movie diary from bala

17-12-2002

It was two days before the university exam. And a day before my sister’s birthday. But I remember it better for other reasons. Or at least I hope these words will help me trap those moments forever.
It must have been about eight at night. There I was lost in the irrelevance of mundane conversations with Sijin and Kiran. But that day was a mite different than others…..I had what seemed like a brainwave, then. I shared the burden of my discovery with fellow madman Nihas, who lapped up the idea.
And so we decided to feed our inner demons….our desire to see the words ‘film-maker’ written under our names….our 15 minutes of fame…our day in the sun when we could look at the industry in the eye and say “We are here!!!! Look out”. We tanked our Christmas vacation plans and decided to make this movie on a shoestring budget. People asked why we weren’t going home, and we would say we were going to make a movie. The reaction was always the same. “No way”. Understandable. They were all listening to us rave and rant about making a movie for nearly 2 years now. Something told me this time was different and somehow we managed to scrounge around 3000 bucks a piece. In the classic Bowfinger tradition, we convinced ourselves that all movies were made with just 6000 Indian Rupees.
Then it began the wait for the two interminable days to go by before we could embark on our …….journey?! Maybe it was one. Then again…..

19-12-2002

And so we said our good-byes to all the doubting Thomases that left for their Christmas vacation with a joke to take home. Us and our story. The elation of a 10 day break before the next exam and the fact that we were going to make our movie played a major part in what we did that day. However, we did…NOTHING. Our major hiccup was a classy idea by Nihas to change the protagonist’s gender. Though I suspected that there ulterior motives behind such a move, I agreed in the beginning, but before long we knew our story, a passable one in the beginning, was now royally f***ed. But we promised ourselves that we would finish the story on 20th and finish the shoot by Christmas. All I wanted was an original story. All Nihas wanted was a movie he could make. We failed to meet halfway.




20-12-2002

We stared dumbly at the monitor as we sat to write the screenplay. We couldn’t agree on the colour of shit that morning. So we took our disagreement to the film-makers court. A court where, each day, a million judges pass their collective verdict on every director’s venture. The theatre. The fateful movie was ‘Kaante’. As luck would have it, the tapes hadn’t arrived for the first day’s first show and we meekly headed back to hostel. I told myself the omens weren’t right and we were rightfully prevented from watching a plagiarized work before we embarked on our own. Long live Quentin Tarantino. Now at our wits’ end we set deadlines for our screenplay. If by nine that night we hadn’t come up with anything, we would adapt an O.Henry short story for movie. If that didn’t work out by ten, we would go back to our original story…the very first screenplay we wrote, inspired by Guy Ritchie. And we weren’t prepared for contingencies beyond that…..

That night after several hours in front of my comp, we returned to the very same story that we had f***ed the day before, only this time we omitted the proposed sex change for the protagonist. Gotta say we liked it when it was finished. Was nothing new as far as stories go, but we had faith in our presentation. I must acknowledge here with a touch of disappointment, that the concept of our presentation was nothing new. I admit it. We stole the story telling technique from Christopher Nolan’s Memento…..but that was the compromise we had to make to get the story ready in time for the shoot.

Nihas suckered me into playing a small part in the movie. I agreed thinking that he would be my hero for the movie. Little did I know.

21-12-2002

A pleasant Sunday. We headed to meet our editor Jalston, with the 5 page screenplay in hand. As we expected, he couldn’t tell the head from the tail of the story. When we finished explaining, he seemed moderately interested. He gave us his last words of advice and convinced us that Nihas would have to be behind the camera all the time. A decision that left us scrambling at the last minute for a hero. Now I was stranded in front of the camera and Nihas was jammed behind it. I have no faith in my acting skills, but I felt that at least we both would go down together. In front of the camera and behind it. Through all this we scrambled through the bylanes of the city in scooters, bikes, public transport, private transport…..and what not……our cast was barely there. Of the three major parts to be played, we had only 1 confirmed actress. Neena Cherian. Our other ‘stars’ were unavailable for comment or commitment. But we had a moronic sense of confidence that told us that everything was going to be F.I.N.E fine….

Now Neena is an established screen goddess in our college circles and so her casting and participation was natural. I must tell you it was a proud moment for me when I asked her to act in our movie and she agreed without even going through the story!!! For the other major female part I had my eyes set on Preethi latha. I convinced Nihas that she was perfect. There was only one problem…reaching her. I knew she would agree to the idea if only we could talk to her. I was confident about my skills in convincing people to act foolish. Aparna G Menon……aaah what can we say about this lady???? She was the key all our success. The door to the land of possibilities. There was only one other problem. We could never reach these great people. And of course there was the unresolved issue of finding our hero.

But these were times when even the sun seemed kind…every day smelled sweet. All I could see was our movie opening amidst rave reviews, exploding camera flashes, cackling reporters, Cannes and champagne……yeah right…we got carried away…

But after night fall, the both of us became zombies. We felt nothing. Understood nothing. Blanking out totally. So nobody can be expected to remember or record what happened from 7 in the evening to 9 the next morning. The long suffering Shibin, who had, at his own risk, chosen to stay behind with us, put up with us morons through his movie marathons.5 VCDs at a time. He was the machine. When we offered him a small role in the film, he immediately gave us a warm response. An extended middle finger.
Yeah right.

22-12-2002

Nihas finally got to talk to the camera man. We were scheduled to meet him that afternoon. But there was also this appointment I had with my local guardian, my financier and my confidant. My sister. I had planned to keep the news of this movie away from her but when I met her that day I spilled the beans like the numb-nut I am. She wasn’t in the least impressed, but seemed to like the story and asked me to tell dad about it.

A quick word about my dad. He hates art and movies. So I knew talking him into letting me do it was pointless and also a wasted effort. Any way we left my sis’s place feeling light headed. We were still very optimistic. Nihas and I. We finally hunted the camera man down and asked him all about the expenses and he gave us a figure that was too good to be true. 1300 rupees per day. I could barely believe it. So we walked on with more than just a jump in our step. Nihas had a few reservations as we still hadn’t found our hero. But I stuck my policy on team work….compensate and complement your team-mate. So I kept telling him over and over again that everything would be ok. And I believed it for a while. We called that nice man who had heard our pathetic stories and contrived plots for untold hours without a single complaint and with genuine interest. Rakesh Ram. I can’t tell you how much we are in the debt of this quiet man. We called him on a whim and told him to come right over and be our sound man and help us get on with it basically. He was flustered at the sudden attack and told us he would decide by evening. I knew he would come. I had a brainwave (I was having a bit too many for my own liking anyway…) and I suggested the casting of Joe Chemmanam as our hero. Nihas had reservations but I told him he had dedication and he wouldn’t refuse us anyway. That clinched it. So we called Joe and explained our situation. He was ever the sportsman and rose to the challenge even if he was unsure about his own skills. Now we made our final attempt to contact Aparna who finally told us that she would come to college the next day and we could discuss things in person. A delightful proposition. Pretty soon it was evening and we were dullards again. Though we still hadn’t reached Preethi we (or more precisely, I) ran into hot water when I called her at home and got a frosty response from her father who hung up on me rather unceremoniously.

23-12-2002

I waited by the phone stupidly. Waiting for it to ring and waiting for Aparna to be at the other end. Joe turned up in his trusted Splendor and was half amused and half apprehensive about our proposal. Having waited long enough for Aparna to call, we took the initiative and called her at her place. It turned out that she had left a message with Ajay P P, our honourable Gen Sec. and the best news was she fixed up an appointment that evening at her place. Amidst all this commotion Suraj, who was placed in Mindtree came over to give us his treat. We coordinated a mass transport arrangement whereby the 5 of us (Suraj, Joe, Shibin, Nihas and I) could end up in City gate, Sreekaryam. Must have been Suraj’s lucky day as only fried rice was available and he got away with it….
I somehow managed to get Ajay to write a letter addresses to our principal allowing us to shoot the film in college during Christmas.
After lunch Nihas and I met S.K.Mohan and got permission after some drama (only to be expected when you are dealing with a madman like him!). After a quick nap, both of us prepared to meet Aparna. Joe agreed to accompany us and so we got to go in his car. We found the place without much trouble and quickly got down to the basics. I told the story for the nth time in my patented style (ask Nihas…) and everyone was impressed!! Aparna was of the opinion that if we could convey exactly what we wanted to say, it would be a good movie. After explaining it all we sat back and watched her co-ordinate our locations, cast, props and what not through a silver tongue and handy mobile phone. She even got the elusive Preethi Latha on phone, who promptly turned up to visit us at Aparna’s place after she had me explain the story and her role in the film. We wasted some time at Aparna’s place probably because we were entering our twilight zone of retardation. Late that evening we set out to purchase films, props and to finalize the cameraman.

We stumbled for the first time. The cameraman brought out all his hidden costs and now the daily rate shot up to 3000 a day. I was deflated and getting angrier by the moment but Nihas kept a cool head and haggled it make it 2500 per day. We called it a day and trudged back to hostel. I had my first reservations about the entire project. Nevertheless, we went about converting my room in hostel as an I.C.U room in case Aparna couldn’t arrange something better. Fell asleep by 3:00 in the morning.

by bala