Panch Parmeshwar

I had always wanted to make a movie with utmost perfection.
It didn’t take very long to realize that it was nearly impossible at this naïve stage where I had just learned to start looking at cinema from a completely different perspective. Initially it was just entertainment for weekends or a reason to hang out with family, and then I started to marvel at cinema and eventually became critical.

Watching a movie and liking it or disliking it is completely different from making one. The amount of thought that each detail requires is far greater than to be just accomplished in a week. No wonder movies take months and many times, years to be made. 

Nonetheless this experience of making a movie was priceless no matter how flawed it might have been. It felt like living a complete time period.

Right from the ideation to showing the final product to our actors the experience has been exciting.

The Idea

We all (my classmates of BMMMC batch 09-12) know how we submitted our scripts before the deadline. It was rushed and dashed through. It was kind of a race that we had to run willingly or unwillingly.

Honestly speaking, the chances of my script getting selected were 50-50. My proposal could have been rejected on the grounds that I had highly tampered the story of one of the greatest literary writer of India- Munshi Premchand. Though being a great admirer of him myself I had taken care not to disrespect it in anyway. Couldn’t have done justice to the details, feeling and thoughts with which Munshi Premchand had written the story, I wanted to try nevertheless. Also not much thought had been put into its execution. However, it had a strong story and the script broke the linear pattern of the story. Yet it was simple as it was intended to be.

It took me two days to realize how much work had to be done.

Forming the team

 

Choosing my team members wasn’t a difficult task. I knew the kind of people I’ll be comfortable working with but it was more important for them to be comfortable with me. Though I have realized now, more than being comfortable one should choose to work in the project she believes in. It was important that my team considered it as their movie and not alone mine. We worked quiet peacefully. I can say that. :-P

The Actors

One of the biggest challenges of this movie was talents. They should understand the character, should be fluent in Hindi, should be willing to spend four days shooting with us in those particular dates and also look like their characters. So we decided to contact a few dramatics societies of University of Delhi. Even though I wasn’t expecting people to turn up somehow…. a few did. And they were enough.
So now we had 20 odd people on board with us on this project. It was going to be exciting and fun, no doubt!

Shooting and Editing

This was the most interesting phase. Those four days of shooting with its ups and downs were memorable. Searching the location, coordinating with the talents, checking their costumes, reaching on time, setting up the camera, goof ups, onlookers, location owners, food, 20 talents including my whole family with ma, papa, sister and brother, so many guys, so many people and so many other people, time constraint, unwanted noise, unwanted elements in frame, talents not reaching on time, too much wind, too much heat, too cold, too sunny, hungry us, continuity errors, axis breaks, following the script, improvising a bit, little tension amongst the crew, have to keep the talents happy, talents who liked crew, crew who liked talents, talents who didn’t bother much, talent who wanted to shoot, focused talents, annoying talents, talents who smoked, talents who didn’t turn up because they were too drunk, talents who wanted to shave their beards, talents who didn’t have kurta’s…..uff talents!!

Shooting Over! Editing Starts!

It took all of us two three days to get over our shoots. It was almost like a shoot hangover we had. We wanted to shoot again, experience it all for a little longer.

Editing period was a realization period. Realizations of all kinds. How we could have changed this shot, how we didn’t take a particular shot, how we broke a rule and also how beautiful a particular shot has come, how the audio is bad, or how the audio is amazing and also how attached we got to the whole thing. Also how the whole script could have been altered a bit. We also found new friends in our talents.

Editing was also about fights. Yes we had ours too. But more than fights it was disapprovals I’d say. Anyhow we handled it quiet well and maturely I guess.

Showing the movie

 Parents love their kids work irrespective of the fact how it actually is. My parents were very much a part of it. It was THEIR movie too. They both acted in front of the camera for the first time. It was big for them. No wonder my father watched it thrice. His acting was appreciated by many, even my teachers….and he loved hearing it. J

Even though we wanted all the actors to see the movie together, however it couldn’t happen. Nonetheless we saw it with half the cast. We saw it at one of the talent’s flat. They were excited. And so were we. All the frenzy and noise died as the movie started. I loved that silence, where everybody waited for their parts and would recite their dialogues in their heads as it was shown on the screen. It was fun watching them watch themselves in the movie.

Showing the movie to the external examiner was the hardest! He is a critique and a good one. That’s it. :-p

A big big big thank you to ma, for being there and doing all she could and helping in every possible way she could; to my sister for not annoying me ;) Kidding! She was very helpful too; to papa, if it were not for him we wouldn’t have had such awesome location and so important a character of the movie; my team, for considering it their movie and working hard on it; to my other friends who have been a silent help throughout and before as well and to god for taking me through this bumpy and adventurous ride!

None of us might become film makers in future but then this movie and experience will remain special forever!