QnA with Manish Acharya – Part 2.
A much more emotionally charged Manish tells us more about his film’s release, how he likes to direct and what he wants to do in the future. The concluding part of the interview with Manish Acharya.
PFC: Thanks for joining us again Manish. Let’s continue about Loins of Punjab Presents. After the script of LOPP was locked up, what were the challenges you faced when shooting here in the US or in India? How was the response of the people working with you to this new idea?
Manish: I will go with the second question first. I started with recruiting key crew, and one of the main criteria was that we shared a similar aesthetic and that they got the humor in the script. For example, my DoP, Arvind Kannabiran, still jokes about me asking him who his favorite authors were on our first telephone conversation. And his answer was important to me. I mean all DoP candidates would name the usual cinematographer suspects as their inspiration but I was interested in their other influences … who they read, what kind of music they listened to, etc. I wanted to work with people that I would enjoy hanging out with … And while the jury is still out whether that is the right way to choose crew … I was quite happy with the approach. At least now, I get invited to parties. 
Anyway … the other advantage to this approach was that the crew that was assembled was one that was excited about working on a script that wasn’t the usual fare. And that was a huge positive. In fact, it was folks like Arvind, and Nakul Kamte (my location sound mixer and sound designer), and LP (first AD), and Shubha (script supervisor), and many others, that kept themselves and me going even under adverse circumstances.
And the adverse circumstances generally came from the weakest link in the chain. There were a couple of members on our crew that, for whatever reason, were not performing as per specifications. And when one is working on a very tight schedule with limited budgets and an ensemble cast of 15 lead actors and 30 supporting cast … well, a slip-up is deadly. However, in our case, nothing was fatal, and we finished the movie with very few compromises.
PFC: Manish, could elaborate more on how it was shooting in NJ and in Mumbai? Specifically, how similar or different it was shooting in NJ and Mumbai? Were the support crews different or were most of them same? How about the permissions, getting along with actors and other stuff?
Manish: I had a larger crew while I was in Mumbai and we also had taken more time recruiting this crew. And so in summation, it was easier for us to work in Mumbai than in NJ. In the US, our budget constraints forced to work with a much smaller crew. And I was wearing more hats in the US than I was wearing in Mumbai, and so for me personally the US shoot was tougher. You asked about permission, actors, etc. Well, the main actors were wonderful in both places (and also in large part common to both places). I do think that the junior artists/extras in the US are really good. In India, one has to really work with them to get them to not look like bored extras in the background.
In terms of locations, it was definitely easier to find locations in the US that would work for us. However, to get those places within our budget was tougher. I mean everything is more expensive in the US, and locations are no different. So looking at it from a costs perspective … it was easier to get what I wanted in India. A simple example … lunch in Manhattan costs about $8-$12 per person which is Rs. 330 to Rs. 500. Lunch in India was below Rs. 120. Feed 50 people and it’s Rs. 15,000 cheaper. 3 meals a day … about a Rs. 45,000 savings. You see how it adds up. It’s just an example, but shooting in India is easier when you are on a lower budget. HOWEVER, and this is big one, … there is a certain disregard for detail in India … and for someone like me who believes that movies live and die in the details … that was tough. To me that would be the toughest part of shooting in India — the disregard for detail.
And one more thing … Given our large supporting cast … India was a good place to shoot some of our scenes …as it allowed us access to a larger pool of talented Indian actors. And I am not talking about the folks in Bollywood or those who are hamming it on TV, but the folks you find in theater, in regional cinema, etc. We really got some amazing actors from places that are usually skipped by most productions/casting directors.
PFC: Agree with you on that Manish. I thought the casting was amazing. During the screening, I saw faces that I could instantly recall even though they had no notable “commercial cinema” success.
Moving on…
So how would you classify LOPP based on how you see the movie? Would you call it crossover cinema or do you want to classify it an indie movie? How difficult was it to sell it to the distributors and what was the approach you employed while pitching for LOPP?
Manish: I think it is an art house masala flick. I don’t like the word crossover because I am not really sure from what and who is being crossed over. In the US, this would definitely be a low-budget Indie film. In India, almost all films are Indie films as there are no studios as in the US. One can consider some large production houses in India like YRF to be a mini-studio. And our film is not from one of these large production houses and so it is more of an Indie than the regular Indian Indie. It is Independently Indie.
Selling the movie to a distributor was tough. We were a bit of a dhobi ka kutta (na ghar ka, na ghat ka). In the US, they saw us as a movie where brown people spoke English and that too not on the banks of the Ganga, or in some exotic celebration, but in New Jersey! The comment that I heard most often was “We love it. But how will the average American take to it?” I guess I was blessed that only hundreds of non-average Americans showed up for the screenings in NY and LA and liked it. :-/
In India, we were an English movie and so people wanted to classify us as a Crossover film or put us in some other box that they could categorize/ignore. (Aside: I love the fact that we in India can actually consider an English-speaking demographic of 200 million people as marginal.) Luckily some forward-thinking distributors really liked the movie, and made offers. In the end, PVR has picked up the ALL INDIA rights for the film, and they will be releasing it on September 14 in India.
In terms of the pitch … I had no pitch. I just asked people to see the completed film. I guess the film is my pitch. (And I hope we are on a good wicket.)
PFC: That’s awesome! Congrats Manish, Great News. So how is the release being planned? How many prints, only metro release or do you have a country wide strategy? September 14 is like a month away? Are the promos on air yet?
Manish: Thanks! We are in the midst of all that planning right now. In fact, the deal was signed yesterday. I do think that this is more of a Metro release… and so we’ll probably open in all the big metros … Mumbai, Pune, Delhi & NCR, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Calcutta, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, and others … PVR is still working on that plan. I think the TV promos and theatrical trailers and stuff will start 2-3 weeks before release and so around Aug 24 or so. (BTW: the article got the title wrong intially. :-( It is LOINS OF PUNJAB PRESENTS (and not LIONS).
PFC: We at PassionforCinema will not get it wrong, count on us. Coming back… Manish, how did you develop your style as a director? More specifically, how do you go about your method of directing a particular shot? Do you have it all drawn out and have it laid before the actors or do you like to experiment on the sets? Also, how does one train oneself to be a director i.e. actually being there and making a shot happen? In layman’s terms, what is it to be a director?
Manish: Wow! Couldn’t you asked me something easier … like what is the meaning of life? Anyway … let me give it a shot…
First …take everything that follows to be a reflection of my current state of thinking on this topic. I feel that I may be able to answer some of these accurately only after 20 movies under my belt (if then). It kind of feels weirdly egotistical to talk about my directing style and directing approach after having made only one feature film. I don’t know if I have a style yet. Anyway, the way it started for me is that I reacted to something in the script, in the characters. These truths burrowed themselves into my psyche, and as a director, in pre-prod, in rehearsals, on set, in post … I was simply trying my best, with the help of the cast and the crew, to unearth these truths. So, for example, if I saw a design for a set, I would look at it, and try and answer … is this true for the character? Is the true to the script? I try to make sure that all our artifice is REAL. As an aside, I would like to distinguish Real from Realistic. “The Matrix” is not realistic. But it is real. If you buy the premise, the situation, the characters, everything else is treated like it is “real.” So one can make a movie of an unrealistic premise, and make it very real. I think our epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, are good examples. I am not sure if Hanuman actually lifted the entire mountain and brought it back to save Lakshman’s life. I don’t find that very realistic. But in the story it is very real and very dramatic. I think my directing ’style” (if I have one) is, therefore, to keep things real.
About the actual logistics … I am not a big story boarder, but I do make shot lists and overhead plans. I rehearse a couple of times, and sometimes film the rehearsals as well. I would hate to be on location, with all the lights, costumes, etc. and have the actor do something that captures “truth” and not have that on film. That would be like fixing the telescope in the basement as Haley’s comet passes by.
About experimenting, I experiment with ways lines are said etc. but I try to stick to the script. It would be weird to think that after months of toiling by writers, directors, etc, than an actor will come up with something more brilliant and more rhythmic on the spur of the moment. And so I try to stick to the script. However actors do come up with suggestions, and if we think it’ll work, I’ll definitely try it. The only master we all serve on set is the movie. I’d like it to be me … but it’s the movie.
And a last practical thing … I have always found that telling the actors to do it faster (for one take, perhaps the last one) yields surprising and wonderful things. Don’t know why. It just does.
So if I can sum it up … directing for me is an instinct for the real. How do I prepare? Observe a lot. Store it in a dusty corner of my brain. Pull it out when I am directing. Something like that. Or not.
PFC: Before we move on from LOPP, take us through the emotional highs and lows you faced from the time LOPP started. Am sure for a first time director, you must have gone through a lot. What were they and how did you go about them? Please feel free to add whatever it is that you would like to tell us more about LOPP that you think we have not covered.
Manish: Emotional highs and lows? Are you preparing for a Part III of this conversation? Really, there are too many to list. Every day has a bunch. I am trying to list a few as examples but then I feel like I am shortchanging the other emotions. What I remember most about the journey that it is a marathon, and you have to sprint, not jog … and often you run alone. People join you at different times … for instance my co-writer ran with me during the writing, and then I was alone as I raised funding, and then the crew ran with me during pre-production, and the cast joined us during production, and then again I was alone, and then the editor started running … it is a long long journey as an independent director/producer. And more than anything else … one has to have the stamina to do it. Every time you think you are done … you are not. Even right now … the movie is being distributed but I have to do my share of publicity to get people to come see it. And even then the marathon may not be over. How do I get people in Australia to see it, for instance? So, I guess the question becomes… Why do we do it then? Why run the not-sure-when-it-ends marathon? Partly out of ignorance. Mostly out of passion. I have no choice. I don’t want to do anything else.
About LOPP … well, I think the movie stands for itself. I am proud of it. I think it treats the audience with intelligence and values the 90 minutes of their life that they give to it. I hope all your readers see it. And if they like it, I hope they tell their friends to see it. I wrote this for a festival that asked for a director’s note and I will replicate it here … “when I watch the film, the characters in the movie come alive for me. And just as I once breathed life into them, they now breathe life into me.” I hope they breathe life into you as well.
PFC: It worked for me and I am sure once more authors of PFC catch LOPP; they will have a lot more to say about the film. Before we wrap up Manish, what is your vision as a director? How do you plan to keep doing what you are and to still remain honest and true to your belief systems irrespective of all the allure that you may be prone to because of success? How is the future looking now and how are things lined up for you?
Manish: I am hoping to sell my soul to the star-system. And for anyone interested, there is a huge discount on my soul right now. Am I’m going to remain honest and true to my belief systems? Obviously I think that I will … and that I won’t get seduced by the glamour and the big budgets and all that. If the movie flops, I have no choice but to stick to the belief system. That’s all I’ll have. In the case of success, that’s when it gets interesting. I hope to continue to make art house masala flicks like LOINS OF PUNJAB PRESENTS. I hope to never put a woman in a wet saree just to titillate the audience. I hope to not insult the audience’s intelligence with comedies that rely mostly on slapping people repeatedly. I hope to not forget that my only master is the movie, and my only goal is to create the “real.” And if I do … hopefully people who liked LOINS
will set me right.
PFC: Awesome!!! Finally, anything you want to add about PFC or to its authors?
Manish: Be torch bearers for this film (and others like it). Filmmakers like me (and Navdeep Singh, and Rajat Kapoor, and Onir, and others on PFC) do not have the huge production budgets and marketing budgets of the biggies. But we hope to have you! And I would like to think that a small bunch of passionate and committed people can still make the difference, can still cause the revolution. As Margaret Mead has told us…. nothing else ever has. Anurag Kashyap once wrote on PFC that the “new wave is coming.” Well let’s try and make the new wave a tsunami. As a filmmaker I have done what I can do … now it’s up to you, the viewer.
PFC: Thanks for those words Manish. From everyone at PFC; thanks for taking the time. We wish you and your film all the very best and success and looking forward to having you back with your next film very soon.
Manish: My pleasure.
PFC Note: The pre-release trailers of Loins of Punjab Presents will be up very soon here at PFC so keep watching this space.
Tags: Direction
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
Thanks to PFC and Manish ji for this interview. I’m really looking forward to this movie and I was very pleased to see that there was a distribution deal in India … is there any plan in the works for US theatrical release? I can’t wait to see it.
carla
(filmi geek)
Thats was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!
thanks manish and ravi
Thanks for the interview.
BTW Manish Do you know Joana from NYC? She is Polish. Her nicname is Asia(pronounced ASHA).
***************
Last Film – MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (8/10) Gus Van Sant is awesome.
Music – Mo’ Horizons
Book – Confessions of a Economic Hitman
Hey Carla and Varun! Thanks for enjoying this … I hope you enjoy the movie even more.
Carla – we are working towards securing a US deal (fingers and eyes crossed) … I will definitley keep PFC-ites informed.
Mainak – I knew a Joanna from NYU. She was a couple of years after me in the program, but I think she was from Poland. Not sure about the nickname though. Why do you ask?
Hey Manish…. so happy to know that the film is finally arriving. will go to the theatre and watch it again. loved the way you quoted Anurag …
Great interview:)
Trailer of LoPp hooked me from day one. I was like always waiting when it is going to release here..so now, 14 Sep is something to cheer for and
Atray — Thank yu so much. May your tribe multiply.
Onir — Thanks for all the good wishes. What I need now is a foot massage. Perhaps at our next GIFA trip? :d
Splendid….”I think it treats the audience with intelligence and values the 90 minutes of their life that they give to it.”
This interview is an intellectual treat !!!
Thanks CC.
Hey Manish !(Manna)
Is it UUUU ? U nut where were u so long ? shoot me an email at joyveerdutt@rediffmail.com.
I am really feeling nostalgic by getting your name their. M tooooooo happy for u buddy.
Cheers ! Gold flake piyega ?
Joy.
Hi,
congrats..ur film is highly appreciated…would like to contact u regarding a project…please do get back…farid