Sabse Badi Daulat - Trailer

G7 Productions - Sabse Badi Daulat - Production Report

This time when I went to India, I had a plan to shoot a short film. I had the script in my mind and more than half of it on paper as well. I had my production team and had discussed the project with them on Skype.

I had asked my niece Priyanka to be the producer and told her what a producer does since she had never done anything like it before. My 1st AD was to be my nephew Sagar who had worked on some projects with his friends and is quite good in thinking creatively.

For cast, we had some ideas, some people lined up and other roles to be picked in the village. I had written the script to be shot in a village and at first I had the plan to shoot in our own village, but the kids convinced me that it’d be better to shoot in Maheshpur which is their ‘nanihaal’ (my brother’s In-law’s live there.)

If I write all the details of this shoot, this story will go on for ever. So I will just write the outline here and then write separate posts for some of the more deserving incidents or aspects of this project.

My biggest hurdle proved to be finding a female lead. I had the idea that given Delhi’s current situation vis-a-vis the film industry, I would have no issues finding a heroine. But it proved not so easy. It seemed that in view of Delhi’s current social climate asking a young girl to accompany us, complete strangers, to a village about 100 kms. from Delhi for 5 days was like a crime in itself. But in the end, I did find a heroine, just a day before the scheduled departure!

So, we did shoot in the village and it was not always easy but it was all fun. We faced both cold and heat, we had to deal with throngs of villagers attending all our outdoor shoots and we had other issues. But it all worked out ultimately.

In the end, I was very proud of the cast and crew I had assembled. The female lead, Jyoti, was a theatre actress who gave performances I simply loved. The male lead, Gaurav, was my 1st AD’s friend who also gave good performances though sometimes I had to direct him a little but he did learn very fast.

Some of the cast I selected from the village. I had even written roles for Sagar and Priyanka. Both performed very well!

What I was most proud of was my crew!

Other than the two kids I mentioned above, I had my younger nephew Gaurav also in the crew. I taught him, yes, taught him, how to record sound on location. He never asked me a second time! He figured out the sound device on his own (we were recording double-system) and he did such a great job as soundman that I was astonished! Both Priyanka and Sagar excelled in their crew roles, asking questions when needed and taking care of details with such professionalism like they had made films all their lives!

Usually in a film unit there are at least a few instances of temper tantrums and personality clashes. But here, we all fitted well like a family, even the cast members who were not part of the family when we started from Delhi. Well, they were like family by the time we finished!

We worked hard on those days, extremely hard, sometimes going without lunch or dinner in order to finish a scene first. But the result was that we got the footage we wanted. Or I should say, we got the footage *I* wanted!

We got a lot of help from the villagers in general and my brother’s parents-in-law in particular. We did overshoot our schedule by a few hours and as a result departed on the 5th of March instead of the 4th.

We had finished by noon on 5th, so I wanted to shoot a scene for an ad film that I had been commissioned to do. I had told the actors about this before, I had the script ready, but we would need a couple of hours to shoot.

But Sagar took me aside and pointed out that nobody had got much sleep the previous night, and we had all done a few scenes in the heat and sun that morning. Considering that he thought it would not be nice to ask the actors to exert further in that harsh sun. I had not seen this side of it in my zeal to finish some additional work.

Not only was I not ashamed that I had missed it, I actually felt proud that Sagar had caught it. My kids are growing up!

I have not mentioned the scene we called Magnum Opus in this narrative at all. That’s because I plan to write a full post on that one, it deserves it.

The whole reason for this long post was to make a background for the photos that I am putting below here. I am sure you will notice my unkempt look in some of the pictures, so let me just explain by saying that I now understand why directors look like unshaved, unbathed hobo’s in their on-location videos. They have neither the time nor the mind to spend on such details, the only thing that matters is the film! And so it was with me!

The Show Must Go On

I have been hearing this phrase since I was a little boy - “The Show Must Go On”. As I grew up, I understood its meaning but didn’t really agree to it. Over the years I watched many different “shows” some of which earned my admiration and others my disdain, I wondered why must the show always go on.

What is the need for a show to go on if it’s really bad? What if the team behind the project has run into real difficulties, why should they make a superhuman effort just so the show can go on? These and other such questions came to my mind and for some time I decided the age-old maxim was not correct - the show must go on but only if it deserves it.

And then, I stepped into the filmmaking arena myself. In a very small way, I started doing the same things that all these filmmakers and TV producers and stage directors had been doing for years and years.  And...I started to learn!

In the short time I have been doing this I have learnt many new things. Lots of technical things, of course, but along with them some deep, philosophical things as well without which I doubt if anyone can become successful in the film industry.

One such thing is the real meaning of the expression - The Show Must Go On!

A film project, even a short film with no budget to speak of, involves many people. While the motivation and skill of these people varies greatly they do have one important thing in common - the project. They work together and give it their best to finish the project successfully.

Regardless of the worthiness of the project itself a lot of hard work goes into the project. There are undoubtedly difficulties on the way but they must be surmounted because giving up means letting down so many people. That’s one reason. There are others.

No matter how bad a show might be, if it gives rise to one cameraman, one director, or one writer, who in his/her turn goes on to make great works of art in the future, the show deserves to go on. And this is usually the case. I won’t cite examples because there are way too many, but we all know that good actors, good technicians or good filmmakers have come up from bad failures before.

A film is a work of art, it may be turn out to be a bad film but in the process of making it, it may teach some very valuable lessons to its makers. We all learn by making mistakes and during the course of one bad project one inexperienced director may step on the path to be the next Spielberg.

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For me the expression has very personal and alas tragic meaning.

When my first project “The Third Angle” was underway, I received news from home that my father had suddenly passed away. I have no words that would justify my emotions at the moment! I was very close to my father and this without the shadow of a doubt was the darkest, bleakest day of my life!

To make matters worse, my family lives in India and I was here in the UK. There was no way I could get there in time for anything!

To make matters still worse, I had second auditions scheduled for that night and my team had been working hard on the pre-production. The morning and afternoon hours were spent in a state that I don’t want to describe here but when coherent thinking returned I weighed my choices. I could cancel the project or I could go ahead with it.

I should mention that the project was on a very tight deadline in order to finish it before BFI deadline for short films for the London Film Festival 2011. My absence, since I was the writer and director, would hurt the project.

At that time, I began to realize many things at once.

I realized that I could not let my whole team down for my private grief, not to mention the actors we had already selected and the ones who were coming to audition tonight.

I realized that my father would have seriously disapproved of backing out of my commitment to these people.

I realized that I myself needed this project in order to keep myself distracted and keep my sanity.

I realized that not only I would have to carry on with the project, I could not even tell anyone about my private problems.

The post is getting long, let me conclude in brief. We had auditions that night and selected the remaining actors. I only told my friend Elaine, who was my first AD on the project and a close friend, that I would have to travel to India for a week and why. Elaine took care of rehearsals in my absence and I came back in time to start the filming.

We had many more problems with that project, but ultimately we finished it, I did post-processing on it myself and posted the DVD to BFI London Film Festival on the very last date!