WRITER and DIRECTOR - PART II

Continued . . . On Using Camera Movement

Once you've set your locations known and had your sets designed, the look of the picture is locked in. I don't care what your cinematographer does. If it is a tiny room, you're photographing tiny spaces. If it is a colorful room, you're making a statement about bright color.

To suddenly say, "I'm starting to shoot this film, now I'll create my visual style," is nonsense. That’s why I said earlier, the Director has to know the location well in advance. The visual look is total ensemble work and it is extremely important that it be set very early on.

The camera and camera movement are part of the vocabulary you use to make your statement. If you overuse camera movement, it's like screaming, "Help, help, help" all the time, or having 25 exclamation points. If you're looking at the eyes and face of a character and they're revealing emotions, why the hell move the camera unless that movement makes a statement?

On the other hand, in Apoorva Sahodharkal (Tamil) while Appu (Kamal Hassan) laughs out loud on the circus ring making others laugh, his huge histrionic speech that's wildly funny, and I pan down to his hands and his fingernails that dig holes into his palms and they bleed, there's a reason for that camera movement.

There’s one shot on Guna when Roshini tries to escape the dilapidated church where she’s kept a prisoner by Guna, as she comes out and runs towards the car, screams: “help, anybody help”. The camera suddenly pans in different directions as we hear her voice coming back. The forest looks lavishly expansive, exaggeratedly careless; and we find her voice coming back to her from all around, as she finds herself a part of eternity.

It was a striking camera move, but it was also making a point: "OMG, how lost the girl is, and how endless can be the journey of escape!"

On Scoring Films Effectively

While writing screenplays, I’m sure we all come up with a music within, which is hardly effable or rather not defined at that point of time; still we can well feel the presence of music, as a writer. But a director, I reckon should have a clear definition with the songs, and more importantly the music score used to highlight emotions in the film. In general, music and sound effects are dangerous weapons because they are over-used so much. Chanakyan (Malayalam) and Kuruthippunal (Tamil) were films wherein songs were not essential but music score was.

In Chanakyan, Mohan Sitara - almost a debutant music composer at those times did a wonderful contribution for Chanakyan; he had composed a score well before the cinematographic shoot was on, so we could use the score as a base to shoot the pictures. The score actually has characterized the lost music inside the character - Johnson, and also gave many modulations to his long-pending revenge.

In Kuruthippunal, the original music of Shri Ilayaraja brought about a sense of danger in domestic fascism, hiding behind symbols of patriotism, as he created a positive, folk-like score. But there's an edge to it. There's something under that cheerful, martial thing that becomes threatening.

In Jillunnu Oru Kadhal, A R Rahman used the score more relatable to baroque, at the same time regional folk music, which brought about a dignity and romantic quality, but controlled with a sense of occasion.

On Choosing Projects

We all go by our ethos as a person, and not as a writer or director, as we pursue this path of creativity. The kind of influence we have had during our childhood does make a weight as to the choice we make in choosing a project to write or direct.

Somewhere, we go back to the fact that we all have obsessions. If we're creative, if we're lucky, we have things that drive us, mysteries that we have to live and re-live and act out and re-enact. And each time, if you're creative and you're lucky, you get a picture or a book or a story out of it. That's what I always tell my colleagues and students at my Screenwriters Academy - ScreenWrite.In

WRITER and DIRECTOR

Chand Rai is my recent aspirant and student who travelled all the way from Gelephu, Bhutan to learn and experience Screenwriting. And he’s going to host a few programs in his hometown in Bhutan early next year. Screenwriting Academy – ScreenWrite.In is spreading its mission to a wider spectrum.

Chand has been a keen student; at the same his ‘theme’ has been quite definite and unique. The script he finished here, titled 'Nu Ten', sounded really touching, at the same time promising for an international film, which Chand plans to direct himself.

I’m writing this for Chand, and many like Chand who show interest to compare the roles of writer and director one has to switch, when it comes to actualizing a dream to make a film. Chand wanted to know the nitty-gritties of direction as I look at it; may be, he wanted to get a writer’s perspective to directing a film.

Ingmar Bergman had commented: "If you don't have something to say, don't make a film." A director has to have a concept, some driving passion, as a writer has to have a theme or a premise for his story and screenplay. Once you have that ‘theme, premise or concept’, the director puts in his efforts to communicate that concept to other people in the most effective way.

As a Writer most of the time you communicate to yourself, assessing the pros and cons creating conflicts and drama, the Director’s job is being an artist, part of it's being a ‘general’--organizing the troops--and part of it is being a ‘communicator’, so that the other creative people can do their best work within your 'concept'. The other part is being a ‘psychiatrist’--in particular, working with actors. And that is not said in a teasing way, because acting is an emotional tool, and you have to have some sense of the person who's doing it and what they have to contribute to their character in order to get the performance you want out of them.

It's crucial to choose what you say to each person very carefully. Your job as a director is to keep the whole integrated concept moving forward.

Locations and Art Director

A most important choice for any Director is have an idea about the locations one is going to utilize for the cinematographic shoot. As a Writer one may have had a vision about the locale but as Director one has to blend the locale with the pragmatism of the Cinematographic shoot. The Director, unlike the Writer, has to know the location for the Camera Lenses more than just seeing it in his mind’s eye. The location has to be really conducive to generate the emotion underlying the story’s world and the director has to identify it to himself first.

The importance of casting well holds not just for actors, but for all the other key people as well: the Art Director, the Cinematographer, the Costume Designer and the Production Controller etcetera.

While shooting Guna (Tamil) there is this crucial scene when Roshini (Abhirami for Guna) tries to escape the remote, dilapidated church on top of the hill in the forest, Guna hides in the junky bathroom exterior and chases her. And the Art Director had worked the junky bathroom perfect to the core.

But when the scene was staged the Director - Santhana Bharathi thought, "It's absolutely wrong to play it there. It should be outside the church and way beyond, for the curiosity to sustain." Then Bharathi realized that there was no place for Guna to hide, and if he can't hide, the whole scene is down the drain--it was a suspense moment. The Director was walking around the set thinking, "Where the hell do I hide this man?"

Then the Art Director pointed at the junky car Guna had brought his Abhirami and a little dark corner--which the Director hadn't asked the Art Director to supply--so you could keep Guna inside the car and you don't see that man hiding until you're right at the door. The Director never asked for it. It was wonderful. The Art Director has to give you little surprises and eccentricities beyond what you've worked out on the floor plan. The Director and his Prime Crew have to have that kind of rapport, and it's essential. That’s one way to look at it. The other side is, had the Director known the location well in advance, this problem wouldn’t have cropped up at all.

On Using Camera Movement . . . to be continued