Making of Ashwamedh Kalamanch Hasya Jatra

 Making of Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra Episodes

 Ashwamedh Kalamanch is an Art and Culture center in Virar, Maharashtra. It created the First Web Series on YouTube in 2011 named Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra. Sharing with you the Making Story of every episode written back in 2011 in my Blog 'World of Deepbaazigar'. 

Making of Episode No. 1:

                       The last week of March 2011 was quite filled with positive energy. All the members of Ashwamedh Kalamanch were charged up after the Muhurat and Shooting of Promo of Hasya Jatra. April month started with a good note. Hasya Jatra was welcomed by viewers of Ashwamedh Kalamanch Blog as well as YouTube and Dekhona.

                       'Hasya Jatra' name was purposely chosen as I knew that at some point we have to switch to HINDI language, as the Marathi speaking viewers are only area specific and internet users Marathi speaking people are limited. But as there was not a single Marathi web-serial on the internet we decided to keep Hasya Jatra in both languages 'Marathi' as well as 'Hindi'. Writers can express their feelings better in their mother tongue and that was the second reason why we started with Marathi as 'writing script in Marathi' was much easier for all of us. 

                      Shailesh Humbre, one of our team-mate had provided the backdrop and halogen tube to us from one of his decorator friend Nixon. Abhijeet Sakpal provided us the much-needed Butter papers & ring used especially for the light arrangement in the shooting. Rest of the property required for the shoot was arranged by me and pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. 

                      Pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch (Rajendra, Jitendra, and Hakim) were the key members for Ashwamedh Kalamanch because all the arrangement for the Unit were done by them. They handled the 'food department' and saved our lot of production cost. It's not an easy task to prepare food for 15-20 members on all shooting schedules. Other departments like writing, directing and casting etc.were handled by Anant Chavan. Abhijeet Sakpal assisted Anant in every aspect. Camera and Editing was my duty and anchoring was handled by Rakesh Dudwadkar

          The first episode of 'Hasya Jatra' was completely done on improvisation basis. There was no written script. We used RED butter paper in front of halogen to give BAR effect. Dominos disposable tissue papers, a bottle of Bisleri, flower pot etc were used to create Table. Chakna of Gajar and Kakdi was arranged on the table along with a bottle of MIRANDA and Glasses. It was around 4:30 p.m.so we prepared 'tea' for the unit. And decided to use BLACK TEA as Liquor in one of the Glasses (which Abhijeet is drinking). Rakesh never tasted the alcohol in his entire life. But the way he has acted in this episode is really amazing. The chemistry between Abhijeet and Rakesh during this act was good and so the direction by Anant Chavan. There were no scripts so we joined 5-6 jokes/SMS on wives and made this act. Our first episode itself was 'Jugaad' :P

But the end product was quite good. 

Making of Episode No.2: 

        The second episode of 'Hasya Jatra' was just kind of 'Thok Patti' wala act. Due to some reason, actors could not complete their commitment to come on the day of the shoot. But the show must 'Go on'. Anant came sharp at 10:30 at my place in Virar, we waited till 12:00 o'clock for Rakesh. But he could not come due to some personal problem. We had already decided that we have to release two episodes per week, one on Tuesday and another on Friday. I purposely chose Friday, as Saturday and Sunday are our shooting days and I don't have internet facility in Virar. So I upload episode on Friday and others keep sharing it on Saturday and Sunday when maximum people are online on Facebook. So the point is, SHOW MUST GO ON.

Anant had many times performed the Vyanga-act by Shri.Sharad Joshi. He had even seen his guru Soumitra doing such acts in Prithvi theatre. So we decided to go ahead with 'Rashtrabhasha me prem Patra ka mahatva'. He had all script by-heart and the act was One Take OK...But later when we released the episode Anant was himself not happy with his performance because he knew that he could have done it more expressively. I experimented with a VERTICAL camera and LOCKED frame for this episode, so as to keep all the FOCUS on Anant.

Making of Episode No.3: 

     

         The third episode of Hasya Jatra was the most viewed episode so far on all three platforms. Deepbaazigar channel on YouTube, Dekhona and of course Ashwamedh Kalamanch Blog. There was nothing great about the third episode. But the TIMING of the episode clicked. We released the episode when the HEAT of the battle against corruption was ON. Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra's third episode was dedicated to Shri. Anna Hazare and India's battle against Corruption. During the period of agitation against corruption, we decided to show our support in our own way. We had a WEAPON of 'Hasya Jatra' which we decided to use. Some of our members criticized me as according to them the subject and script was quite serious and could not become part of Comedy Show.

But after a long discussion, we decided to go ahead with the Script. This was the first episode in which we had already written a script in hand for shooting. The words which I used during the script writing were really hard for Rakesh and Sandesh (Govind) who both have studied in English medium school in their childhood. They took one and a half day to memorize the script but still could not perform the Act in one Take.

        Rakesh Dudwadkar helped Govind throughout the act and somehow managed to complete the act before dark. Anant Chavan directed the act. When he saw that actor Govind was struggling a lot with sentences, he told me to shoot the act patch by patch and I agreed. The script was completely sarcastic in nature. We had not left any single corrupt politician and tried to cover all the corrupt departments of the country in 7 min. When I was writing this act,I was completely inspired by Marathi serial 'TICKLE TE POLITICAL' which I used to watch on regular basis (some years back). But I don't want to use 'Raja-pradhan' our 'Gan-gavalan' kind of formats for this act, as I wanted this act to appeal to youth. So we used IPL loving cricket-crazy fan with which youngster can easily relate with. We had to convince Rakesh to shave out his mustache. He didn't want to do so, as his 1st child naming ceremony was coming closer and his family would have scolded him by watching him without Moustache..ha ha ha..I know it's quite illogical. When Rakesh saw his act he realized that he was really looking quite younger in this act and as per the requirement of character. The most catchy part of this act was 'MERA NETA CHOR HAI' campaign. Obviously, I took this idea from a campaign which I saw on FACEBOOK. Originality and Creativity are two different aspects. You need a lot of skills to Creatively present STOLEN IDEAS :P. The comment which this video got on YOUTUBE tells everything about the impact of this act on Youth.

Making of Episode No.4: 

       Fourth Episode of Hasya Jatra was completely dedicated to Naughty children. Ashish Chavan was just one week old in Ashwamedh Kalamanch team and we gave him chance to perform the lead role in our Hasya Jatra promo which has already instilled confidence in him. The first act of Bandya and Chintya was quite hilarious as the punches in the act need quite mischievous and innocent child characters. We offered Govind the character of Bandya initially, but he could not do it properly as he was feeling quite awkward to do childish behavior. Thankfully Rakesh decided to accept the challenge by himself. Initially, I was hesitant to see 32 yr old Rakesh as 14-15 age child. But then somehow Rakesh gave full justice to the character. The slapstick reactions which was expected from Ashish were not up to mark but as all important punches were given to Rakesh we were quite sure that act will be good. The addition 'Tuz Uttar aikun maza sagla halla' by Ashish was really hilarious :)). The actors may not be good in delivering the original dialogs but are quite good in Adding their own lines during act :P.

        The fourth episode has two acts in it. The second act of the episode was of Chintu and his family. Initially, Rakesh and Anant wanted to play the son-dad duo. But I insisted Ashish play the son and accordingly the dad's role was given to Shailesh More. Shailesh had never acted before. Rupali More, wife of Shailesh has an interest in acting and the Mother's role was given to her. Shailesh had just come to watch the shooting along with his kid on that day, and we straightaway gave him Chintu's father's role. Anant Chavan had to work quite hard to make the couple act better. Rupali gave her best and saved her hubby in the act. The family made quite a good impression in their first act itself.

But the best part of the episode was anchoring by Rakesh Dudwadkar. Rakesh had really done a very good and confident anchoring in this episode. The shooting of this act was equally great fun. It was the best work of Anant Chavan as a Director so far.

Making of Episode No.5: 

        Anant Chavan is a good director when it comes to preparing acts which have lots of energy and body language requirements. He has worked with many eminent Marathi stars like Satish Tare, Bhushan Kadu, Nirmiti Sawant and late Laxmikant Berde. The roles which he performed in his drama career were very small but all were comedy in nature. So the lessons of comedy which he learned from the directors like Purushottam Berde helped us in every aspect of Hasya Jatra.

       Anant Chavan has worked with Laxmikant Berde in 'TUR-TUR', Nirmiti Sawant with 'Jau Bai Jorat' and 'Shyamchi Mummy' and with 'Bhushan Kadu' & 'Satish Tare' in 'Shyamchi Mummy'.He has also done a small cameo in 'Paichaan Kaun' drama. He left the drama field after he survived from the accident which occurred with 'Shyamchi Mummy' unit bus several years back. His great escape from death took him away from his drama career. His bent backbone never allowed him to work again in dramas where great energy is expected from actors.

      Ashwamedh Kalamanch becomes his Second Inning platform as being senior he took a lot of responsibility on his own shoulder. His experience and passion for drama were the main reason why I went ahead to take the risk of 'HASYA JATRA' production. Due to the low budget and NO EXPERIENCE of the entertainment field, I relied on him entirely for the decisions regarding casting, script selection etc. From the first episode itself, I was getting overwhelmed by his talent and wanted to see him act in some of the Webisodes of Hasya Jatra web series. But he refused, as he was worried about his weakness and ailing body. An actor can leave 'ACTING', but the 'ACTING KIDA' always remains there inside him and when the habitat becomes nutrition for that worm, he himself stands on stage 'TO ACT', Anant was not an exception.

      Anant and Abhijeet both were discussing scripts for next episodes. Abhijeet came out with Raja-Pradhan script. I was completely annoyed. I asked them this kind of acts are available everywhere on Television, why people will watch the same thing on the internet with so much buffering problem? Anant liked the script. The act was quite long and had covered many issues in it. So we decided to cut it short and show Raja-Pradhan acts part by part taking the 'Single' issue at a time. The first issue which we chose was 'DISASTER MANAGEMENT' in India. The live example of Japan's great disaster management' was in front of every one of us. So we chose to raise the issue of 'requirement of good disaster management techniques in India'. We kept 10 min. as the maximum limit for Hasya Jatra episode as uploading to the internet is a lengthy process. So the act was cut in 5 min and with anchoring, it reached 7-8 min.

       The costume was made by myself using whatever is available at home. The hairs which we used for Anant were troubling him a lot during act yet he pulled act properly. Abhijeet was forgetting his lines so we had to shoot act in 3 patches. Abhijeet really did a good job as a 'Pradhan' in this act, but his voice was not clear at many important punches. Anant's voice quality and throw were perfect as King. The act got appreciated by many viewers as no one could realize how the crown of 'King' was made? When I explained to them that it was cushion cover with 'Maa sherawali' cloth stapled on it, everyone laughed with amazement. I said with gimmick 'Kya kare,itne paise mein itnaich milega'. The crowd laughed again.

Making of Episode No.6:              

       

     Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra viewership was increased after the first four episodes. We really had very good viewership from India after the first four episodes of Hasya Jatra, so my next concern was to increase Blog viewers globally. So we decided to shoot some HINDI language episode. I knew there were 2-3 web series already running successfully on the Internet from Indian serial makers. One of them was actually doing really good. So it was quite a difficult task to grab Hindi viewers to web series which was lacking in technical aspects. But I trusted my 'Marathi speaking' viewers. I knew they will definitely share 'Hindi episodes' as well if they liked it. So we went ahead.

       The sixth episode of Hasya Jatra was 'Shyamsundar the telecaller'. The making story of Shyamsundar is quite interesting as this episode was only made for filling the gaps and not as a full-fledged main act. In fact, that's the reason we didn't even bother to shoot any anchoring for this webisode. Actually, the abusive language which we have used in this act was another reason why I was anxious about the success of this webisode. Somehow I knew this act will shock all our viewers to whom we were giving typical 'family comedy' kind of webisodes so far.

Shyamsundar act was shot during the shooting of the third webisode of Hasya Jatra (based on corruption). Rakesh and Sandesh (Govind) both took a lot of time to memorize their script for the third episode. So we had to remove them from the stage and give them more time to prepare themselves for the shoot. But I don't want to pack-up, as every single day of shooting was costing us a lot. So I decided to go ahead with Shyamsundar wala concept which Jitu has told me earlier.

     Jitendra Patel aka Jeetu is one of the pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. He has done a great job earlier by Editing our first short-film 'DO NOT DISTURB' and secondly he was the Director of Second short film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch ' WRONG TURN' which got great response by viewers in TIMES OF INDIA'S ' a day in life of India' contest. Jeetu is a student in Mumbai University at the same time he is call center employee.Jeetu had this concept in mind about the call center employee and the fun during their training period when they actually learn 'how to attend domestic as well as international customers'. He wanted to show some of the real life jokes of his friends in Hasya Jatra webisode.But somewhere I thought there was humor in the act but the jokes were too specific to a call center profession and were difficult to understand by common public. So we decided to take hardly one-two jokes but work more on the character to add humor.

       We arranged Table,phone,laptop and then told Hakim and Rajendra to sit on chairs in front of the table. We started discussing dialogs and sequence on the spot.Abdul Hakim Ansari who has already acted in WRONG TURN short-film as a lead role knew little bit acting,but it was Rajendra's real debut as he didn't had single dialogue in promo of Hasya Jatra where he acted before. Hakim himself developed the character of Shyamsundar.He knew one of his bihari friend who has quite a funny accent.So we decided the sequence of act. But we didn't had any good end in our mind so I thought why not we add something really annoying for his boss so that Shyamsundar will be thrown out of call center. So we decided this abusive conversation between Shyamsundar and one of the client. I decided to do all the voice over by myself as I was handling the camera and so my voice would have been recorded very clearly.

       For me the challenge was to use different voice tones and pitch to show different clients, and the worst part was there was one lady client in the act which I had to perform as a voice over artist. I decided 'Jo hoga dekha jayega,let's shoot'. Anant played cameo in this act,he was confused about what was going around.I told him to just concentrate on his part and leave rest upto me and Hakim. We completed this act in one shot. There was some mistakes which I wanted to rectify,but meanwhile Rakesh and Govind has rehearsed their act and were ready to acquire their floor for third episode shoot. So I decided to take care of faults during my editing work. The act was one shot Ok.so there was not much editing required.But the sound-mixing was quite important aspect of this act as we didn't took it into consideration while shooting. Adding Caller tones,phone pick-up voice, engage tone, hold instructions, beep for abusive language,laughter etc. So it was the first act which needed so many sound effects at right place. I tried my best and completed editing work.When I uploaded and shared it on Facebook first time I added warning about the language. But then all told me that this is common language which M TV, V TV generation is using nowadays so share it without any hesitation and I agreed.

         Surprisingly this webisode become most watched video amongst the youth of age group 18-24.I asked Rakesh how this happened. Rakesh told me that the innocence of the character Shyamsundar clicked. I congratulated Hakim and Rajendra for the good response which this webisode got. So guys this was the story on making of Hasya Jatra Episode no.6.

Making of Episode No. 7: 

"Wo baap, baaphi kya jiski koi beti na ho?

Wo Engineer, Engineerhi kya jise koi KT na ho?"

      Engineers can never forget their college life.75% attendance requirement,assignments,drawings,labs,experiments,projects,vivas,tests,group discussion etc apart from that friends,canteen,peer-pressure,dreams,success-failures,sports,festivals and the list goes on.I know you will say that this is STORY of every students and not only engineers.So what makes ENGINEERS different from others? Yes 'PRESSURE'.They learn how to manage pressure in their work.So many subjects per semester,that too quite difficult to understand.So don't you think 'EXAM FEVER' will be different for them? Definitely,it's different.And if you are staying in hostel then exam period seems like 'SEASON' in the academic year.

        Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra episode no.7 is dedicated to all such Engineering students.The episode name is 'EXAM FEVER',as the episode is all about the conversations between students during exam period.Many fear Analytical subjects,specially which include lot of calculations.There are many students who even don't know how to use scientific calculators :P,Some students are very serious and sincere.They study regularly and so are under less pressure as compared to students who study at 11th hour.So at the exam time such students becomes 'GOD' for entire hostel.In this webisode of Hasya Jatra Shailesh More is one such scholar student.His room partner Ashish Chavan is like other average students.

       Compared to previous webisode this act was different in its treatment.I wanted to show the 'EXAM FEVER' as it is and so there was not much scope for any comic scenes. The only comedy was in the punches which should be matched with the attitudes of characters (students) in this webisode. So we worked more on it. And this webisode was completely made for Students only so that they can relate themselves with it.

       The act was shoot in 3-4 patches as per the entries by other hostelite students. So the sequence of 2-3 parts was adjustable except the END which was pre-planned. We just wanted to give message to all the students that 'THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO SUCCESS'. We gave Jitendra Patel the chance to anchor this episode as young student anchor was most suitable for this compared to show host Rakesh Dudwadkar.The beginning scene of Shailesh Humbre and Sumeet Mane was additional scene which was included later just because we have skipped 1-2 good laughter punches on the shooting day which we could not shoot again with Ashish and Shailesh More.

    During the shooting Shailesh More was not comfortable with one dialog which had 'PREFER, REFER' combination.He took many retakes to deliver the same dialog.Ashish had done good job as an actor supported by Jitendra,Hakim and myself. It was my debut act.Basically I don't like to ACT but I acted because of shortage of Actors that day.This webisode didn't got good response on our BLOG but become instant hit on YouTube.

Making of Episode No.8: 

           Ashish Chavan acted in our promo and webisode no.4 and webisode no.7.

Hasya Jatra's episode no 8 was directed by Ashish Chavan. In this webisode we introduced first girl anchor Rupali More who has also acted in this episode.The chemistry between Rupali and Rakesh Dudwadkar was really amazing during this act.

      Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra's webisode no.8 is dedicated to the 'POWER OF MONEY'. Rakesh has played the role of 'stylish beggar' in this act.He is quite funny in this act.Rupali gets impressed by this beggar due to his 'income' and that shows 'Aajkal pyar andha hi nahi...lalachi bhi hota hai :P' - the morale of the webisode.

    The act was written by Ashish himself,so he had better idea of how to direct this act.He wanted Rakesh to do 'LOUD' acting in this act.In fact Rupali has really pulled out the act properly.Rakesh did good job,but he could have done much better than this.We don't wanted to act him like 'Munnabhai' in entire act,but he had to talk like Munna in this act. Rupali and Rakesh took almost 4 hours to practice the act and we shot this act in the late evening at 7:30 p.m.Again we couldn't complete in single shoot,we took 3 patches for this act.Anchoring was done by Rupali after the shooting was over. So that day Rupali and her husband Shailesh spend entire day on set.

       The joke of the weight-machine was quite hilarious.The expressions by Rakesh during that scene is quite funny.Actually he took lot of time to understand what was expected from him.Finally we told him to act 'FILMY'.He understood the word and then gave proper reactions,quite 'filmy' and quite 'loud'. We included 'dance' at the end of the episode to increase the 'Energy level' of act and add more humor and nonsense in it. Rupali did anchoring for the first time in her life.So she was bit nervous during her anchoring.She tried her best.

       Editing part was comparatively easy for this webisode.We had to 'CHEAT' entire 'Weight-machine' scene, so I had to Zoom the video during editing work. Sound effect of weight-machine after inserting coin, throwing of coin towards Rakesh etc. were added. This webisode was HINDI and first time it had any love-story,so as expected we got quite a good response to this act.

Making of Episode No.9: 

       Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra Episode no.9 was dedicated to Teacher-Student friendship.Abhijeet Sakpal and Anant Chavan had played roles of student and teacher respectively.Abhijeet Sakpal's acting as a naughty student and Anant Chavan's performance as his teacher both were equally good and the give-n-take, dialogue delivery,timing etc.all were perfect.The overall act was good and interesting was shot in one-take,no retake.But when I saw this act during editing work,I was very much disappointed by watching the 'wrinkles' on background curtains and overall set.We did shooting of all 9 episodes of 'Hasya-Jatra' in front of same BLUE background.So here I thought we must STOP,re-work again on resources, improve our Quality and Standard,change the format of serial and also the level of acts.

    So the 9th episode became the Last episode of Hasya Jatra for first season.'Change' is important and we should accept this fact.Abhijeet Chavan and Anant Chavan, the duo acted together in webisode no 5 of Hasya Jatra as Pradhan and Raja resp. And the 'Chemistry' between them was really good in that act.That's the only reason we replaced Rakesh Dudwadkar by Anant Chavan for the role of teacher and secondly Rakesh is very much younger to Abhijeet so the casting could have been failed. So Anant accepted the role. Rakesh was good as 'Deshastha Brahmin teacher' and he was also good in 'nasal' dialogue delivery.When Anant tried the same,he could manage the accent but his voice throw suffered.So he decided to do that character as a 'normal village teacher' and not 'kokanastha brahmin teacher' 

           
          Abhijeet is around 37 yrs old and he does have 'Hair problem'.You can watch original Abhijeet in Webisode no.1 in which he has done a role of 'drunkard' along with Rakesh.So to make him look like student we had to work on his looks. He completely shaved his mustache for this role.We gave him 'School uniform' costume and artificial hairs on his head inside cap to show him school going kid and that worked.But the main requirement was his 'bearing' as a kid,his 'expressions','innocence' on which he worked properly.This episode was in Marathi.The act was written by  Ashish Chavan and directed by Anant himself.You can watch the acting skill of Anant Chavan in this webisode.Seriously that's what 'experience' all about.He looks very convincing and very natural as 'teacher'.

   Making of Episode no. 10

 Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra webisode no.10 was added recently to Ashwamedh Kalamanch and Hasya Jatra blogs. 

                   

              Ashwamedh Kalamanch is an art and cultural center (group) in Mumbai founded by me in August 2010. We started it to propagate India's art and culture among children through various Art-related Competitions, Events, Workshops, Seminars. We started with a successful event of AKDC'10 (Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Drawing Competition 2010) in Oct.2010 and then followed Marathi drama 'Lakh Lakh Chanderi', 4 short films, Hasya Jatra web series and several other videos. Although Video-making was just a part of 'Brand Awareness' strategy, it got a very good response. After May 2011, most of the time was utilized in meeting people in the social work sector and understanding how non-profit organizations work. We registered 'Ashwamedh Foundation' as Society and we are in a process to register 'Ashwamedh Foundation Trust' (Waiting for court hearing date). 

                After our main actor Rakesh Dudwadkar got busy with his new-born child Neel, we stopped Hasya Jatra shooting. We met in Diwali to celebrate the festival with our team. On the spot, we took the decision to shoot Happy Diwali 2011 video, and we did it. After few days when I was watching TV, a mobile Ad of 'Jaane tu ya Jaane Na' fame Jignesh Patel stuck in my mind. The Ad was based on the theme that 'Your mobile represents your status and not your clothes'. Within a few seconds, I decided to make a short film on the theme that 'Appearances can be deceptive', and after thinking for some more time I developed the concept. I discussed this 'Waiting room' concept with Abhijeet and Ashish on phone and told them to meet me at Virar at 3 p.m. sharp (on the same day). 

                 Due to his dark color and appearance, I wanted to cast Ashish Chavan as funky dude and Jitendra as an executive person with sober looks. Abhijeet was apt for the role of Ashish's Maternal uncle. I myself decided to do the role of 'businessman'. As I was acting, I needed someone to handle the camera and so I asked Hakim to reach Virar till 6:00 p.m. I reached Virar at 2:00 p.m. met Abhijeet who got down from same local train. We stopped at a Tea stall, with a sip of tea I explained to him the script and his role. We purchased black insulation tape to make waiting room board using Thermacol, bought two 2-liters Bisleri bottles and started walking towards my home. Virar has developed a lot in the past few years, but water and load-shedding problems are still is status-quo. As I opened the door I was completely pissed off to see dirt all over the home, that's the biggest drawback of terrace flat. As we had limited time in hand we cleaned the only hall where we had to do the shooting. To show bench in the Waiting room, we removed cushions of the Sofa. 

        

      That day Daniel D'Silva was visiting my home after almost 6 yrs. In 2005 he and some other students from my coaching classes had come to Jivdani Temple of Virar. That time I invited all of them to my home for tea-snacks. Daniel was a little kid at that time. Now he has grown as a young dashing dude. He is doing a film-editing course in Arena multi-media, so we invited him to use his skills as a film-maker. I liked his first short-film 'Some wounds don't heal' based on child abuse issue. So I was eager to work with him.

             

            Little did I knew about Anant's presence in Mumbai. I was under impression that he might have left to Nashik with her sister after Bhaiyya Duj. When he came for the shoot, we all felt great relief. Anant is a good Director and so I requested him to direct this short too. Abhijeet and I explained to him the concept and we started improvising on it. Hakim arrived at 5:30 p.m. and started helping us. We discussed sequences and shots while having some Diwali Sweets/snacks which I had brought with me. And when we were all set for shooting, all lights went off..'Ohhhhh Fishhhh...Load Shedding?' I shouted. Damn it!

  

        Ashish looked load shedding time table in his mobile inbox, and told us that light will come at 8:30 p.m., Oops...why didn't he informed us earlier about 'load shedding' timing? Ahh...what should we do till 8:30? I don't have a generator at home. If we start shooting at 8:30, it would be at least 10'o clock to complete entire shooting (considering all retakes etc.). Jitendra, Daniel, Hakim had come all the way from Santacruz; so I knew they will reach at midnight to their homes after leaving Virar at 10 p.m. It was hardly 2 min. short-film so they all decided that they will leave Virar only after completing shooting. Abhijeet had Night duty that day, so he left at 7:00 p.m. and Anant took the responsibility to play Uncle, and Ashish had to live for a family gathering so he left with him. Funky dude role of Ashish shifted to Jitendra and Hakim became the Executive person. All of us went down and had tea. It was very humid at home and due to load shedding, it was impossible to stay at home. We did a healthy discussion during that gap and also discussed some scripts. 

           At 8:30 p.m. sharp we reached home. Power was on now. We started our shooting. Jitendra took a lot of time to get into the bearing of the funky guy as he was practicing executive person's role from last 4 hrs. Hakim has good grasping power, so he managed to learn things faster. Initially, Daniel took some time to understand the functions of Handycam and tripod and once he set his hands on it, he did a good job with a camera. Anant helped Daniel in deciding the frame and angles. And we completed shooting sharp at 9:40 p.m. I gave raw footage to Daniel for editing purpose. We use different software for editing, but Daniel used 'Final Cut Pro' a professional editing software which runs only on Macintosh. He included name HASYA-JATRA at beginning of Video which provoked me to add this short film also as Hasya Jatra webisode in our web-series. Out of a few names suggested by me ( Waiting room, Perceptions, Books & Covers, Impressions, and First Impression), Daniel chose 'First Impression' which was apt for the concept. After watching the final product I still feel that even after 30 videos, we are still amateur video-makers. Hopefully, we will improve our quality in the coming future. 

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- DEEPAK DODDAMANI
Founder, Ashwamedh Kalamanch