Shoot on Day One

Today we just finished with the first day's shoot. It was educational, interesting and yes, it was also relatively easy. And therein lies the danger. We haven't had a look at the footage yet. It may turn out to be all crap!

With just a camera and tripod in hand,
Two mavericks traverse the cinemaland!

Actually we had a camera (Sony HDR FX 1E), a crappy tripod and a microphone. No lights, no reflectors, no thermacol and no script! Just kidding, we do have a script and we're planning to follow it faithfully (I hope).

The main character of our film is a boy of seven. I reached Kota yesterday, went to the boy's house and met him. Today we shot with him first thing in the morning. It was a scene at a school inside a village. There was a teacher and lots of other school children. And after today, we've already learnt certain things about working with kids. For example,

1. All kids, especially non-actors, have a very small energy span. You can't make them do ten rehearsals and then expect them to give a flawless take.

2. Direction to children should always be in very simple words. Try and breakdown the action into easily understandable and direct. You must not expect a kid to understand the philosophical intent or extent of any particular scene.

3. If you have kids as major characters in your film then you must keep them in a good mood. They tend to get distracted very easily and once their mind wanders, it's very difficult to get them back on track.

That's all the gyaan for today from the humble filmmakers from Kota. Hope you've learnt something from it. We definitly have.