Friday, May 21, 2021

First swipe at Film making

 

I just registered for a film making course with Ramani and he has already brought  a difference to my life. I have shot my first ‘Video’,  thanks to the first Exercise in Ramani’s film making course.  At first I thought it strange of Ramani to dispatch an exercise even before the course had started.

But Ramani’s description of a Shot and the things that he looks for in it got me hooked. The fact that he said shots reflected attitude, ruled out any casual attempts. I had to put some effort to make a good submission. I was jogging my brain for different concepts/ ideas I could work on. Even though we were in a lock down, I did not like the idea of domestic scenes.

The conversation/ encounter I had the previous day with a woman who was selling palm fruits, inside a farm, appeared to be a good premise to capture on video. But this would require going back to her, convincing her and repeating a conversation- at the loss of natural behaviour. But it was still worth trying, I thought. I was thinking in terms of possible angles, dialogues and scenes to include in the video. Viola!! This felt so different to me. I was venturing new territory. I was learning a new language, a craft.

But then I did not want to wait till going out to the farm and wanted to have a couple of back up videos, as time was short and the deadline was drawing closer. So in a moment of intrepidity, I took my phone and stepped out of the house. It felt very different. I was trying to script a video out of thin air. And there were so many stories happening around me.

A bunch of goats grazing around offered themselves for a shot, I tried my camera on them, but then it felt stupid not to capture the flight that was passing by making all that noise that registered itself in the goat video. A second shot that I tried centering on the kolam in front of our house and capturing the legs of the goats as they walked on it, was good , but fell sadly short of capturing one mischievous goat that was eyeing the open gate and trying to enter the house. The video didn’t feel complete without capturing this mischief.

Then I thought of a concept around ‘flying’- capturing bees, butterflies, crows, and finally a flag. I had also conceived a poem a to go with this video.

Flying

The flight of the bees feels like music

The flight of the crow feels like an escapade

The flight of the myna feels like fresh rain drops

The flying of a flag…?

 

The video did not work because the actors failed to turn up just in time.. Finally, a video of two goats answering each other’s calls and in the end, walking together felt good. It had everything I was looking for - an idea, concept, actors, sound and all- falling in place. It was worth submitting for the course.  

I am glad that this simple exercise has done profound things to me. I have had an opportunity to experience what it feels like to conceive and create something. I have now had a swipe at being an artist. I had conceived a poem after such a long time. I was now looking at the movies on my TV in terms of the shots that they had been conceived and found a lot more to appreciate in a movie. That’s a whole new world opening up before me. Thanks to Ramani’s first exercise..