Echo

After spending about 6 months on the draft of my feature film I decided to go to Chennai and spent time with my favorite people. Rakhil Akkali (scientist, photographer, model, friend)  had a room in iit madras.While fighting with his inner demons and outer demons I crash and occupy the space in his room.

There were discussions about life, love, philosophies. Meanwhile I took a retreat into Yelamalai, Yercaud , hoggenekal only to come back with bigger deeper demons that I collected on the way. The sweet ones and the sour ones. A week was spend running around in adventure.

The time was spent in making decision on how to approach producers and life. Rakhil was a great inspiration. So was Regan. (Photographer, filmmaker, friend, artist )A week was spend in Ooty discussing cinema

.

Another peaceful period was spent in pondichery.

Thank god for Priyanka (designer, friend) for being around in Chennai. Even Naveen a music director doing Phd in madras was an inspiration. A period I will never forget.

Rollercoasters, temple runners, memory makers, Life givers, breathe takers and me.

Shoot n Run

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

Debtor's Prison

Why Kochi ? KOchi is the new Chennai ? the new hub for malyalam film industry. So with my script I found a space (thanks to valuable help from valuable people) in Fort Kochi.

Fort kochi is an organism which had not changed much in the last 150 years. Enveloped in the shattered glory of the Dutch, Portuguese and English, fort Kochi lives like a woman whose lovers have left her but their love still lingers.

Staying by the shipyard watching unknown vessels make dragon whimpers,  inspired me to do so many wonderful things. However the lethargy of a beach holiday spot can get only 10% of the work out of you.

                                                      The monsoon makes it way into Kochi (photograph by Rakhil Akkali)

heavy rains and buoys learn to survive ((photograph by Rakhil Akkali))

The backyard of the space where i stay in fort kochi ( photograph by Rakhil Akkali)

 ((photograph by Rakhil Akkali))

 ((photograph by Rakhil Akkali))

 ((photograph OF Rakhil Akkali) at the pepper house cafe

me with a DVD's and a nice expression

There is the library of visual arts in the pepper house cafe where i spend days watching films and reading random books on film theory and visual communication.

Budget is stringent, People i meet are big, friends are fresh and new, Inspiration is a daily activity, trust is a luxury and people around are survivors.

mermaids in fort kochi ( photograph by Rakhil Akkali))

Fort kochi is a survivors hub. like 'backyard civilization' (https://www.facebook.com/backyardcivil ) claims- a Debtor's prison

in Graphic Detail

Progressively Progressive

The Design Associate work was to develop a module for learning on camera aperture and depth of field. After professor gave his set of ideas and content, i started working on the script.

The script was accompanied by a storyboard and took almost 2 and half month to shoot and finish.

Documentation and Content by: Krishand R. K.
IDC, IIT Bombay

Content Creation and Research Guide: Professor Sudesh Balan
IDC, IIT Bombay

Sound Design Editing and Mixing: Shantanu Yennemadi


Narration: Deepanwita Gosh

Cinematography: Prof. Sudesh Balan

Storyboard and Screenplay: Krishand

Shooting Assistants: Zulfiya Hamzaki
Shubhangi Salinkar
Manisha Swarnkar

http://www.dsource.in/course/exposure-aperture/index.html

A 'Slight' mistaken Identity

Slight was an adventure of sorts. A continuous 16 hour shoot without food, running around, management, .

As soon as the topic for the film festival was pitched to the director Vinamra came up with a story after discussing with this friends. The topic was 'mistaken identity'.

However as a cinematographer me and Vinit decided only to worry about the visual and its context in the film rather than worry about the content and story.

What is a mistaken identity. A man lost in religion, caste, a twisted sexuality, a refugee, a cop taking bribe, a leader fighting for himself, A biotechnologist making films (me, me ,me) , a prostitute with a kid .... a lot of thoughts rushed in through my head when i heard the topic. However,here neither me not my fellow cinematographer Vinit masram was (or even should) makecall for content. We are just technician who brings aesthetics.

The credit to the story line goes to Vinamra Pancharia and his friends who brought in the story of a man waking up in the shoes of someone whose life has been affected by him.

The shoot went on for 16 hours since the film had to be delivered in 48 hours. 

The sound design was done by Shantanu Yennemadi who went through a hell lot of trouble since his machine crashed. The music was designed by Ramprasad Sedouram who understood the content and designed accordingly. Editing was done by Vajra Pancharia who did a great job with some of the most messed up footages. The lead roles have been played by Aneesh and Gaurav who are actors in banjara theater group.

The film won the best film, best cinematography, best sound design and best direction at the hour film festival. Proud to be a part of this venture.

As I put  the memento home in  big parcel box I wonder. Do we really need 48 hour film festivals ? Will time bound festivals hamper expression and perfection ? Do film makers make films for festivals or is it burning self expression. Who are film makers ? (mistaken identity ??)

The memento will look good on my wall. Best cinematography - krishand. 

Online

ink on paper + brush pen

Putting all recent scribbles online.