Mast Curry - the idea

How did Mast Curry come about?

Actually, there was this serious incident that happened last year. One of my friends hit rough patch with her husband and she was like “I want to commit suicide” after counseling her for a while, and she not giving in, I got angry and said “ok fine, commit suicide”; she immediately hit me and said “idiot committing suicide isn’t easy”.

We both burst out laughing. Thankfully, she is well settled now; but that incident lingered on and as I was driving back, I had these visuals of a man, trying to commit suicide. Even after a week I just couldn’t erase those visuals from my mind. They were like haunting me.

They haunted me so deep, that within two weeks I wrote a short film that I was about to shoot with one of the leading heroes of the industry aimed at the film-festival circuit.

However, just a week before I was about to shoot it, I bounced the idea to my friend Sarina and she told me, why don’t you make it into a full-fledged feature film. I was like the idea is too drab.
She said “that’s the whole challenge, to make this drab idea into as interesting a film. Let the audiences taste your creative juice.” And she winked at me.

And I guess her statement, worked as a catalyst for me to write Mast Curry.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Mast Curry - putting it together!

The biggest challenge after completing the 1st draft of the movie was putting it together.

I approached a few production houses, but their feedback was get a star and we will bankroll (fund) it.

Hence started the search for a STAR! or SUPERSTAR!!!!! (ok, they deserve 5 *'s).

The entire exercise was quite interesting, they all loved the script, but didn't have the required dates! Hats off to corporates entering Hindi Film Industry (Bollywood).

Finally, a very talented actor, once hailed as thenext big thing, agreed to do the film, alongwith an equally talented and fairly good-looking actress (who's acted in some 'saif'' oops safe films)

A few meetings went by with the production-house and everything seem to be in place; till one fine day, the financial-analysts of the said production-house worked out that the said star didn't sell!

Hmmm...

The gist f the closed door meeting was the production-house needed more time; October or November 2008!

Wow! I thought as I drove back. This was just not happening.

I came home took a shower and saw a channel, which was showing a program, whatever happens, happens for good!

And my mobile rang, I was invited to a party in Goa.

Is this the good thing in my life?

Definitely not.

Anyways over the coming weekend Iwent to the party, which coincided with IFII taking place in Panjim. And over there I met this film-maker from US called Neil Mandt.

He was showing his movie Last Stop for Paul at IFFI. A film that was shot on panasonic's DVX 100 around the world.

Being a film-maker I had my apprehensions about seeing the movie, but when I saw it, I was amazed that it was one of the few films that appealed to me at IFFI (International Film Festival of India).

I was further amazed to know that of the one year, since Last Stop for Paul was made, it had won some 40-odd awards at various film festivals!

And I got the crux, ultimately, it is the idea that matters.

As if to hammer the point down, the same production-house I was in talks with delivered a dud with one of the so-called saleable actors!

Do I shoot a film in digital format?

The next few days I pondered over the issue and finally after meeting a couple of top-line post-production studios I decided to fuse the conventional film format with HDV format.

And today, as I sat in the post-production studio seeing the rushes; the results are just terrific!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Mast Curry - the final call

Over the coming weeks (2 weeks to be precise) I was pondering and pondering and pondering over the issue of use of HDV / DV format.

Finally, a friend gave me a copy of Let's Talk a film made by Ram Madhvani (he is making Talisman with Big B, Abhishek Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt for Vidhu Vinod Chopra).

The film has Boman Irani making his debut. This 2001 film was shot on PD 100; a camera which might seem antique, to even the present in droves - news channels - and had won critical acclaim. I recalled that the film released at Mumbai's Regal cinema, at a time when India just had probably 10 multiplex screens and people in hinterland still didn't knew what multiplexes looked like or even spelled like (I hope I got the spelling intact).

After seeing the film, I was further convinced that my film really required this kind of techinique, because my film needed realistic touch to the happenings that unfolded in real time. The camerawork had to be fluid to maintain that realism and tentativeness of the character.

And I along with my crew worked out the finer details of all technicalities involved.

And we were on.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Mast Curry - why corbett hideaway

After the script was done, the next logical step was the setting and the location.

I had two options; to shoot the film in Europe or to set the film near Jim Corbett; because the wild wilderness beautifully augmented the rough and unpredictable characters of the film.

I finally chose Jim Corbett. And when I decided on Jim Corbett, my 1st choice to set the film was Corbett Hideaway; I have been a regular at the resort; frequenting it almost twice a year and I am quite comfortable in the resort.

The owner of the properties were quite apprehensive about letting a film shoot happen.

However, when they were told that we are attempting a new kind of format in film-making (impure dogma) with fluid camera movements and no use of complicated equipments like cranes or trollies; they were a bit assured.

They had to be further assured that there will be no loss to the greens (read lawns) or any hindrance to the the guests or depriciation to the property.

They were assured, but they had a problem: May is the peak season for corbett.

Since, we were keen on getting the film out by 1st week of October 08, we agreed to take just one cottage comprising of 3 rooms and shoot with a skeletal unit.

Finally, Corbett Hideaway came in as location partners.

The only hitch to us was, since we shot with a skeletal unit over there; the more complex shots had to be done in Mumbai; but I guess the pictursque resort made the whole effort worthwhile.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Mast Curry and the media

Initially I didn't want any media presence, as we are still at a very nascent stage with the movie, but then there were a few considerations that I had to consider.

Of the 6 years I have been in the industry, I have seen the immense love-hate relationship that film-folks and media share. I got a taste of it (though quite mild) while shooting Mast Curry.

While most of the media was positive and good; there were those over-zealous types (a bad fish spoils the flock, yeah!) who were more interested in the technicalities of the movie rather than the story or content!

Having a good time at 'Leisure Hotels', eh!?

Since when, does the media got interested in technicalities of the movie?

World-over when electronic media covers a shoot, they are more interested in grabbing the content or the story of the movie.

World-over the electronic media covers such movies over-zealously that have some new format coming in.

Be it NBC or BBC

If this was untrue; how does one explain the extensive coverage of The Blairwich Project (it is one of the most extensively covered movies)

How does one explain the coverage of Lars Von Trier movies, mostly shot on Dogma format!?

I guess, that's precisely the reason, why the top-notch teams covering film shoots are made of film-enthusiasts, out to make exciting stories out of exciting concepts and not of star-struck journalists, who go gaga over their favorite star, cooling heels for him or her to show in the lounge of a five-star.

These are the very same journalists who complain, about ill-treatment at a star-wedding or an audio-launch function or a mahurat party.

I guess they deserve such treatment, because they are not journalists, they are brokers (kind shown in Mahesh Bhatt's Showbiz) with half-information; and mind you half-information is no information.

Having said that, there were a few journalists who were quite receptive; they had done their homework.

They knew who Lars Von Trier is (Dogville, Dancers in the Dark, The Idiots). They knew what Dogma format film is or what Dogme 95 manifesto said.

In fact a couple of them questioned me, that if I was using lights and reflectors, how could be my film true to Dogme 95 manifesto?

I call it, application of Indian innovation, contrary to conventional Dogma, using only available lights, shooting hand-held, no make-up, no retakes; we are using lights and reflectors, we are having mounted camera shots too, we are having one of the best stylists in India and we are having retakes too (loads of them) - and we are proud to introduce Impure Dogma to World Cinema!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Mast Curry - Impure Dogma

While scripting, I came to a point, when I didn't enjoy what I had written.

It happens to all writers, but it was happening to me for the 1st time.

I was perplexed, what's wrong, have I lost my writing skills, have my creative juices dried, or what?

Believe me for about a week, I just couldn't sleep. Reason being, I was worried, why can't I write such a simple story.

And then I read a line from Shakespeare, he said, "the most simple stories are the toughest to write."

And this one line gave me inspiration enough to write and write drafts till I succeed.

I brainstormed with a set of few close friends I have, threw ideas, rubbished around 100 odd writing-pads. And finally I came to the conclusion that the real problem was that the idea and the narrative were just not gelling with each other.

The idea of committing suicide was an impulse decision. So carrying the narrative forward in 3-4 days, may be weeks, may be months will definitely not work out.

The film has to be written in such a manner that the entire impulse decision and action has to take place in a given time-frame. Say if the film's running time is 69 minutes, the film's narrative got to be of 69 minutes.

That's real time, my friend Mrig (who's assisting Subhash Ghai on Yuvraj) chuckled.

And the idea to make a real time movie was born.

But how do you achieve real time movie in thekind of setting, we had Corbett Hideaway, the rooms had their constraints and the conentional set-up of shooting would be very complicated, with the elaborate lighting arrangements and the fact that Corbett Hideaway was no studio and was a good 2000 ms. away from Bombay and 300 kms. from New Delhi.

Dogma, suggested my friend Sarina, who was helping me with putting up the film together.

I pondered for a while, "won't Dogma be too radical a format for Indian audiences?", I questioned myself.

Shooting the film in available light, with no retakes, hand-held, no make-up was interesting as well as challenging; but I doubted that such a format would be acceptable to Indian audiences.

And so I started thinking out of the box. Let's do it my way fusing dogma with conventional style, and thus the idea of impure dogma was born!

Friday, May 30, 2008