FIRE DEKHA | Rooprekha Entertainment | Annwesh Mukherjee

The day of shooting starts

We started the day at 7, I still remember. It was drizzling and it was dark. Month of August and forecast was light showers all day. 

Director friend Saikat had just come with the camera unit led by Ashish-da and they were checking different angles with light and sound. Surajit, the lead actor, playing the role of Abhi came shortly after and he was as much eager as we were. My first experience of a movie shooting!

Excitement on one hand, I was more curious to know how everything will play out. I had read the screenplay written by the Director himself. But, it was hard for me to grasp the whole thing. Anyway, I was just the story-writer. I had written the "whats" and it is Saikat who was scripting all the "hows"!

I looked at the old building, did I know it from earlier? It looked familiar.

A little flash-back

Finding this house had not been easy. Atin, Abhi, Hari and Ipsi - these were the 4 characters we had for the film. But that was not all. We had one more character - the house. It had to be what myself and Saikat had conceived of. An old house, which was once a home, had now turned into just a place for survival. A lonely author was living with his maid and waiting for his only son to arrive, hopefully some day. Every brick and every corner of the house should be filled with loneliness. Hari was the only ray of happiness and he kept the house in order and took care of his ailing master.

After a long period of search, a suitable house was found. To my pleasant surprise, I found out (on the day of shooting) that it was my aunt's parental house. A 200-year old property in the heart of the old French town Chandannagar, in an area by the name Gondolpara.

Crew gets ready!

Saikat asked me to go upstairs, take a rest and wait for the crew to get ready. Upstairs I met Amit, Suman and Purnendu-uncle (our Atin babu). Uncle was reading and preparing his dialogues. He was deep in his thoughts, thinking about his part. Amit was working on some last minute preparations related to artists' makeups. Suman was helping Saikat in practical matters and was keeping the entire team entertained with his jokes and his parody songs. Ok, so this was what a film-shooting was all about!

Lights, Sound, Action!

Saikat had immense control and mastery of his skills. To explain a particular shot, tell the actor how to emote and to keep a watchful eye on detailing. I also saw how important it is to have a great cooperation between the DoP (Director of Photography) and the Director. Saikat and Ashish-da were in tune for the whole time. Atin babu, Hari (Madhu-da) had a nice interplay of words and dialogues. The scenes were brilliantly shot by Saikat and equally well captured by Ashish-da. The actors did a great job too.

While we were doing some intensely emotional scenes with Abhi and Atin in one frame, a thought came to my mind. "Are we on track and in synch with the origial story?" I believe any writer would get this thought if he or she was on the location. The scene was like this. Abhi started blaming his dear father for the mishaps in his life. The father got worried, nervous and finally broke down. The father crumbled under pressure and went on to tell his side of the story. I was standing a long way away and was trying to get an understanding of the scene and a feeling of the acting. I might have thought of commenting, of giving a few suggestions etc. But then I realised "no", this was not the right way. "A film is a director's medium and Saikat is the captain of the ship." 

I retracted, went back to the other room and sat down with the other supporting members and started talking about my life in Sweden. I was happy to have a good company of people who were eager to know my activities and I was also eager to know more about them. My aunt's relatives, who were living in the house, came to meet me and asked me about how the experience so far had been. I gradually forgot about the scenes until Saikat came to me and said "OK". His face beemed in confidence and the lead actors looked satisfied. I believe therein lies the happiness of a writer. I had created something and I wanted others to connect to it.

 

A line written inside a small room, sitting on a small chair and typing in a small keyboard in Malmö, some several thousand kilometers from Chandannagar, was being re-written on a screen by a camera - we had made the small thing very big!

The last few reels

When I had conceived the character of Ipsi (played on screen by Sangita) I had thought of it as a solution thread to the overall problem in relation between the son and the father. Saikat had got the pulse right. In fact, he took it to another level by writing some very simple and effective dialogues for Surajit (playing Abhi) and Sangita. They portrayed the emotions and conveyed the message beautifully. Every time I watch the film I get glued to those moments that they had created. I saw the shooting and I saw how much effort Saikat had put in together with the team to get it right. The one small repentence I had was - I had no words left to thank and clap the scene. I was overwhelmed by the whole thing and I did not even say "excellent"!

The lights start to fade and the end nears.....

One thing I had learnt for myself - never give up. Ashish-da, Saikat, Suman, Amit, the entire cast and the supporting members taught me that. The other thing? Well, it was so easy to write - "Abhi went up to meet his ailing further and talked to him in a soft voice", but it was too difficult to create that on the screen. "How to show the father is sick? How will Abhi walk? What is a soft voice? And above all, how will the camera behave? How much light is too much light? How much is too little?" Such questions could only be answered by the filmmaker. No one else could handle those things. Therefore, when the day-long shooting came to a close one felt exhausted. I had called up Saikat in the evening a few hours after the shooting.

"Are you well?" I had asked.

He said, "Yes, I am. Ready for another shoot. But there is no natural light left, we have to do shooting in the dark!"

That was the spirit of my Director friend.

One year has passed since that day. The house, the ambience, the hardwork and the creative interplay is forever etched in my mind. And not to forget - I made so many new friends. Those characters whom I had created in fantasy but became reality just within a period of one single day!