first day first show

ABOUT a year ago, a random mail offered us the chance of a lifetime. It simply said if you wanted to make a film and were below 24 years of age, all you had to do was submit an idea to Tropicfilm, Dev Benegal's company. If they liked the idea, you would be given a camera and an editing console free of cost. You film would then be screened at the International Film Festival of India (IIFI). The topic? `Nature and Violence'

My first reaction was to call up my friend Divya Rao. We were both experimenting with jobs back then. She was working for an obscure televison company that made bad serials, and I, after handling everything from continuity to costumes to props, had shifted base to journalism, convinced that assistant direction was a brain-dead job. The only thing we knew for sure was that one day we would be making films

Now, all we needed was an idea. But that was also the toughest part. Endless meetings at cafes and Udipi hotels yielded no result. I was beginning to think that all those months in television had diminished my thinking capacity. With just two days left for the deadline, we were at Chowpatty, sitting on the sand, throwing ideas at each other and feeling wretched. It was nice to have big dreams, but what's the point if you can't come up with one big idea? Then slowly it began to take shape, a character began to materialise, we started understanding him, his world, how he would react to situations. We weaved his story with the theme. The film, we decided, would be about his physical journey into wilderness while mentally he dealt with the ghosts of his past, his childhood, his dreams and nightmares. We jotted it down, before it could escape. The next day we submitted the idea, damn sure we wouldnt get in. The day the results were announced was also my first day at my new journalism job. We'd made it! And would have to leave for Goa for the shoot in a few weeks.

I applied for leave. The paper's city editor granted it because of the film's IFFI tag. Later, she told me I was the first person she had ever come across who had asked for leave on the very first day of the job. We started preparing for the film. Though the camera and editing console were free, there were other things to take into account. But things did fall into place. We got our lead actor who agreed to work for free. Rao had a friend whose relatives lived in Goa. It was decided we would stay with them. From then on it was one mad rush. Location hunting, editor hunting, trying to find extras, props. The nights were spent in scripting, deciding camera angles, shots. It was a magical time. One of the conditions of the competition was that the film had to be shot and edited within 24 hours.

The first hour dawned and off we went. We shot during the day, leaving the editing for the night. Since there were only two of us, we had to do everything from checking the continuity, directing our actors, handling the camera, organising food for the unit, hiring transport.... After sunset, we packed up and Rao and I proceeded to the editing studio. This was probably the worst part of making the film. There was so much material and we were so tired, it was difficult to make sense of it. We didn't know where to start. To add to our problems, we had got an editor who did not seem to understand what we were telling him, and kept dozing off every now and then. It was like a tragi-comic scene. In the middle of the night I gave up. From then on Rao handled the editing on her own with admirable patience and level headedness. We finished editing that morning just as our 24 hours were up.

The film was ready, but we could not be present for the screening. Reason? Our jobs. But it was incredible. We did not end up making a great film, but we did learnt a lot. And the best part was the feeling it left us with at the end. We had read in The Alchemist that if you really want something badly enough, the entire world conspires to make it happen. For us, it certainly did.