Filmmaking workshop by Pawan Kumar

Photography/Photo-walking has been one of my serious hobbies for last couple of years, . But since the advent of video DSLRs there's a major urge to try out videography (short film making). In the quest for the same, I did try out video slide show, time-lapse and editing a sequence of video footages shot from Go-Pro camera. But the overall outcome was far from satisfactory.

One fine day in last week of August I got an email from my blogging buddy Raveesh Kumar asking whether I am interested to join him for filmmaking workshop conducted by college-mate Pawan Kumar. I decided to take a plunge without any second thoughts. 

Preparation/Home-work: 

As per Pawan's instructions, I watched one of my favorites movie '3 idiots' from filmaking point of view. Infact, I watched the movie twice: once in normal mode and second time with director's voice-over. With director's commentary, it was very amusing to know that so many things are taken into consideration even for making a simple shot. 

Theory Sessions:

After the initial round of introductions, the workshop started with an unusual approach. We were asked to write down about our current disturbance in our personal life. As per Pawan, most renowned filmmakers have made movies which were product of their disturbance. Lifeu Ishtene was derived from his personal disturbance which he had two years back. In the rest of the session, we were introduced a structured approach of converting disturbance into a story, and then into screenplay with individual shots. 

Practical Sessions:

In evening session we divided ourselves into groups and had to go thru a brainstorming of choosing one story which was based on individual disturbances of group members. With quick group discussion, we shortlisted two stories considering the praticality(we had to complete the shoot in a short time). Since both the shortlisted were pretty decent, we decided to split-up the group for making two different movies independently. 

Planning/Shooting:

After day-1 of the workshop we (myself, Raveesh & Narendra) sat for an hour at a CCD near to workshop and scripted all scenes of the movie. Then came the question of location for the shoot. Thankfully, my engg classmate Jyotirmayee allowed us to shoot at her office Hivemind Solutions. The actual shoot was real fun, it was a maiden experience for all of us and we enjoyed every moment. With proper structured screenplay we managed to complete the shoot within 2 hours. And the ideas were free flowing like anything, a few of them were incorporated on the spot. Here's alpha version of the movie. More fine-tuned version is in pipeline but we are not able to proceed ahead for time being because of hardware constraint.

It's just the beginning, we have a ong way to go. Just to re-iterated what Pawan said in the workshop, "In filmmaking 10% is talent and 90% is management". Quite obvious after we had the maiden first hand experience.

If you want to take a plunge like us, kindly register for the upcoming workshop on Oct 27th,28th.

Also read: Raveesh's post on the workshop