Day 6 : Terse also means brief – Jubaraj J. Barua

Day 6 started off with an intervention. In my Day 5 blog, till a certain point of time I myself could not locate the time and space of what I had written. I was wordy indeed. The intention of the intervention was to make my thought process more sorted. Subhodro sir keeps repeating the following line: Every sentence is a shot. My blog lacked it. I have a bad habit of speaking gibberish at times. I repeat myself and I weigh my words more than my content at times. The tip was to zip up the mouth and think precisely and conclusively. In this context I like the way Ashok writes. He has the content covered in few words. Soumee has interesting anecdotes though it is a bit wordy too. I also found out the correct spelling of Diaptor. Then we decided to review the video blog which I had edited the last night. There were some important points in this review which I would like to highlight:

1. Identify your characters accurately

2. Character expositions don’t work the same way a text might do it.

3. Cheap editing tricks do not work.

4. You need to wait before actuality happens

5. Magic happens if you are patient

6. Character arcs need to be properly sketched.

7. Chuck out technically messed up shots.

8. An idea has to have a start, a middle and an end before we jump on to the next idea

9. Proper scene construction will give an idea the beginning, middle and end.

10. Before shooting anything, it has to be precisely thought of. This can avoid the unnecessary movement of camera trying to trace stories out of characters.

This is in corollary to whatever was being told to me regarding my blog. I had footage. I didn’t have the right footage to construct some meaning. An apple was an apple in most of my shots. I was dressing up the apples to force them to appear pears. Let me take you through the video that I had edited.

From 0:00 to 0:55 the video tries to outline the different characters working. The cutting was done to match with the looks exchanged. The flaw is evident – it doesn’t quite add up to the start of one idea. It is a mess of a lot of ideas. Too many cooks indeed spoil the broth. From 0:55 to 1:05 a little idea is being launched for the first time. My intention was to do a fast cut to expose Hindol’s character. This as a whole didn’t sum up to the complete video. What followed then was very organic. Somebody who is not a part of the workshop took interest and suddenly raised the same question. Sumana’s enthusiasm helped in cementing the organic moment. From then onwards my intention was to create two different spaces. One space in which all the 7 of us are a part of and the other space in which only the 2 going through intervention were a part of. Cheap editing tricks didn’t help me communicate. I had panned and tilted the camera trying to discover what was not happening. I had not previously decided on what I was going to show. Being random didn’t help. I did get some shots which I found to be interesting. I tried to illustrate Mainak and Sreecheta’s state of being with the help of the landscape around. This wasn’t coming through. Technical glitches too hampered the intention. What went wrong was my belief that whoever would watch this video already is aware of the situation. I had taken off their stories of redemption from the middle. There was no start or a conclusive end to it. The geese quacking and showing their agitation against them for constructing the tower in their island also didn’t come along. This was followed by a two shot of Ashok and Sumana working on their cameras. This idea had just started off that it ended with the next shot. Ashok and Kirti shooting flowers in a snake position and Soumee joining them later. This required a proper scene construction which could be as follows:

1. Ashok shoots the flowers in a snake position

2. OTS of Ashok as Kirti shoots the same flowers in snake position

3. Entry of Soumee

4. Long shot of three of them clicking the photo.

The end of the video was inconclusive too. Thanks to lack of prior thought before shooting actuality.

After the review had been done half way Mainak had joined us. He finally seemed to understand the task given to him with respect to the tower he was constructing. But the point had still not completely sunk in him. So he was asked to complete his task before he joined us. And he obeyed to do the same.

We broke for lunch after clicking some footage. By the time we came back for lunch the decision was out that we would shoot our dialogue exercise on P2. On the same note, the schedule of the dialogue exercises was also prepared. Hindol is shooting day after tomorrow.. The schedule was prepared by a general consensus of who wants to go first. To follow this, Himel was instructed to play director. I along with Hindol and Soumee raised our hands to do his camera. This then was followed by a brief stint of Himel playing director and the three of us playing his potential cinematographers. The task at hand was to ask the director questions a cinematographer would ask before going on the floor. Without technical competency we can never answer a cinematographer’s doubts. The relationship between a director and cinematographer should be finely balanced. This was being intented at.

We then collected the P2s. A tripod is equally important as the camera. We often forget it and misuse the tripod. How we open the legs of a tripod, then close them and lift a tripod becomes equally important. Hence the first step was to familiarize us with how to be careful with a tripod. Then we mounted the camera and unmounted it. Only after this we explored the cameras. A chai break ensued and we got ourselves some snacks. By this time the shooting schedule was officially out. All of us then watched Hulot’s holiday – a film by Jacques Tati. Tati’s use of several characters around a pivotal character Hulot and the comedy of errors were interesting takeaways from the film. A 114 minute film  came to an end and Sir had also arrived in at the same time. The concluding remarks of the day were to get rid of the inertia that was still visible and get past our egos.

Tomorrow we move our classroom to the set. Looking forward to the same great time on the set too.