Age Of The Laptop Cinema

PANKAJ Advani had a whacky idea. A black comedy about a clumsy, absent-minded, safari-cladhitman who looks like an accountant and loves to read, and an assortment of other suchequally colourful characters, among them a small-time car thief, a struggling actor and aporn film actress. And he wasn’t looking at a run-of-the-mill narrative for thistongue-in-cheek film. He wanted to structure it as a string of four distinct stories witha common climax using the hitman as the binding character. Urf Professor (Alias Professor)was certainly not turning out to be the kind of material Advani could have easily foundfinance for. “No producer would have touched the subject with a bargepole. It’svery edgy, at times rough and crude, and very different in its approach tostory-telling,” he says. But Advani found himself making the 120-minute-long film onhis own terms. What’s more, he wrapped up the film—which had 19 lead charactersenacting 60-65 scenes over some 50 locations—in just 13 days. All thanks to a newcutting-edge technology called digital video or DV.

Urf Professor happens to be one of the 70-odd locally spun Indian digitalfilms to be screened at India’s upcoming, first-ever competitive digital filmfestival. To be held in Delhi from March 26-30, it’s been organised by city-basedDigital Talkies and boasts heavyweights like R.K. Laxman, Shyam Benegal, Vidhu VinodChopra, Derek Malcolm and Shekhar Kapur as jury members. Participants include establishedfilmmakers like Balu Mahendra, B. Lenin and Muzaffar Ali as well as relative newcomerslike Nishit Saran, Siddhartha Srinivasan and Kabir Khan. “The idea is to showcase thenascent medium, to put forward the best of its creative, experimental works,” saysPia Singh, ceo of Digital Talkies.

What exactly are digital films? You could call them filmless films or as Mike Figgis,director of Leaving Las Vegas, puts it, “interesting things coming out ofpeople’s laptops”. Basically it’s a different way of recording the movingimage; you put it on tape instead of the conventional reel. Shot on a hi-tech camera,it’s edited online. A more economically viable and accessible way of making films, ithelps save on expensive raw stock. You can do as many retakes without having to waste timeon rehearsing shots. Paraphernalia and equipment are minimal, the light setup not aselaborate and you don’t need a big crew either. “It makes things happeninstantly,” says filmmaker Muzaffar Ali. The medium allows a lot of spontaneity aswell. “You can make changes on the sets whereas for celluloid you have to plan thingsin detail,” says filmmaker Abitha Sethuraman. A handycam also allows you to shootunobtrusively, a boon for documentary filmmaking. “The huge celluloid cameras alterreality just by their presence, an anathema for documentaries. We can be more discreetwith digital cameras,” says filmmaker Kabir Khan.

Most importantly, DV technology cuts down the cost of moviemaking down to a few lakhsinstead of crores, allowing even amateurs to dabble in the medium. “No wonder everysecond person in the Kumbh mela was either a sadhu or a filmmaker,” says Khan.“It’s everyman’s medium. Filmmaking has always been a distant, esotericart; now one can get closer to it,” says Vishwajyoti Ghosh, creative supervisor, art,hta. Film pros are already looking at DV as a medium to infuse life back into thefloundering (some would say dead) alternative, independent, small cinema that’s hithard by paltry budgets and pressures to conform. “It’s opened a new way ofreaching out,” says Ali. “The creative freedom available is wonderful,”says Mahendra. Filmmakers no longer have to wait to find finance. “Not having to lookaround for budgets, we can now think our scripts better. There are these great ideas thathave been just lying around; now we can dust the cobwebs away,” says Sethuraman.“I could never have dreamt of making an independent film,” says Ghosh. He’snow made one—9392888—on the nation’s favourite timepass, Kaun BanegaCrorepati. The narrative intercuts between three individuals—a housewife who’scracked the phone line and is on her way to participate in kbc, a suave executivewho’s returned from the shoot without making it to the hotseat and a contractor fromPitampura who’s won Rs 25 lakh.

And Ghosh’s isn’t the lone creative concept. The films at the fest run agamut of cinematic styles with subjects both eclectic and experimental. Look at NishitSaran’s love story, A Perfect Day. It shows a boy and a girl in different situations,and explores reel versus real-life love. A documentary style feature, it was virtually acase of making something out of nothing—no money and no experience, no makeup either,no song-n-dance, nor a script. Saran shot for 40-50 hours with the bare thread of a storyin mind and made the film on the editing table. “There’s no point in making thesame kind of film with new technology,” he says.

As fascinating is Kabir Khan’s Ganga which looks at the river through the eyes ofProf Virbhadra Mishra, who teaches engineering at bhu and is also the head priest of atemple. Muzaffar Ali’s The Shawl is about the life of two women across a timespan of30-40 years. It has Nafisa Ali and her daughter in the lead roles. Balu Mahendra’sfilm (as yet untitled) is about a village shopkeeper who stops political goondas fromputting posters in his shop only to find his life in a shambles. B. Lenin’s Mottukkais about eight-year-old Arumugham’s fear of a prospective Maths teacher. SiddharthSrinivasan’s Divya Drishti focuses on a charlatan sadhu who keeps drinking cheapliquor at the chai shop.

The medium’s caught on; Digital Talkies received 200-odd entries for its fest. Butit still has a long way to go. For one, you cannot make sweeping epics like Pakeezah, BenHur or Gladiator digitally. Abroad, digital cinema has raised a big debate about howaccessibility and democratisation of the elitist medium is also reducing the quality ofcontent. “It’ll be a free-for-all initially, there’ll be a lot of bad shitbut good ideas will definitely emerge,” says Advani.

Digital cinema’s biggest hurdle is of exhibition and distribution. “DV’srevolutionised production but has done nothing for distribution. Anyone can make a filmbut it’s still difficult to show it,” says Saran. It’s the TV or theInternet—in fact broadband—which are the platforms for digital films. But whilea digital film can be distributed and exhibited simultaneously worldwide on the Web andcan also allow viewers to rate and review a film instantly, it doesn’t give thepleasure watching movies in 35 mm does, and lacks its romance and mythology. There’stechnology to convert digital film to celluloid, but it’s costly. Theatres have theoption to instal DV projectors but that’s again an expensive game. But give it time,and theatres will adopt it. “We’ll see a growth of small 150-200 seatertheatres,” says Mahendra. Upmarket multiplexes too could invest in digital projectionsystems. “It’s the medium of the future, no big film fest can ignore digitalfilms now,” predicts Ghosh.

Established names like Wim Wenders, Spike Lee, George Lucas and Mike Figgis are alreadyworking in the DV format. Will mainstream Indian film industry embrace it as well? Advanihopes it does. “Mainstream films take a hell of a long time to make, what with theirunprofessional ways and its star system. With DV you could make the film in half the timewith 50-70 per cent of the money,” he says.

But ask a hardcore cine buff and he’d still go for celluloid. “No digitalfilm can match up to the celluloid,” says Khan. “The colours, depths, variationsand tones of the big screen cannot be equalled in the digital format. It’s moretwo-dimensional,” says Sethuraman. No way will DV make celluloid a thing of the past.“Introduction of one medium doesn’t mean elimination of the other,” saysGhosh. In fact, filmmakers anticipate a coming together of multiple media and style.Already Run Lola Run has made innovative use of the celluloid, animation and DV media inone of its sequences. Ultimately format doesn’t matter. What matters is a good story,and how well it’s told.