When Vinamra Pancharia spoke to me about making “Shade Away”
(as it was previously envisaged) I thought to myself. WIIIFM. (What is in it
for me ?)
I had brought a 1984 manual lens and made a lot of
adjustment to mount it on my camera. The kind of bokeh’s it gave was truly
breathtaking and when an ND filter is placed on it,a natural vignette is
formed.
Vajra Pancharia (artist, animator) explained the script and
visuals to me. It was explained that the final colors would be warm. So I decided
to shoot it cool so that finally the color is increased to yellow(warm) the
blacks would thus remain black. (this never happened since colr correction was
done on After Effects which has more presets and gimmicks rather than just
controlling contrast and making the blacks black)
The director had already arranged everything in favor of the
shoot. The team was ready and early morning on a cold January me and Girish
Atuvalaipil who helped me in Cinematography travelled to the location and shot
it.
I had decided to frame everything as a candid observer. Since Vinamra had envisioned it like a
theatrical performance it was easy for me to push in the idea of a candid
secretive observer encroaching into a kids life. He totally agreed to my frames
and soon we were shooting it all around Mumbai..
The film turned out to be a visual treat of its kind. (here I
Flatter myself) and the pacing and story telling helped to tell the content in
the right direction.
However the film failed .
Where did we go wrong ? In inception or conception or in
content. Probably one of my best learning regarding visual story telling. Had
fun working with Vinamra pancharia and later his brother Vajra Pancharia the
editor.
Why do we make films ?
Transient shade aka Adhoori chaav
Direction
VInamra Pancharia
Editing
Vajra Pancharia
DOP
Krishand
Sound Design and Mixing
Shantanu Yennemadi
Music
Ramprasad Sedouram
Associate DOP
Girish Atuvalaipil
Associate Director
Himashu Katara
and
The team at Black Salt film
Rishi
Vishal
Anish Kumar
Gaurav