First Time Film Makers

23.05.08 Friday

Today, was dedicated thoroughly to the “Story” department, so

I would like to elaborate more on the “Story” ingredient of our filmmaking task.

Because that is topping our “agenda” list…

“Story” seems like a short term but ask us what significance it holds..!! It’s the heart of the movie..

Now History says that, “The greatest stories are those that resonate our beginnings and intuit our endings, our mysterious origins and our magical destinies, and dissolve them both into one.”

Well, this is bit hard to digest… so we shall explain it in a simpler form..

Ironically speaking, its quite common that most people know what a story is

until they sit down to write one…!! We have been through that phase too…!!

It aint easy…

One basic fact that is to be kept in mind while thinking about a story is that it’s not the voice that commands the story, it’s actually the ears that are listening to it, that commands… So when one of us starts a story, the others immediately get busy in dissecting it…and its dissected to the core..!!

With story, comes the “story telling” part.. With our experience we have come to a conclusion that, storytelling enlightens or hints at imperfection.

So Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.. The story that we share has to be tattered, imperfect, and a bit disorganized.

So when one person among us finishes telling a story, there comes three or four different perspectives, which would end with a completely different moral at the end…

(Morals usually vary from significant to silly and every absurd little thing in between…!!)

All this is done in an instant.. in almost no time.. Our brains work that rapidly..!

And yes, majority of the story concepts that we dig into are genuinely good, but we gotta admit that some are utter crap too…!!!

Also not to forget that, the hunger-nap phase do come and greet us time to time.. but then we are used to those close calls.. we are smart enough to take time out for everything amidst our discussions…

The basic thing we go after while working together daily on multiple tasks is that, we try and make things reach at the extraordinary point, we push things that comes into our hands a little higher up, a little further on towards the heights of excellence…

With this note, we part.. With an assurance of doing all the more work the next day with a lot more vigor and dedication …

We are moving ahead little by-little.. doing our best each day..!!

We believe in being daring, being first, being different, and being just..!

The FTFM team, busy expressing their views on Sigma 51 and exploring new ways in Independent Filmmaking.

This is how the FTFM team works… Taking up one idea, thinking over it- dreaming of it, living on that idea. Letting the brain, muscles, nerves, heart, be obsessed with that idea and then finally expressing it in a language comprehensible to everyone.

The art of thinking and reasoning..!

Everyone is in a pensive mood, trying to shape their thoughts in to words.

When thoughts become words… And words Action… In this case, “Direction.”

That’s why its Rightly said, “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”

DATE : 21/05/08 & 22/05/08

We begin our day by hunting for a suitable office where we can land for our Sigma 51 discussions. Lately, we have found one which suits our requirements… Thanks to Himalaya Mall… !!

Not to forget the parking scene.. It’s a task in itself. If you want to save your 10 bucks you need to be extremely crafty while parking your vehicles outside the mall… We all have become through artists by now.

So after that task we land at our official meeting place—-

The Food Court.. Wait a while for all to settle down and then begin…

After all, driving in such scorching heat is not a joke..!

We believe in starting things immediately and then doing it flamboyantly.

After the usual round of Hi-Hello-How Have you been… we remind ourselves that we have gathered for a reason and we need not divert from that…

Sudden Change in the ambiance.. Things start to get on a serious note… Ideas start evolving from each brain. Not to forget that this are all brilliant ideas, Ah well- some aren’t that brilliant—Infact some ideas are dumb to the core… but then Thinking is an Exploration, You start from nothing and learn as you go.

One more interesting aspect of our discussions is the “Story Telling” part.. It can also be called as, “That annoying time between naps..” Frankly speaking, each one among us tends to take at least one nap during the story telling… Its a trend that we follow, coz we are all humans at the end of the day..

Adding further, Well All work and no play makes things really dull…!! So while we are too much engrossed in our task, someone has to do something weird-whacky-or funny to bring a sudden change in mood.. And then the place, fills with “out of the Blue” laughs-giggles and yes, analytical conclusions too about that sudden episode. (Which tends to go on for long..!!!) But then, it seems like a lubricant for our mind and then we churn our minds back to where we were and begin again.

Basically, we perform multi-tasks. We are thinking-writing- talking-planning- analyzing -criticizing –laughing - at one go..! That proves we are quite talented..!

By evening, there comes a phase when all of us suddenly get “Hungry”.. That’s the time when all we can think of is “food”.. So, we end up relishing on “Moong-dal” packets and Home-mad “MamraS”…

Amidst all this, discussing concepts, meeting up people, allotting various tasks we realize that we have a home to go back to. So we quickly unwind all that we have done since noon and make a plan about the next day’s schedule. Things happen in fraction of seconds. In no time we decide the next day’s time, agenda and place and disperse…

“Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities” is the basic rule that we follow while dealing every little aspect of Sigma 51.