The main idea of your story can come from any of the sources or combination of sources. The script I’m working on currently, for my short film, had it’s genesis in my first ever script I wrote for my scriptwriting class. When I first decided to make the short film, around 3-4 months back, the first idea which came to me was something very different. As always, I had a theme first, which in that case was about moments. That how small moments change the course of relationships. It had six different characters and one setting. Now, the more I thought about it, more I started seeing problems in that story. Even though most people I discussed the idea with liked the story. In fact, my one filmmaker friend still thinks I should do that story about moments rather than the current one. Anyways, for around a month, at least four other completely different ideas came to me and I spent some days each before rejecting each of those ideas. I started getting restless and said to myself that enough of fooling around and I will now choose one of these five ideas and go ahead. And then suddenly one day, while I was in a bank chatting with a teller, this current idea came crashing down to me. And, I knew that this was it. Later I realized, as I started developing the outline in my head, that how this current idea sort of combines at least three of those earlier five ideas plus some important elements from my first script which I wrote last year.
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean. – Socrates
Of late, I have been thinking a lot regarding how the story of any film begins in the mind of a writer/filmmaker. In various scriptwriting books, courses, workshops etc, we learn about various things related to any good story; the structure, various acts, conflict, interesting characters, beats, plot points, resolution and so on. The book, “Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting“ authored by the ultimate screenwriting guru, Robert McKee, is considered Bible in screenwriting. I cannot write enough that how much this voluminous 500 page book has taught me. Unlike most other books on screenwriting which focus more on the mechanical aspects of a story structure, Mckee’s Story turns inwards into human psychology to explain in minute detail how great dramas unfold on screen. He writes, “We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent.” His book, Story, is a path to that rediscovery. In it, McKee offers so much sound advice, drawing from sources as wide ranging as Aristotle, Casablanca, Stanislavski and Chinatown, that it is impossible not to be influenced by this book when you start your journey into screenwriting.
While going through some old videos on You tube, I found these fascinating videos of old Indian TV commercials. Anybody who has grown up in India during mid-80’s through early-90’s will remember these commercials. These videos are listed in no particular order of my liking them.
1. Gold Spot: Till date, no soft drink has tasted better to me than what Gold Spot had tasted long back. And, this commercial looked so hip then.
They say that no book or a lecture on film making can teach you what a real shoot will teach you. I agree. My first real foray into the world of film making happened recently. One of my friend, Paul Landriau, a young filmmaker, shot his ten minute short French film, PROLOGUE, last weekend. He had asked me more than a month back if I would like to play a role in the film and, even though I first panicked and balked at this idea of me being in front of the camera, I still agreed to act; I thought that what better way to build network for my own future film projects & also to learn from the whole experience for free. This is Paul’s third short narrative film & the film is shot with a digital video camera (Panasonic AG-DVX100). Paul is making this film primarily to sharpen his directing skills further & to build his repertoire. In terms of its target audience, the film will be sent to some film festivals and Paul also intends to hold some free public screenings. The story of Prologue, from whatever I understood, is about a surreal dream of a budding actress. In the dream, actress is auditioning for a role in a film & I’m playing the director who is auditioning her. We first discussed about this role more than a month back, followed by rehearsals with the full cast before the final shoot with the camera happened. The following are my notes and observations from the shoot of my part which happened last Saturday.
They say that, in life, everything happens for a reason and that you meet, form relationships, with only those people with whom nature wants you to connect with; the reason that you never meet the remaining ones or never come to know them much is because it’s not meant to be. But, I wonder if this is really true. I see some souls who exist in the same world around me, but our paths never get crossed and will never be. Seeing them from a distance, however, I find them very interesting. I wonder why didnt I meet and know them instead of the ones I knew and know now. I wonder why didnt I fall in love with them rather than the ones I fell in love with in reality. I wonder why didnt….
Do we really make the best possible choices in terms of choosing people in our lives? or even before that, do we really have any control on our ‘choices’ ?
I grew up in a very small town in India and, except for few later years before I came to west, I mostly lived/studied in small towns only. Actually if you go by the standards of rest of India, in terms of population and size, most of those towns were perhaps not bigger than big villages in many parts of India.
I vividly remember many things from my small town childhood. Most of my present day necessities were laughable audacious dreams then. I remember once (I must be around 10) I was travelling with my family in a bus in the interiors of Himachal Pradesh. Those days, we didnt have television in our home yet, as it was considered luxury by my father and so I had to satiate my love of watching movies by sneaking into those rare neighbors’ homes who not only had TV but were also gracious enough to let in a terribly shy kid. Or, if I was really fortunate, I was permitted to watch a movie in a video hall once in while (yes you heard right..there were no cinema halls there). Anyways, so I was in this bus, staring at the blue colored tin in front of me, the tin which was also the back of the next seat. Suddenly, my imaginative mind thought that what if this blue tin in front of me turns into a screen where some Amitabh Bachhan movie is playing. I was a kid, but even my kiddish mind immediately reasoned that how audacious this dream is and can never come true. Years later, I was on my way to London in a British Airways flight and was watching an AB film on the TV screen just in front of me. And suddenly, I remembered that bus and that dream of mine; I smiled at life.
I now realize that happiness, if any, is not exactly in achieving our dreams or specific goals in life, but in the journey taken towards realizing those dreams.
While I go through each single moment, each single day and each single period of my life, I realize that there is constant conflict between mind and the heart, between mind and the body and between mind and the soul; most of the times, the wrong candidate wins.
I’m extremely worried; I dread a full blown conflict between India and Pakistan after what happened last week. No guys, I’m not being paranoid here. This wasn’t a regular terrorist attack or some random bomb blasts which will be forgotten easily this time. The carnage is weighing heavily on millions of Indians across the world. People in India no longer feel safe; ‘anything can happen anywhere now’ is the common sentiment among people there. Though I admire our commandos, who continuously fought for 50+ hours with terrorists, experts believe that in the final count India’s response to the attacks was much delayed, amateurish and a systematic failure. (Please read this article)
Now, if India can provide concrete evidence to Pakistan and, more importantly, to the International community (including UN security council) that Mumbai terrorists had base in Pakistan (even if Pak govt or the ISI was not involved directly), I see no reason why India cannot take Pakistan to task this time. I mean the whole world witnessed in horror what happened and most of them are as eager as us to punish the culprits.
Dont ever assume that only mental hospitals house nuts and socially challenged people; you can find nuts everywhere around you..and mind you, they come in all shapes and sizes. I mean, social & economic status, education, clothes and communication skills do not matter here!
So, the onus is only on you to protect yourself from these seemingly ‘normal’ people around you.
