Saturday 18 October 2014

Short Film Trajectory #5 Of Hope

 Joel Coen said 'I can almost set my watch by how I’m going to feel at different stages of the process. It’s always identical, whether the movie ends up working or not. I think when you watch the dailies, the film that you shoot every day, you’re very excited by it and very optimistic about how it’s going to work. And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before'.

I felt exactly the same. When i watched the first cut in my editor Aalayam's room, i felt like giving up the course and going back home. I felt all that i had learnt were all that i hadn't learnt. After seeking the opinion of professors i was suicidal. I really was. Things weren't rosy in the personal front either. Aalayam and i somehow emerged out of that together. We sought the opinion of a lot of people. I showed some of the cuts to some on line friends and asked what they thought. We kept on making changes and that just kept us going. In the end you could end up with a good film or a bad one but never the one you wanted to make.

During the edit


In fact this is a common mishap. That after principal photography (shoot) everything else that is done becomes an exercise only to save the original idea not to actually make it happen. That way more than being creative you are being a trouble shooter, salvaging the most passengers out of a sinking ship.
The same had happened during the making of my other short films. I thought things would be different now that i had become more serious and methodical in my approach to cinema. This was the project i had worked the most for. In the end it seemed as if it only made the disappointment greater. However it is out of thisdisappointment that a fresh urge for perfection sprouts in mind. You want to know how you can make cinema 'behave'.  How to get it right the next time and the very thought of a 'next time' is exhilerating.

It feels different now to look at the cuts and make decisions. For me it is now a passing phase. Make it the best in all ways possible and move on to the next disappointment spree. It will be better the next time because you will be making new mistakes.

Like Coen brothers added 'just keep repeating, it gets better'.


Short Film Trajectory #1 
Short Film Trajectory #2
Short Film Trajectory #3
Short Film Trajectory #4

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