learning with a humane artist..

it has been a month since my last post about my first exercise and i have in the mean time had my first brush with the various aspects of film making over fiver weekends, thanks to Ramani's course. This was such a cool course in its structure and execution, every wwekend we had 8 sessions, 4 with Ramani reviewing our exercises and 4 with experts who shared their knowledge. there was no compulsion to attend all the sessions and these were so good that you felt bad if u missed one. i am really glad i signed up for it.

as a part of the course i have had the oppurtunity to listen to some very fine film makers talk about their art and craft. i picked a few nuances on film appreciation and the great amount of thinking that goes into the making of every shot. i also enjoyed watching the works and development of peers from the course and listening to their perspectives.

The level of openness in the course was liberating and the gentle goading to complete exercises was motivating. It was rewarding to listen to Ramani and fellow course takers view and discuss one's exercises. These review sessions though they seemed to be a lot of drudgery, were quite enjoyable in that they were samples of work in progress. We had the option to skip these sessions, it was more exciting when your work or someone familiar's work was being discussed. But Ramani had to sit through all our exercises and discussions. it was quite a revelation to see Ramani watch every exercise with the same intent, sense of excitement and interest, and invariably pat with a , 'hmmm.. nice.. ', at the end of any work, before going into discussing different aspects of the work and inviting others to pitch in with their views.

In the first session of the course we got to listen to Biswajit Das, an animation film maker. Biswajit had recently converted to film making from abstract painting and during the lockdown he had kept himself motivated and charged to produce 100 animations videos over 100 days. he introduced editing tools and made editing and video making look very simple. 

In an another interesting session, listening to Narayanan talk, opened up so much to read into Ghatak's film Subarnareka. One particular haunting scene of a demon like character frieghtening child Sita, just as she is shown walking across a crack running across the dry landscape, suddenly made so much sense when he mentioned an allusion to Ramayana, and hintng upon  Ghatak's involvement in street theatre and art before coming to films. All these put together suddenly made the film so much more beautiful and meaningful. 

In another memorable session of the course,we had a chance to listen to Prateek Vats talk about his films Eeb Allay Ooo and A very old man with enormous wings. After watching a short video on the FTII Row, i expected to see a firebrand youth activist in Prateek, but we got to hear a very cool and composed professional speaking eloquently about his craft and attitude to film making.

A couple of disturbing scenes in 'very old man' and the way Prateek talked about filming it and framing it and putting them in a perspective spoke a lot about the depth of his philosophy, passion and honesty. The way he explained nuances that went into the making of select scenes from eeb allay ooo revealed his solid technical clarity and the openness to share it with us was humbling. 

Ramani's closing session for the course was an immersive session on his journey in film making and a peek into his filmography. The session brought to fore the ever experimenting artist in Ramani and the amorphous character of his films. the session glided on for 5 hours and no one was in a mood to leave and finally Ramani had to take the call to close the session filled with emotions.

the course was also a great oppurtunity to relish and learn from films made by course mates and drawing inspiration from their works and experiences. this was the fifth batch for Ramani since the lock down and he is as excited as ever.