The stage was all set for the short-film. The entry of our friend and freelance 'graphic designer', 'Saket Patil' in the scenario was the plus point for us. Saket Patil was the only person who had little bit knowledge of 'short-films' as he had acted in two short-films 'BOOND' and 'GUZARA' by Manthan Group. Anant and Saket both are good friends and neighbors. We initially decided that we will shoot our film at my place in Virar, but due to the scarcity of 'property' required for the film we changed our mind. Saket played the major role in convincing the parents of 'Chitra' to play the 'lead lady' role in the film. We got our 'heroine' as well as 'location' for the short-film shooting. Mrs.Sandhya Ghadi was kind enough to give permission to use her 'house' for the shooting purpose. On the 10th Jan I purchased photography stand from 'Dadar'. My brother had bought 'Sony Handycam' many years back. But I had never tried it, as I was never tech-savvy kind of guy. During 'Lakh lakh Chanderi' I shot the 'Rehearsal' of the drama to create 'Making of Lakh Lakh Chanderi' video, that was the only experience I had in operating Camera.
I was little bit worried about the video quality also; as the Handycam was of 'Standard Definition' and not 'High definition'. The requirement for 'HD' video is the major criteria of all the short-film festival. We planned to submit our short-film on 14th Jan to Ideal Events ,an event management company for their 'Marathi Short film Festival'. Rajendra Balsara my 'ex-student' and an active member of 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' told me that he can easily convert 'SD' videos to 'HD' using some softwares. After his promise only I gone ahead with purchasing Memory Sticks, RW- DVD's for handycam etc. The team was excited about their first step in Short-film making. As Indians, we all are 'Filmy'.So my team was not an exception.
The concept was good, but there was no written Script.I did messaged all the artists of 'Lakh Lakh Chanderi' to attend the audition for short-film on 10th Jan.The film-name was not finalized till the last day. Jitesh Bhilare one of my friend suggested me the name 'DO NOT DISTURB'. and I agreed on it. All the cast & crew members loved the 'Title' as it was 'apt' for the theme.
On 11/01/11, in the morning at 7:30 a.m. I caught Virar local from 'Dadar' along with my students 'Rajendra' and 'Jeetendra'. We had lot of luggage with us.In the journey we discussed about next ventures and plans of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. No one talked about the film, yet all were excited about shooting it.
I somehow trusted 'Rajendra' for his capability of 'playing & experimenting' with softwares. I knew the 'Editing' part will be the most difficult and 'Expensive' part of the film. But I was ready to take the challenge by myself and knew that 'Rajendra' will help me out in that.
We reached Virar at 8:30 a.m. When we reached Viva college, we saw all the happy faces waiting eagerly for us. Anant, Abhijeet were waiting at MangalMurti Temple, all excited, fresh and with full of energy. Rakesh had caught the same train from Mira-road, so he was with us only, in Rickshaw. Saket came on his bike and we greeted him. Saket & Abhijeet went to purchase the material for Pooja. Anant guided us to the 'Madhuban Park', the shooting location. As we entered in the building we saw the staircase were nicely washed for us. Mrs. Sandhya knew our story and she knew that we would be shooting some scenes in corridor. We entered her house and saw a well-furnished and neatly kept house, exactly the same we wanted for the film. She prepared 'Tea' for us and till that we finished our 'Muhurat Pooja'. The Muhurat scene of the short-film was actually the first shot taken by 'Saket' and the entire day he took the responsibility of handling camera. Well that was not at all in the planning.
After we finished our 'tea', Mrs. Sandhya introduced her 'daughter' Chitra. That was the first time I met heroine of our film, on shooting day. Amazing. I laughed. 'Chitra' was little bit nervous. and anxious about her first film. She was facing the camera for the first time and so was the Rakesh. The consolation prize in 'Lakh lakh Chanderi' for his acting was the only thing which kept his morale up. He had a great responsibility on his shoulder as 'Chitra' was not compatible as a pair for him. Rakesh in fact did a great job by making her feel comfortable and involved in chemistry,much required for the good finishing product.
Abhijeet started narrating the sequence of the scenes, and we started shooting as per his suggestions. But within first few scenes itself, I became the Director, Anant the Asst. Director, Saket the Camera man and Rajendra & Jitendra Lights-boys. Nothing was pre-planned. We all knew it was our first experience, so it will be total mess-up, but surprisingly we divided our work professionally and took 1-1 department each. At 2:00 p.m.,Rajendra and Jeetu bought 10 plates 'Veg Pulav' from Banjara hotel Virar. We started having lunch.During lunch Saket and I decided that we should change our 'Game-plan'. We were shooting the film as per sequences. Now we started shooting the film as per 'camera frames'. 'Rakesh's scenes in-side the home were on priority list. We had permission for the whole day and we wanted to somehow finish the entire shooting in one day. So after lunch, every other character was out-of-focus and we shot all the scenes of Rakesh. In the film Rakesh had 4 outfits, Night suit (Green T-shirt & track pant), Formal wear, and Blazer suit (for dream sequence) and final jacket blazer for climax. So we decided to finish all the scenes as per his outfits.
There was no script in our hand, but the sequence of activities were very much in our minds. Anant and I was continuously thinking about the scenes and how they can be shot? Saket did very good thing by giving actors the right expressions during the act. The procedure was quite simple. In the evening we were almost tired and the 'tea' came. Thankfully Mrs. Sandhya was there to support us whole day. She gave us all her house to use for shooting and also gave some important inputs during shoot. Obviously all the neighborhood was in her house that day. Yet all kept pin-drop silence during the entire shoot.
We finished almost all the scene of Rakesh till 6 p.m. We developed a 'Grip' till then. The thinking process was much faster than the start and the actors were more in the 'bearing'. We then took-up the remaining scenes of 'Chitra' and 'Rakesh'. Chitra didn't knew much acting, so she was quite natural in all the scenes.The climax scene was completely shot in the dark, as the staircase didn't had enough lights at 8:00 p.m. the work of Rajendra & Jeetu become crucial for that scene.That scene was supposed to be 11:30 in the Morning in the film. And luckily we managed to keep enough lights in the scene.
The last scene which we shot was 'Birthday scene'. We wanted this scene to be the 'highlight' of the movie and so wanted to make it totally filmy. The scene was very important one. The chemistry between Actor and Actress was what we are expecting in it. But our luck was not on our side. It was already too late for retakes. Chitra got quite uncomfortable in-front of her parents during this romantic scene. We had to compromise as we were in their place for almost 12 hrs now. So we didn't re-shoot the scene. Made it OK in the first shoot.
We had almost finished all the important scenes of Rakesh, Rakesh & Chitra, her neighbour Aunty-Uncle and the Indoor ones. We thanked Ghadi family for their support. We all ate the Cake which we used for our Shooting, took all our belongings and left for home. Everyone kept all the luggage at my place and went home. It was late night 11:30 p.m., all the hotels were closed. I went straight to Chinese Wala, had 'Veg Fried rice' as my dinner and then returned home to take a nap as we had to start again on early in the morning next day.....
12th Jan 2011, I was waiting for all my team member. There were some scenes which we had to shoot that day. We had only 13th Jan in hand to complete all the editing work as we wanted to submit it to MSFF on 14th Jan till 10 a.m. Everyone was completely exhausted on the previous day. So all came little late that day. We had to start shooting early, but we actually started shooting at 12 in the noon.
We had to 'cheat' some scenes, as Rakesh the lead actor was not available that day. So all the scenes of visitors like 'Bouquet person, Courier person, salesman' etc were shot till 3 o'clock. Rakesh arrived at 4:30 from his job. We shot the remaining scenes 'Watchman, Cable vendor' etc after that. It was totally genius attempt from our side that we managed to cheat audiences during the film. Not a single person recognised that some scenes were not shot on the same location. All credit to editing team. Everytime Bhushan used to wear Rakesh's Shirt and either we used to take his shoulder or his sleeves in the frame. Many scenes were shot in absence of Rakesh.In Fact in two of the scenes I have played his dummy. Remember the 'Tie knot, and Blazer-wearing and lifting of bouquet scene'. That it what called 'Show must go on' thing.
We almost completed all our important scenes. Everyone left for their home. I didn't went to mine in Wadala and stayed in Virar for next day till 2 p.m.The night I spent in copying all film from Camcorder to Laptop (almost 4-5 hrs) and then Cutting and pasting the videos sequence wise. The editing software was not available on my laptop, so had to rush to Wadala next day.
Rajendra and Jeetendra came at Wadala sharp at 3:00 p.m. on 13th Jan. We had entire evening and full night in our hand. But I was shocked when I heard that Rajendra had to leave that night at 8 p.m. He was going to his home-town with his family. Luckily he had already taught 'Jeetendra' something about 'AVS' video editor software and Rajendra was responsible enough to stay connected with us thorough mobile whole night. He guided Jeetu whole night, and we all helped him to understand the sequence and length of scene to cut. In the late night Hakim slept. Anant, I and Jeetendra didn't even take a nap. All three of us worked almost for 16 hrs in stretch till the submission of the film. Infact, at 3 a.m. in the morning I took second laptop, downloaded the sounds and background music tracks, cut them as per the length in Goldwave software and Jeetu did rest of the mixing. We all were freshers, we grasped things quickly and we mastered in it within night. The most amazing thing was Jeetu added some transitions whenever we required that effect. e.g. to enter dream, to exit dream., scene in scene at climax etc.
Jeetu left in the morning after completely producing the fully edited film in AVS. Now it was my responsibility to add 'Titles & Credits' to film in Windows Movie Maker and submit it within time. But my luck didn't supported me. Earlier night Jeetu had worked on film in two halves and then joined them in the end using Ultra Joiner software. Whenever I used to Import media files to Windows Movie Maker only half of the movie used to get imported. I was very much disappointed on myself. It was now 10 a.m. and still I was not able to do the simple thing of addition of 'Titles & credits'. I spoke to Rajendra and Hakim on phone regarding this.Both gave different advice. Time was running out of my hand. Anant was helplessly looking at me as he didn't had any technical knowledge, and I was just trying my hard to make it happen. Meanwhile I tried one thing I had MS OFFICE 2010 installed in my Laptop. I had already made 'AKDC-10' event strategy presentation on it for submitting it on slideshare. So 'Bulb' lighted in my 'brain'. I decided to add this video in Powerpoint with 'Title and credits' etc. Slide by slide I prepared the movie and burned it on DVD. I sent Anant with DVD to the Organizers of MSFF near Shivaji Park Gymkhana. He went ahead. I kept trying to install newest version of Windows Movie Maker to accomplish my task, that didn't happened till end.
We thought we lost the battle. We wanted to submit our first short-film to Marathi Short Film Festival, that was the only target we had in our minds from last 9th to 13th Jan and we had missed it by small distance. Saturday ended in big disappointment. I sent all the members message by WAY2SMS , i apologized all for not able to submit the film in time. Everyone was disheartened yet satisfied that at least we made a short-film. On Saturday night I called up Jeetu and asked him to reach my home on Sunday morning. I went to sleep. It was quite long sleep after 3-4 days of hard work. I woke-up in the morning only after Jeetu had already reached my place. He straightaway opened my Laptop and started working on the Video. He solved the problem using AVS only. We had completed the Editing work. Final touch-up was given by me. And I decided to take one more chance.
On Monday in morning I went straight to Ideal Event Management company with our completed film. The receptionist told me not to worry,her boss had already accepted our movie 'DO NOT DISTURB' in Powerpoint format. She even told me that your entry to Film festival is Valid, and if your film get selected it will be screened on 22nd Jan in Ravindra Natya Mandir. I could not believe her words. For some time I stood completely frozen in-front of her. It was feeling of completion. I called up all the friends one by one and gave them the GOOD NEWS. Rahul kept looking at me as he didn't understood what was so great about it. But only all the cast and crew who had worked day and night to complete the first ever short-film could understand those feelings.
On 17th Jan we all met in Virar again. We kept little celebration party. We all cheered throughout the film on each and every scene. Pulled legs of every actor in the scene. All the positive energy and happiness was flowing all around the room. But I was very quiet. We all shouted 'Ganapati Bappa Morya' in the beginning and in t
he end of the movie. For me it was the first little step, journey had just began for the Ashwamedh Kalamanch..
It was indeed a happy movement to see our own short film on www.shortz.in after few month.Because, whenever we used to study short-films on that websites we used to dream about screening our own short-film on it and we achieved it.
Note: If you liked the real story of Making of 'Do not Disturb', feel free to leave your comments !!!
Comments
Post a Comment