I Shot Myself - behind the scenes

'I Shot Myself'...the toughest, of films we've attempted till now, is done..completed. We knew it would ask a lot out of us. Going by the feedback, think we've fared pretty well. Lots to write about the making and everything that went into it. Will be one huge post. Think we'll break it up. But for now, here is a peek into what happened during the shoot and in post production.

Entries for PFC One

It’s been a long time since the last post. Time between the last post and now has seen 3 short films come out of Broken Mirror. We currently are working on the post production of a short and a documentary. But this post is for the three shorts that have been overlooked in the blog.

What caught our attention as we finished work on “To Pee..” was a one minute short film contest on Passion For Cinema. We were allowed to come up with any number of entries for the contest as long as they were limited to a minutes screen time, minus the titles. That got us thinking; though for quite a while nothing came to mind. A couple of ideas did make us jump; only to fizzle out for some reason. One idea though stayed on. We had seen this watchman at an ATM machine near our place and we had seen him on quite a few nights with only a dog for company. We froze on the idea. We would shoot him on his duty, his vigil and the lack of activity through the vigil. We decided on not having anything dramatic happen in the movie and it would be just another night in the watchman’s day.

We spoke to Chann Setty and convinced him to act. Sumanth meanwhile came up with the idea of starting and ending the movie with another character. Thus, emphasizing the watchman’s day being sandwiched between the end and start of this other person’s day. We started the shoot and it went on smoothly. We almost paid a huge price for some carelessness on our part. We had the camera set on a tripod and were explaining a shot when the tripod suddenly started falling over. Think it was the weight of the camera (with the tripod at full height) and the sloping ground that did it. The tripod was pulled back just in time to save the camera, though we now own a bent tripod. We shot very late in the night; around 12:30 onwards. So we had people slowing down on the road to look. One Rickshaw driver decided to park his vehicle and watch us shoot. What followed though was a scene straight out of AXN amazing videos. His vehicle started rolling and picked up speed along the road (a very steep slope). His run to get to his vehicle, as it sped down the middle of the road, and the jump on to the seat, was one sight, that if shot, could make it to any action flick.

We got Akmal, from a shop opposite the ATM, to act in the film. He was more than ready and we didn’t have to explain much to him. The toughest part was to get Chann Setty to deliver the dialogues as we wanted them. He just couldn’t get one particular line right. We finally had to do a cut and paste of words, to get it right, during editing.

With the footage ready, we got down to the editing and realized what a big mess we were in. We realized the difficulty of making the film fit into the one minute time limit. We had to do away with the sandwiched start and end. We split the screen into 4 to accommodate the watchman’s activities. We somehow got the duration down to one minute, but we had compromised badly. The video in the site is the longer version and not the compromised version submitted to the contest. We named the film “Frozen Nights”.

During the shoot for this, we were working on this other idea for another one minute short. It was to be shot in a shop that bought old newspapers and books. As soon as we were done with first short, we had the task of finding a location for us to shoot in. After talking in nearly half a dozen places we luckily chanced upon one, well off the main road. Devaraj owned the shop and he readily agreed to let us use his place.

After the experience of editing “Frozen Nights”, we decided to have the shots broken up and have trials before we left for the shoot. After planning the shots and their approximate durations we were better prepared to shoot what we wanted to shoot. The shoot again went along fine. We got Devaraj to act and his wife Kondamma too was pulled in. We initially had thought of using a voice over for the woman in the film, not being very sure of finding someone to do the role. But Kondamma’s readiness was a bonus. She went on to mention how she had worked in a studio in Chennai (think it was Gemini) and how she had played a small role in a film there. She was all energy during the shoot and sometimes close to tears when she didn’t get the dialogues right. Devaraj though was superb. The closing shot of the film was all his. He pulled it off in two takes. The way he laughed in that shot added so much more to the film. Devaraj holding the beedi was improvised during the shoot and that too added to the shot. “Samayada Setuve” (A Bridge Across Time) wouldn’t have been possible if not for Devaraj and his family. Thank you.

Editing “Samayada Setuve” was one of the easiest we had done. We had the shots broken up well before and we had the film ready soon.

We wanted to shoot the third film in our hometown, as we had the cast thought out. “Disown” was to be the depiction of a kid’s dilemma on finding Rs.100 lying on the road. The boy we had decided to cast stayed close to Sumanth’s place and had been a part of our first effort “Raahein”. We had decided to convince his parents to play themselves in the film. The shots for this too were planned with the screen time considered. The shoot for this again was completed in a short time. Well within a day. The highlight of this shoot was the trolley we used to shoot the scene where the boy walks back (his face against the sky) after pocketing the money. This trolley had been made to order on a whim and ran on almost 15 ft of track (3 detachable sections of around 5 ft). It was done by a carpenter near Sumanth’s place and we were only too happy to use it for this short. Editing this again was easy and we had it ready in a very short time.

We used royalty free music from the net for our soundtracks for “Frozen Nights” and “Disown”. “Samayada Setuve” had Neehar’s composition for one of our earlier films. Sound used again was from the locations and hence was not much of a pain recreating and syncing.

Watch the making here.

We didn’t win anything at the contest, but got a couple of positive comments for “Disown”. And when we look back at the way we shot the three shorts, we see a learning curve. The final results reflect this progression and we fully intend to keep this going.

Currently we are busy with the final stages of editing and sound mixing for “I Shot Myself”. It’ll end up being a film of around 40-45 mins. Hopefully we’ll have it ready by the end of this month. Will write more on this one soon.

To pee or not to pee !

Three behind us.."Raahein","Dwandwa" and ,the latest, "To pee or not to pee". A little more than 2 years and only 3 to show; considering that the last two were about 10 minutes each. Disappointed we are, not for the number of films though; it's for the time that was wasted. We completed "Dwandwa" around March this year. It's only this Friday that we got "To pee or not to pee" done. The time in between saw us work on a script, check out the locations, plan the shots; but miss one thing. Forgot to check the camera before we left for the shoot. The lens was damaged from one of our trial shots for the same venture and after a whole days filming, we realized that each one of our perfect shots had not been that perfect after all. What we thought was an issue with the display on the cam, had cost us much more than all the effort we had put in. We, for a few reasons, had to complete that shoot over that weekend, which of course didn't happen. There went a couple of months' planning and that film will be on hold for some more time now.

A conversation during this shoot had put us on track of the next one. So it was script time again and the ideas flowed. Once the foundation was done, attention shifted to the actual filming. This would be the first time we would be extensively shooting in the public. "Dwandwa" was mainly shot very late in the night(around 1:00 am to 5:00 am). But this had to be daylight and peak traffic. The shots from the car with the scooter following wouldn't be much of a problem. The difficulty lay in some of the shots at traffic signals and the closing sequence of the movie.
The two subsequent weekends saw us visiting the locations and deciding on the camera angles. This, we made sure were pretty much finalized, so as to avoid wastage of time on the day of the shoot( surely not with people around). With all the planning done, off we set for the first day's shoot.
The shot was to be from across a busy traffic junction at Minnerva, with Ambareesh(Ambu) waiting for the signal to change on the other side of the junction. Ambu somehow managed to take his position at the front and farthest side of the vehicles waiting. The scene required him to ride right across the front of the waiting vehicles and park his scooter on the other side. Sumanth (Sumu) was already shooting; Praveen and myself were trying to act as inconspicuous as possible (what with a traffic constable idling with his back to us not more than 6 or 7 feet away). Right then came this man and went straight for Sumu with these questions:

-How much did the handycam cost?
-What are you doing? (Answer: College project)
-Which college?

..and then he went off!!! Ambu too had left his place by then. Ambu had to go a long way round to come back to the signal again. Some more effort to make sure he led the signal and cut across and we had our first shot for the movie.



What followed was one smelly shoot at the public toilet at Minnerva. As we shot, we had around 4 to 5 people coming by and urinating all over except inside the toilet. One even urinated on the entrance. Our choice of location was vindicated.



The last sequence was shot next, and rain which we had hoped for all along, graced us as we were moving to the location. It was the perfect setting for the end and we didn't want to miss it.
Thanks to having the angles planned out, it didn't take us much time to get through the shots here (with the light fading). The only delay came from this 'uncle' who repetitively walked into the frame(he was close to the camera) of a long shot of Ambu. I had to walk over and tell him that he was not supposed to be in the frame. He didn't get it and he was all ready again (wiping sweat off his face) to come into the frame for the next take. I had to lead him away by the arm, telling him that this particular scene didn't require anyone other than the hero to be in the frame. He wanted to know who the hero was. 'Ambareesh' it was. I couldn't control myself and went on to add that he already had a couple of serials under his belt. Uncle fell for it hook, line and sinker and thought he recognized him.

Sorry uncle. Just got carried away.

Shoot on the next day saw us running all over Bangalore to get the shots. Vijaynagar, Gandhinagar and finally B'lore University. We shot the traffic constable scene in the university( to avoid the risk of being questioned by someone about the policeman's costume). But as luck would have it, the place we decided upon had a police station, not more than 100 metres away. We went ahead and both Ambu and Prasad were brilliant from the word go. We decided against the dialogues in the screenplay and let them come up with their own. And did they come up with some good ones. The shots came out really well and we had done enough for the day. (We also had 2 drunk visitors on a bike wanting to confirm if Prasad was a real cop. They were mighty impressed by the way he looked and rode away congratulating him).



We were done with all the video we needed in the next couple of days. We had the movie ready in a little over a week after that. Using sound from the location in most of the scenes helped a lot. Waiting for feedback now. The few till now have been good. For that matter any sincere feedback is good and welcome.

-Shishir

How It All Started

"What a crap movie! A piece of shit! I BET I CAN MAKE BETTER MOVIES THAN THESE!! ….." Have lost the count of the no of times I’ve uttered this phrase over the years.

And then sometimes I am watching a movie, the final credits start rolling and I go ‘WOW!!! Awesome! How I wish I could make a movie like this! I would give up everything to direct just one such movie!!'

This urge to make movies was always there. Ever since childhood!! The idea of directing big stars, those exaggerated action scenes(must agree though that i loved them then!), song/dance sequences in foreign locations thrilled me. Years passed by. The urge persisted. But the kind of movies I wished to make got more polished, more refined.

Cut to mid 2005. Was done with my engineering. I had got a job offer from CTS, but was still waiting for my joining date then. One of those days, was just having a casual talk with my friends and then, as it so often happens, we started discussing films. The GOOD, the BAD and the even UGLY ones!!! One of us suggested that we buy a handycam and make a movie as we were anyway free for a couple of months. The idea got registered in my mind. Immediately!! I was convinced. And I had already begun MANUFACTURING the PROs of buying a handycam, hoping to somehow ‘patafy’ dad!! However, the “movie making” plan never featured in the PROs list. :) Dad agreed!!! Instantly! (Still wonder how I managed to convince him though!!). We bought one of those then high end handycams. At one point of time, we were even contemplating going for the cheaper ones and buying two of them, as that would give us an option of different shot angles for a particular scene. (I am glad we bought just one though! Had a tough time managing even that one camera during our first movie! There was no one to operate the camera! So finally the actors had to take up the part time role of a cameraman, and vice versa! :))
Movie seemed too much of an effort so i was planning on a music video on 3 friends. Shishir was thinking of a documentary or something on similar lines. But then we finally decided we would make a movie. Myself, Shishir and Pradyumna started working on a subject. We then had the skeleton of our story ready. Shishir would do the screenplay and dialogues. We didn’t take long to decide on a name for ourselves. We called ourselves ‘Broken Mirror Productions’!! But then suddenly our project looked jinxed!!! Nothing seemed to go right for us. But we managed. And managed well, to complete our first movie, Raahein. (The making of Raahein deserves a separate post for itself!)

By then we had got our joining dates. Its been more than a year and a half since we’ve made Raahein. And “Broken Mirror” had been dormant since then, till recently. We’ve just completed our second movie “Dwandwa” (meaning “Dilemma”) in kannada.

That fire is back again. That fire to make movies. Movies that we want to make. Make it the way we want it. No on to question us. No one to dictate terms. Just make movies. Movies for ourselves!!

- Sumanth