Sunday, August 04, 2013

People Watch -3. Ship that sailed.

When life gives you lemons and serves you a lemon cake.

This post and the posts which will follow are about some wonderful charismatic powerful people who in their own way make life better for  people around them. They have positively in them which enriches people around them. They are my peers my elders my young friends. 
So lets begin.

Be***** tu sala ma*********. kya ,bol raha hai tu janta hai.

(profanity) do know know what you are talking about (profanity)
This man was my mentor for one project. A documentary. His name is Anand Gandhi.

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What is he doing now.

Ship of Theseus is a film which has come out this year, it has done well in International film critic and has some some good reviews. Not watching watched it so far tells me something special awaits me. I am not in touch with him for years now and wont be surprised if he doesn't recall me.
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When I met him, someone told me that he is the script writer for Kyunki Saas Bhi Kaabhi Bahu thi. Knowing this, I was initially biased about him. I was a english TV Watching (Seinfeld, Simpsons) person and I could not digest the fact that I was taking mentorship from the Man who ruined Indian TV. I said man ( lady would have been Ekta Kapoor). But was naive then, Anand Gandhi was something like 23/25 ish then but at that age, he taught us packaging your art.

Hawkers 


The first thing he did was he made us write a script for the documetary. Yes even a documentary is scripted. Then he went on to explain who to get the facts in visual form for our documentary. 

That after some abuses - which was his way of ensuring perfect attention.


"Its not entertaining. You dont just build the mood, you force the mood and music is the tool to force in the mood."

He told us - " The way to build drama is to build it in the story to the point that even though you have indicated something is about to happen, you still create an aah moment when it actually happens".
I was handling music for this project and I had composed a few songs for it. He listened to it and then dismissed it. 
"Its not about the Lyrics, its about what these lyrics make you feel, take the example of Red blossom Cherry - hey it says abhi ye cycle teri Red blosspm cherry... tu samaj raha hai...." 

Right Here Right now -

You remember an artist for his painting and no matter how a filmmaker is as a person, you remember him for his film.

Right Here Right Now was that film. Its shot with 2 shots and has no edits. Its a short film which takes you through a journey and shows you various emotions and leaves you thinking.
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So here is man who has chosen a road less taken and he is doing some experimental work. And for a brief moment in time, I met him, as a trainee, but I picked up not just his passion for work but his approach to be entertaining while striving to be different. Glad to know him briefly, wish him well and hope he does some great work from this point on as well.



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