those were the days!the Alwyn days!
Since the past three days, i have been getting all nostalgic… all thanks to Anurag. Everytime i read his articles, he takes me back to the Alwyn Kalicharan (AK) days, my first film as an assistant director…
This was around 3-4 years back, when i met anurag to be an assistant director on Alwyn (how i met him is an another interesting story..to be told some other time)…and i spent roughly two months with him and his gang of assitants…learning filmmaking (the guy only talks films), watching loads of foreign film dvds and reading Batman comics…anurag thrives on them!
The place used to be Mr TuTU Sharma’s 14th floor office (the producer)in Andheri…where there were rehearsals with Mr Anil ‘unsure’ Kapoor, costume trials, casting..everything!!!
And it was one amazingly energetic place to work. Anurag is one of the few directors (and i have worked with a quite a few of them) who welcomes suggestions from everybody…including the spot boy!!! When he is working on a film, he is like an 8 year old boy full of excitement, full of enthusiasm and passion.
I remember reading the script of AK on the first day..it was a futuristic thriller set in a fairy tale land…and had amazing characters!!! We worked on the pre production for two months and were all set to leave for Delhi where it was supposed to be shot…and the film got stuck and the schedule got cancelled! i was shocked. The first film on which i worked, for which i had dropped out of college, was stuck!! How was i going to answer my parents who were always against me joining the uncertain world of films!! It was heartbreaking!
But there was a silver lining…
The rest three months I spent at home and with nothing to do, i took to writing!! I showed Anurag the first script i had written and he loved it!! he encouraged me to write and write..and thanks to him, today i am a writing one of the most successful comedy shows on television and a feature film! AK didn’t get made but what a learning experience it turned out to be!
But I hope the next diary that anurag writes after no smoking on PFC… is called the ‘Alwyn Kalicharan diary”…because that film deserves to get made!!!
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
WOW …
thanks for sharing ur journey with us Nu …
Anil ‘unsure’ kapoor … hilarious !!!
May be ur next post should be … how u met him !!!!
- NU, Thanks for sharing the story with the cinema fanatics. Three golden posts this morning on PFC… and I’m going teary eyed… wait… yeh khushi ke aanson hain :((
can anybody please explain this rush inside me right now?? i feel like i’m in f*cking seventh heaven. with anurag and his prior AD writing posts on PFC and making us feel that much closer to the action… it’s just.. f*ckin amazing.. u’re right oz.. yeh tho khushi ke aansoo hain.. and if crying feels this amazing then i really don’t want to do anything else. i think one of my future posts will have to be “how i almost acted with anurag” ;)
This is so freaking fantastic.. Wont it be amazing if we have Varun to post too and also Rajkumar..
:-”
the kid in you guys has come out to play. i just wonder what you lot be like when having a (live) filmi discussion or at some set.
- Striker, Thank God, its just not me. I can hardly keep my mouse away from the refresh button! WTF IS GOING ON!!!!!
HG, let’s make a film, and you’ll know what i’m like in person :d
erm, why are messages showing up as blank?
anyway striker, you guys make a film and i will review it.
Answering u HG – i guess if all of us guys got together once …. there’s gonna be an all day-night looooong discussion …and with more ‘khushi key aanso’