are a good AD and your hollow infatuation with cinema will take u somewhere if u persist. I saw ur short and it has some sparks which gives me hope to see a full fledged film-maker out of u. Keep up and believe in urself. Love to entire Dev.D. Tushar Patel
Tushar Bhai – still remember you waking us up @ 3 in the morning….and running around to wake everyone else up. yeh hope floats…lets see whats in store…keep in touch and do let me know whats happening on ur script.
its really very nice to read ur experience…Ravi sir is simply best and one of fastest dop…Anurag sir is always on the trip of innovation and variation…all d best for ur upcoming projects….wud u still like to be continuity-supervisor?
paraM.
When I first heard of Dev.D here @ PFC, I thought, “OMG! what kind of a C-grade sex flick is this sounding like!”
.
.
Now with more and more stories, music release, posters, the 1 day on the set etc, am really really excited about this.
A nice read, this post… aur sahi mein, yeh dil maange more
Btw, I prefer this kind of a post over a post half (in content) of this and half with pics. So post even if you dont post any pics to go with
@Vasan baba
Honestly, one can really learn a lot by watching you on the sets. You are one of the ADs who have worked the hardest in the film. Forget the fuck ups…they come with the package ;-)
Loved the whole experience of going back to the day 1 and 2 of the shoot…and of course the YELLOW PLASTIC BAG! Shlok made us look for ANYTHING YELLOW in those fields!
rbehemoth – pics….did not have time to click them yaar….you were there on sets one day…you saw how it was
infact do write in abt. here…
Prerna – thanks 1. for the Green Ball(I’ll write abt. it in the next post) and taking care of me along with Mahie when I was down with 105 fever…I know I could hardly open my eyes…all I remember is a few kisses from the people who were leaving for Manali that very evening..and you pouring cold water on my forehead..can’t forget those moments…
Close to 40 days of being together as a team….sulking, fighting, working. One hell of a ride.
If AK has really done it – a Devdas without the self-pity and without the horribly repressive male chauvinism, then he’s done something wonderful. Can’t wait to see this.
arey, no reply…
yeh yeh anjalika …ur the nicest and the bestest girl in the whole of Delhi
haha….itna mat keech mere tang ko…i’ll get crippled
Vasan, great post! With your usual self effacing humour. As for being the continuity guy, that’s one job I DO NOT envy!!!
have see the movie now…read way too much about it……loved black friday….am preparing myself to get shocked… I want to see is picture ki shelf life kya rahegi…will ppl remember it 5 yrs down the line (for whatever reasons) like they recall the other Devdasses..
creativity ka ye expression kaafi dilchasb hai.
we are either hitting new highs or lows…..
Dear Vasan,
I just watched DEV D and i guess one of the most psychedelic genre of movies to be made in India. The last time I saw such gritty screenplay was in Jhonny G and trust me hats off to AK for dev d.. even read abhay deol had to take vipasna for a week..and now i know why::))) I feel the best shots would be the way neon lights of delhi gel with the mood of Dev and the banging drift from vodka shot to zip zap..shots…I would love to know more about ur exp. while shooting dev d)) like different shots and was it more of on-shoot editing??
too long a post..
i loved the movie….
Can someone post a clip of Anurag’s narration of a scene that he’s not shot yet ? I would like to listen to the narration and then go see the movie to see how it matched what he described.