It’s a wonderful time! Any person who is even slightly associated with the image making world is aware of discussions (bombarding) related to negative, DSLR videos, HD, High resolution, 2k, 3k, 4k etc. A couple of years ago in the Broadcast India Exhibition I happened to see a camera (digital image recording machine to be precise) called PS technik SI 2k camera (http://www.pstechnik.de/en/digitalfilm-si2k.php), mini camera heads and modular systems. Then I heard about RED followed by Scarlet (http://www.red.com/epic_scarlet/) which excited me even more! And have you noticed that in all this air about the High resolution, the much talked about HD is disappearing quietly. Now what we are speaking of is 2k or 3k or 4k or… n number of such ks. I feel we are witnessing a history and filmmakers of my age have a great gift coming ahead of us. Filmmaking (cinema) won’t be that out of reach. If Scarlet and PS technik (and many others who intend to join in) deliver what they promise, modular camera systems are the future things! Personally I am very excited about this! Though I am a hardcore celluloid believer I would love to surprise myself by doing my first feature film on one of these digital high resolution modular system image recording units! Inshallah! 
Nilesh Nimbkar is a dear friend. I have done a lot of projects with him. In fact he is the one who gave me my first big filming project. He has started an NGO working in the field of education called QUEST (QUALITY EDUCATION SUPPORT TRUST) with a tag line ‘Freedom and rationality for all’. The day before yesterday we finished the shooting schedule for his teachers’ training films. A crew of almost 50 people stayed in Sonale, a small village in Wada Taluka in Thane district. Despite being just two hours drive from Mumbai this place is really remote. QUEST has got its head office there. We were filming three short educational films. This time we casted some famous Marathi television and cinema actors. Suhita Thatte, Sharvari Patankar, Rajesh More, Smita Saravade and Geetanjali Kulkarni played the lead characters. It has its own flare when you shoot with well-known names. And also its own pros and cons I must say. But our schedule went well. We managed to pack up on time and feed our crew on time. As a director I consider this as my achievement. Food should be always given on time. This time my team was new. All the people except me and Raj (my Executive producer) were working for the first time together on such a big project. But with Almighty’s grace everything fell in place. The team was young and fresh and enthusiastic. I would be writing a lot more about Sonale shooting. It is full of stories!
As there are no hotels in Sonale and no possibility of one in vicinity of 50 km., we decided to keep our crew in rented houses with appointed caretakers. The house I stayed with my ADs (assistant directors) and the sound designer was called Dwarka Mai. The caretaker named Sachin was an interesting fellow. He was on a little slower side but was a very nice fellow indeed. His job was to heat the water for the crew. Our shifts were usually at eight so the call time was seven. We were six of us staying in Dwarka Mai with only one toilet and bathroom so we had to be up very early to be ready. Sachin used to get up god only knows at what time and start heating the water and one by one he used to wake people and make them bathe almost compulsorily. He used to talk in a non-emotional tone but with definite warmth in it. He was adorable and used to work like a programmed machine.
One night our shift got delayed when we were shooting the night sequence. That day we had some technical problems with our sound mixer so the shoot got delayed by three hours. The night scene which we were supposed to complete by 12 pm extended till 3 am. By the time we packed up and reached our Dwarka Mai from Location it was almost 4 am. Next day we had a shift of 12 noon so it was not a problem. I came, changed, thought of the next day’s work, discussed it with Rahul — my first AD and by the time I laid my back on the bed it was good 4.30 am. As I had just entered the world of the sleep, I was woken up by Sachin. “Water is ready. Please have a bath,’ he said in a soft voice. It was 5 am, the usual time for him. I told him that I had just come and needed a sleep and that we had a late shift the next day. He nodded and I went back to sleep. At 6 am I was again woken up. “The water is ready, please have a bath.” It was Sachin again, with same ‘matter of fact’ face but with definite warmth. I was in a deep sleep and even in that situation I explained to him that how important sleep was for us, that how we worked with lights so our eyes were tired and we needed the sleep etc, etc, and went again to sleep. Sachin kept on waking me up after every half an hour interval till 7.30 am. I was helpless. I got up, had bath, came out of the bathroom and asked him, “Happy?” He gave me a big smile. He was really happy. I came back to my bed and lay down. From the corner of my eye I saw that Sachin was waking up Ravi Dev Singh, my sound designer saying, “Please wake up and have bath. Water his ready.” Hats off to Sachin!
A DAY IN SHOOT
THE CORE TEAM
SLEEP STARVED CREW
the plantation getting submerged
shooting till last minut
“We are left with only forty minutes. We will have to hurry,” said Manan Shukla, Project Officer, Mangrove Project, BNHS. We were shooting in Gandhar, Gujarat. Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has taken up a mangrove plantation and awareness programme in association with Oil and Natural gas Corporation of India (ONGC). BNHS is covering an area of 200 hectares. Gulf of Khambat is rich in oil and ONGC has its potential sites there. In recent time ONGC rigs are facing shore erosion problem. The geography of the coastline keeps changing with tidal behaviour. With various measures to overcome the problem they had to come to a conclusion that mangroves are the only solution to protect the rigs.
BNHS has started nurseries and has planted 10-12 lacs of seedlings in this area. BIROBA FILMS is covering the entire process of plantation and documenting its growth and success. So as a routine schedule we were shooting on one of the plantation sites. We had to go almost knee deep in mud to take better shots. Tidal timing plays a great role here when it comes to working in these sites. You have to check low tide and the sun angle before going to shoot, otherwise you get nothing but just water. This time we had managed to pitch the right time. We had got almost entire daylight with the next high tide at 4 pm. We were happily shooting. We had gone very deep into the estury from our ‘safe area’ and car. Around 3.50 pm Manan said that we should leave.
tide reaching us
Yesterday was amawas and that is why we got this long low tide but we ‘non coastline’ people didn’t realize that we were now to get equally big high tide. Manan has sensed it. I listened to Manan, calculated the time and asked him, “The high tide will start at 4 pm,right? We still have atleast 20-30 minutes.” Manan laughed and said, “You will see the water calm for three to four minutes. But once it climbs that ridge,” he pointed, “you have hardly few seconds till it reaches here.” I could not believe it because the ridge he was pointing at was way far. We decided to shoot for five more minutes. On the muddy horizon Manan showed me the glitter, I still couldn’t believe that the slow sluggish water that far will reach me in less than three minutes.
We started moving back and kept shooting too. Then finally it crossed the ridge and the sluggish slow murky water turned into a stormy flood. It appeared as if it wanted to swallow the entire landscape. The speed, the rush and the sound of the water stunned the filming crew. Before we were out of the awe, the water had already touched our ankles! But we were, fortunately, in a pretty safe zone. We kept shooting the rush of the water and got some great shots of the tide coming in. it was one of the most memorable wildlife shoots. Never thought that such a huge empty landscape would be filled with water before you could even snap your finger! Unimaginable!
Welcome everyone!!
It’s wonderful to own a house and stay there too. Building a brand new website gives the same pleasure and to top it all we have come up with some more lively features than our earlier site. You can download things now… wallpapers, ring tone, music tunes from our earlier productions, promos of our upcoming projects… photographs- production and artists… All will be here.Also this blog space where I will be communicating with you regularly and we can exchange our thoughts, share views n talk philosophy. Anything related to cinema-technical or aesthetic we will talk. Visual art and craft of writing will be core areas of discussions; still no other topic on arts will be barred. Please make visits to the blog and share your views with us.
Thank you
Cheers!
Wasim
Phaltan
