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About 2/3rds into the execrable LADY IN THE WATER, there’s a scene where two characters speak outside the building in a medium shot, exit the scene, followed by a pan of the camera to the building door. The framing now is almost a wide shot. The reason why I am describing shot sizes is to put in perspective some basic rules of horror grammar (itself a modification of thriller grammar).

The way it works is, you build the tension in a close up, with jarring and edgy music, offer relief by cutting to a wide/long shot (where you ease up the music cue), since bad things rarely happen when you can see so clearly, then cut to a medium shot, almost like saying, sorry folks - fake scare - let’s move on with the story, and bring the monster out in this medium shot with minimal sound effect.

Shyamalan is a master …

Time, Quality, Money…You can pick 2!
That is the thumb rule in Animation Production

By Hari Varma, Chief Creative officer – Toonz India
Anurag’s (AK’s) mention in his article on his film Return of Hanuman about me as the real hero of the film prompted me to write this note. In fact in Animation, there are no single individuals. It is all the work of a team and I was only a person who gave the right direction and the right decision at the right time. Luckily everyone was okay with it as they started seeing the results.

Honestly speaking I was thoroughly scared when I heard that Anurag Kashyap is going to direct the film. Animation Film …

iView Author:
Dabba (New York, USA)

Email :
withheld

Gimme some sugar, I am your Reader

Yeh to hona hi tha. The deliciousness of the irony of it all has not been lost on me. I hated to read growing up, and would twiddle my thumbs or sometimes stick it up my arse since it was more fun than listening to my friends discuss Wodehouse or Forsyth or some other nonsense that they were reading. But now I find myself in the unenviable position of Reading (that’s right Mr. Chand, upper case and it’s not a proper noun or at the start of a sentence) on my way to movie glory.

I am part of an elite group of 786,933 readers that have the privilege of influencing the fate of some poor sod’s screenplay. I work freelance for a production house not larger than …

Recently Srinivas approach PFC authors with a question. One of his friends wanted to attend a film school for direction and was confused which one to enroll in. Since the objective was to enroll in a film school outside India (because of Srinivas’s friend’s personal situation), PFC authors who have attended Film schools came in with their advice. The information was so rich and full of good advise, I had to ask them to let me collect all their views and post it on PFC.

For those who are in a similar situation as Srinivas’s friend or have plans to do so in the future, here may be some very useful advise which is hard to get or at least some simple clear advise that doesn’t confuse you further. If some of you have attended film schools, then it would be nice to share in your opinions about them too.

Thani

Growing-up, friends …

The Oscars elicit two broad reactions from the media and film industry in India. The media mourns our annual failure at achieving the acme of global cinema recognition, our film industry says bugger off, its no crowning glory we have our own vibrant industry and we don’t need em.

In my opinion both are equally shrill and misplaced reactions.

First off, the Oscars are an ‘industry’ award for excellence in the American film industry which, like it or not, has been successfully marketed to the world at large as a globally recognizable tag of high achievement in cinema. Yes it is monopolized by the Americans - but America is the worlds largest film market. It also happens to be the most competitive, visible, profitable, sustainable. Where else would you hold such a ceremony?

Does that mean that the best films get nominated and awarded? Of course not. But it doesn’t make the awards …

This little film has done so much for me that now as its fantiastic run continues in festivals around the world, its high time it was made available to whoever wants to see it for free. To read more about the film and its making please become a member of the facebook group associated with the movie.

Little Terrorist: Jamal, a 12 year old Muslim Pakistani mistakenly crosses the border between India and Pakistan, finding an unusual ally in a Hindu Brahmin, Bhola. Indian soldiers descend on Bhola’s village searching for the ‘terrorist’ who crossed over. His neice Rani, insists they can’t let a Muslim into their Hindu home. With Bhola and Rani grappling with the consequences of harboring a Pakistani and their deep-set prejudice against Muslims, Jamal’s only hope is the humanity shared by a people separated by artificial boundaries a long time ago.

Based on a TRUE STORY: …

It can get pretty lonely out there, on a set - particularly the first time. On my first film which involved taking a bunch of very dedicated, professional yet raw foreigners to the wilderness of ladakh on a hopeless budget and a very guerrilla experience, in which I their ‘leader’ had really no filmmaking experience to rub together, it was baptism by fire - in this shoot, what could go wrong went wrong (more about those experiences if anyone’s interested later) and the feeling at the end was that of escaping by the seat of ones pants. The biggest threat in my mind during that seminal experience, apart from the natural and unnatural calamaties that struck our set, was the danger of the original vision and intention of the piece becoming diluted, of me not getting the movie I wanted.

I started writing these small thoughts to myself to refer …

iView Author:
Srinivas N
(Bangalore, India)

EMAIL:
Withheld

We have recently seen some posts on PFC about how typical film budgets are. As everyone knows, there is nothing “typical” in any film budget and it all depends on how much you want to spend. Of course, there are some fixed costs as in the equipment rental, lab charges, negative prices etc but again, they are all dependent on how the director decides to execute the project.

Well, I guess I don’t have to say that more the days of your shoot, the more your expenses will be. Even a dummy is aware of this fact. When you are budgeting your project, the director decides on in how many days he intends to complete his project. Once he decides on the number of days, then the approximate budget on equipment hire and daily expenses can be decided. Then …

Two days after we shot the first phase of Kartiks film, I called KK and asked him…yaar mujhe thoda orgasmic sound chahiye tha, tere paas koi desi porn ki cd hai kya…And KK said, sir aapne bahut sahi aadmi ko phone kiya hai. Aisi cheezein PFC mein do aadmiyon ke paas hi milengi, Bombay mein mere paas aur US mein oz ke paas. I told my funny thought about this film to KK and he burst out laughing. I said, saale has mat mera hero teri hi biwi ko bajayega, south Indian husband tujhe hi banna hai. KK said, are sir bas aap order karo, kar lenge!…

As I have been a totally non-fiction director, this was going to be my first self directed fiction…though it was a 3 mins. funny and stupid concept, I wanted my lead to be played by a professional actor…my second call gone to big bro, …

In my research into screenplay writing, the crime drama fascinated me particularly the ones that tended to portray the use of psychologists to solve crimes. I met with police officers in the UK and discussed the public perception of criminal investigations.
People have unrealistic expectations of the abilities of police to solve crimes - these are fuelled by television dramas and films, which tend to portray investigations as exciting. The truth is the opposite. Solving crime is tedious and time consuming. The demands of commercial media make it imperative that police investigations are presented as being exciting. Psychologists are not routinely employed by police - if they are, it is when police investigations result in dead ends. Criminals are fundamentally different from the rest of us ‘normal’ people. They can be identified from a certain type of appearance. This can again be linked to media, which falls back on stereotypes to …

Pyassa is the result of sheer acumen of Director Guru Dutt. Right from the first scene where Vijay is lying in a garden and a flower falls on him and his mind is resounded with poetical words, film goes ahead with perfect grip of director on the subject. Each frame is well defined. When Vijay finds that source of his poetry is crushed by a careless human being, his poetry filled with happiness suddenly takes a sad turn. He stands up and we see a hole in the back pocket of his trouser and it suggests very well about his economical conditions.
This is the beauty of Guru Dutt that he takes no time in setting the tone of his film. Audience become familiar with the conditions of the main character within 3-4 minutes of the film. Another important aspect of direction of Guru Dutt in the film is that …

this is an article i have written for my research paper and i would like to share it with PFC readers for comments.

FIRST PRINCIPALS These are things that every one who is associated with the medium knows but still there is a need to drive it across again and again. These are guiding principals and common place wisdom by the gurus which I have read across many books and collected in the form of these 14 points , these are not mantras which if you learn by heart will make you better actors but are observation points for an actor to explore throughout and thoroughly during any shooting scenario in which they are actively involved, to understand the mechanics of the medium not only as performers trying to prove your point but as a part of the whole, …

main PATNA mein hoon.
last friday ke pahle se pareshan tha ki is baar review kaise likhoonga.maloom nahi friday ki teenon filmen PATNA mein release hongi ki nahi.aajkal PATNA ke jyadatar cinemagharon mein BHOJPURI filmen hi dikhayi jaati hain.main TIMES OF INDIA dekhta hoon.usmein kisi bhi film ki koi jaankari nahi hai.shayad angrezi akhbaar mein bhojpuri aur hindi filmon ke vigyapan bhi shaan ghatate hon.baharhaal,HINDUSTAN aur DAINIK JAGRAN dekhta hoon.BHOJPURI filmon ke vigyapnon ke beech friday ko release ho rahi teeno filmon ke chhote-chhote vigyapan hain.AAP KA SUROOR sbah 8 baje se dikhyi ja rahi hai.mujhe lagta hai ki distributor ka man rakhne ke liye thetre ne film laga to di hai,lekin darshkon ki naumeedi mein subah se shows rakh diye hain.bhala PATNA mein subah 8 baje film dekhne kaun aayega.ichchha to hoti hai ki main bhi subah 8 ka hi show dekhoon,lekin is dar se nahi jata hoon ki kahin …

One Sunday afternoon, after a delicious lunch of Rajma Chaval (red kidney beans and rice), went in to my bed room to find my phone ringing. The name ‘Toto’ was flashing. Toto is Anurag’s still photographer in No Smoking. I pick up the phone and go, “ haan bhai Toto Singh”(yeah tell me Toto Singh).The voice from the other side doesn’t sound like him, it goes,” Toto nahin Rohit bol rahan hoon” (its not Toto its Rohit). Rohit Khaitan is Anurag’s assistant and is working as a production manager for a series of short films being produced by the Sahara group. After trying calling me a few times and leaving a sms he was calling from Toto’s cell. He wants me to act in a small role in a short film directed by Manish Jha. I have to be at Gateway of India at 5:00 am sharp the next day. …

Anwar Jamal loves to talk, and when you listen to him, you listen in awe. Literary references combine with philosophical insights coated with Anwar Bhai’s polished baritone, and you are transported to a world of stories. And the same effortless storytelling effervescence flows in his film, Swaraj too.

Swaraj, a highly acclaimed film, has been screened in 45 international festivals, has bagged the National Award for Best Film on Social Issues(2003). The screenplay is by Anwar’s wife Sehjo Singh, who is also the executive producer of the film.
Anwar Bhai is also the man behind Film Trust India, a non-profit organization promoted by a group of filmmakers and critics to share the incredible richness of Indian and South Asian cinema with film lovers across the world.

FTI, which apart from Anwar Jamal & Sehjo Singh, has film critics like Utpal Borpujari & Saibal …

The Cheeky Guide to Instant Art-House Success

Prologue

“All Artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn how to Draw?”
– Banksy

This essay is long.
It’s highly opinioned.
It even has opinions about itself.
It’s arrogant, irreverent and generally sarcastic.
It aims to be an academic essay, but can’t be, because of the cheek.
So it aims to be cheeky.
It also aims to reason, but sometimes just runs out of patience and infers.
The sentences are much shorter and lesser complex than Baudrillard’s, so don’t complaint.
This prologue falls a little short of being a disclaimer – it’s too unapologetic.
The article is alternatively named – The Clichés of What We Know as World Cinema and of Scholarly Film Criticism and Look, I’m So Cool.

Chapter One – The Art House Cliché

“Where are the snake charmers? Where are the elephants?”
“In the zoos. Where do you keep them in London?”
- Bombay Boys

Every …

Today’s technology is breaking new grounds. Cinema is just another field witnessing the winds of change. Films or rather movies (How can we call them films, when they are shot digitally :) ) like Collateral, Apacalypto, Star Wars, Sin City, 300…..being shot digitally. But is the present technology cheap? The above mentioned films used professional high end digital cameras to meet a particular purpose, mainly to get the ambient light effects, shooting in low light or for the ease of computer graphics. These films (can’t stop myself from using the same word, please do not mind if I use it again) were not cheap, infact much more expensive than the conventional ones shot on film medium. Wouldn’t it be great if we got a digital camera, which would give similar results as the above mentioned films at a fraction of the cost. It would be relatively easier for aspiring film …

What is method acting?

Method acting is not an acting tool nor is it a book it does not involve growing beard, loosing or gaining weight, living like the character or becoming a character. The most misunderstood term, misused by everyone and it spells nothing but ignorance about the craft of acting, to who ever use it without knowing what it actually is, now a days it is used more in a derogatory context to undermine the effort put by actors towards the craft of acting.

IN FACT There is nothing like method acting it is a wrong term to use.

What is “the method”?

Method is a school of acting,A training method, a technique, a philosophy towards the craft of acting. Better know generally as the American school of acting and specifically to the work done by a pioneer a legend of acting education lee Strasberg.
Method is the step wise approach to …

Hi Folks,

This post is strictly business. But with more cross border film deals happening both in Bollywood and here in the US, some financial and fiscal guidelines to keep in mind. Firstly if there are any legal (actually this entire write up is on the premise that you are transacting the business legally) exchange of remmuneration i.e. monies paid to artist/crew/filmmaker by distributor, etc from India to the US or vice versa, it will be subject to witholding tax or what we in Mumbai call, TDS (tax deducted at source). However, since US and India have a dual tax treaty, this can be avoided, if you inform the remitting party that you will be responsible for the taxes and will claim the benefit of the Witholding law (this has to be given in writing), otherwise there will be the witholding, do expect less in hand than what was meant to …

It has been said often that though both, Raj Kapoor and B R Ishara, dealt with female exposure to a great extent in their films but the difference between them was of the methodology, they applied in their film to cover the exposure of female body and eroticism. While Raj Kapoor exposed his heroines slowly scene by scene, B R Ishara believed in doing things in one go, audience blink and clothes of the female on screen are gone. No diplomatic ways while tackling nudity and exposure and once he filmed his scenes it was up to censor board to handle his films. But nudity in his film was not for the sake of keeping nudity but that was requirement of his scripts. In several films he tackled topics which were taboo in those days.

If he tackled topics related to prostitutes then he did not glamourise them like Bengali …