When we Played it the Eff Back: Playback Shoot is Done!

Playback project is called so because we are required to make a track, record it and play it back during shoot. Most people don't do it since most of us here are never going to make films with song sequences lip synced with music etc. Still, i liked the idea and decided to do it the conventional way.

After translating an article on Padayani and getting interested in the art form i had decided that the song portion in my playback project would be Padayani. So i had to record the track. First i thought of calling the artists to Kolkata. That proved to be very expensive for our budget. So i issued equipment from the sound department (once again) and broke rules (once again) to go to Kadammanitta, Kerala, to record my playback track. It was lovely recording on location. I hate studios for their A.C in the first place. The recorded track was of six minutes. I would be using only half of it, may be less. You can listen to it here.




When D Jeet and i started going on location recce and decided on a brick factory and its surroundings as our location for playback i changed the narrative to fit in a story of a worker there getting killed during work, leaving his wife and two children alone at home. I wanted a reality and surrealism mix. We were all set for it.

Working with D Jeet had become difficult. We were fighting all the time. I was getting anxious about the project. Was worried if personal tiffs would end up in bad quality of work. Nothing of the sort happened. During shoot we found our rapport back. But i will have to write about being a woman and handling your crew. The playback project was a huge revelation for me regarding sexism on set and location. It needs to be fought. More on that later.

As usual we took reference frames. I told D Jeet that the approach i wanted for this shoot was what could be called 'neat'. I wanted only 'neat shots'. He seemed to get it. I myself had changed a lot since short film project and realized that my shot breakdown had started to have more wide shots and less of  close ups. I discussed the shot breakdown with Subha and he gave suggestions. So did D Jeet. I took in what i felt was right and discarded others.

G Vijayan Achari and Renjith came from Kadammanitta to dance to my track. I witnessed all stages of Padayani from cutting of the sepal of areca nut trees (paala) to make costume till the point where head gear and breastplate were made using it. Each and every part of the costume is made using things available from nature. The colours are from cinder of coconut shells, powdered red stone. The green is from the green of sepals. White is the white of the inside. Even the brushes used are natural. It is amazing to watch. They said that one costume would last only for two days. Renjith made another costume on the third day.

Renjith cutting the sepals

Renjith making the headgear

The headgear

Playback project has been taken away from the curriculum of the newest batch. After my shoot i know that it is a foolish decision. This project is essential in preparing a student for their diploma project for many reasons. For one you get experience shooting in outdoor locations. You learn how to manage crowds. Where we shot the whole village was present and even started saying 'roll camera, rolling' etc after two days of shoot. Sometimes they were a problem especially for a person like me who has issues with human contact. When the crowd pushes you from behind you feel intimidated. Handling cattle, children, non actors, looking after lip sync, keeping the spirit of  the shoot intact for four whole days even when people have given up sleep and are on location doing various jobs. (one of my shifts was from 11 p.m-7 a.m) all this was making us aware of how serious a job we had undertaken. I had taken in four of my juniors as assistants and it proved to be a very good decision. They worked like there was no tomorrow that i myself was surprised. I am not sure if i would have done the same for any of my seniors.

I was happy with most of the shots. Two or three shots disappointed me and that remains meat between teeth. However, it was great to watch my batchmates grow in their work. I myself realized that i had grown a lot in my story telling, that i was able to make decisions better. D Jeet also seemed to have improved in his craft by leaps and bounds. It made me happy.
This is a shot of the shoot shot by one of my assistants, Kaustav. See how everything is planned and executed and there are no accidents? Every single person and thing in the frame has to be thought of. Accidents if any should only be good which is hardly the case during a shoot. 




Towards the end of the shoot i became rather emotional with D Jeet. The project was going to be our last together. We had good times together. They were really good. We had bad times which were really bad too. May be that was what cinema was all about. It just changes, may be?

Some stills from our shoot clicked by Kaustav, one of my assistants.

Some of our extras, all from the village

The father at the brick house.

The dance

The sleep

Update: After a long drawn out battle with practically everybody on campus, won my right to have another editor as replacement for Aalayam since my sexual harassment complaint against him was still under investigation.

Trip to Kadammanitta and Vasudevan Pilla

When i translated the article about Padayani into malayalam i had noticed that one of the major references was the work of Kadammanitta Vasudevan Pilla. I contacted the author and my editor contacted Mr Pillai's son before i spoke. We set up a time and date for the meet.

Then i got to know that the queer pride march in Kozhikode was going to happen on the same day. I pushed the meeting a day behind and was supposed to reach Kadammanitta on 6th July 2015. On the evening before that, i leaned that there were no tickets available for Janasadabdhi, the train which would take me to Chengannur. I made up my mind to go by bus. From the new KSRTC complex in Mavoor road, i took a bus to Ernakulam. From there i took one to Kottayam. It was around 7 p.m when i reached kottayam. There was no way i could hold the meeting on that day. There was no chance that i could attend the queer pride march the next day too. Bad planning is what i was born with. Not even that. I think I was born with no planning whatsoever.
I was not sure if anybody would rent a room to a woman alone. In Trivandrum i had learned that this was not possible. In the lodge next to Kottayam bus station i pretended to be non mallu and asked for a room. They gave it readily. I am intimidated by hotel rooms. I wish it had something to do with Psycho, but sadly life is not so filmy. I have too many bad memories in hotel rooms and feel i am under threat all the time. For me those are places away from 'home'. Home was safe. Hotels were not. If the place is dirty i feel even worse. And this one was. Slovenly. I stayed there that night and set off to Thiruvalla early in the morning of the next day. From Thiruvalla i took a bus to Kozhancheri. In Kozhancheri bus station i waited for two whole hours for a bus to Kadammanitta because nobody gave me the right directions. It was sickening. I hate wasting time when i don't want to. A peanut seller took pity on me and asked why i was there for such a long time. When i said i was waiting for  a a bus to Kadammanitta he put a sympathetic hand to his own head and said so many buses had gone by. He took me to the right place.I bough narangamuttai from him and had all of them.

I had been to Kottayam once in high school for a State level science fest. Not many memories about that except the fun trip, antakshari etc. This time what i noticed was that the place was just rubber. There were rubber plantations all around and a lone house in middle. House is a petty name for those structures. Those were huge palaces. I got scared seeing some of them. Why were these people so rich?! Could anybody be so rich! I looked at all the rubber trees around the houses and got an answer. Cash crop was literally that.

I reached Kadmmanitta around 12 pm. Mr Pilla's house was right next to the temple where padayani was performed. He spoke to me about how the art form was etc. I presented the script to him and asked if there was any song which would go with that. He asked me to buy a book written by him. I said okay and he gave me a copy he had. It was Rs. 70. The book is called 'Padeni' and is published by Kerala Bhasha Institute and has around 500 pages. I would have to read it and select three song portions that i myself thought was best for the theme. I was very excited and tried hard not to show it. I got an autographed copy of the book and left saying i would get back to him after reading the book. It will travel with me from Kozhikode to Kolkata. More than films, i think i like the journeys we make to make films.

I reached back Kottayam around 3 p.m, vacated the room and went in search of a bus. One which was going to Mananthavadi was revving the engine. I jumped in. More than seven hours on that and i was back by 1 a.m in Kozhikode. I felt good to be back home. I think home is what i need the most in life. Some place to go back to. For some, it's a person. Blessed are those.

I had created a whatsapp group for the crew and kept updating everyone on it as to what was happening. Soon we would have to record the track. The excitement was slowly building up. Ah what a beautiful thing is cinema is.