Making of First Impression

                                    Making of 'First Impression'

Still from 'First Impression'
(L to R : Jitendra Patel, Deepak Doddamani, Abdul Hakim Ansari)

          
         Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra webisode no.10 was added recently to Ashwamedh Kalamanch and Hasya Jatra blogs. Webisodes 10,11,12 are already present on these blogs,but as these are animations prepared on 'Go Animate', I have uploaded 'First Impression' as Hasya Jatra webisode no. 10 (considering large number of viewers of  Ashwamedh Kalamanch channel on YouTube). 

                   

              Ashwamedh Kalamanch is an art and cultural center (group) in Mumbai founded by me in August 2010.We started it to propagate India's art and culture among children through various Art related Competitions,Events,Workshops,Seminars.We stared with a successful event of AKDC'10 (Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Drawing Competition 2010) in Oct.2010 and then followed Marathi drama 'Lakh Lakh Chanderi' , 4 short films, Hasya Jatra webseries and several other videos. Although Video-making was just a part of 'Brand Awareness' strategy,it got very good response. After May 2011, most of the time was utilized in meeting people in social work sector and understanding how non profit organizations work. We registered 'Ashwamedh Foundation' as Society and we are in a process to register 'Ashwamedh Foundation Trust' (Waiting for court hearing date). 

                After our main actor Rakesh Dudwadkar got busy with his new-born child Neel, we stopped Hasya Jatra shooting. We met in Diwali to celebrate festival with our team.On the spot we took decision to shoot Happy Diwali 2011 video,and we did it. After few days when I was watching TV, a mobile Ad of 'Jaane tu ya Jaane Na' fame Jignesh Patel stuck in my mind.The Ad was based on the theme that 'Your mobile represents your status and not your cloths'. Within few second I decided to make shortfilm on the theme that 'Appearances can be deceptive', and after thinking for some more time I developed the concept. I discussed this 'Waiting room' concept with Abhijeet and Ashish on phone and told them to meet me at Virar on 3 p.m. sharp (on same day). 

                 Due to his dark color and appearance I wanted to cast Ashish Chavan as funky dude and Jitendra as executive person with sober looks. Abhijeet was apt for the role of Ashish's Maternal uncle.I myself decided to do the role of 'businessman'. As I was acting, I needed some one to handle camera and so I asked Hakim to reach Virar till 6:00 p.m. I reached Virar at 2:00 p.m. met Abhijeet who got down from same local train. We stopped at Tea stall,with a sip of tea I explained him the script and his role. We purchased black insulation tape to make waiting room board using Thermacol, bought two 2-litres Bisleri bottles and started walking towards my home. Virar has developed a lot in past few years,but water and load-shedding problems are still is status-quo.As I opened the door I was completely pissed off to see dirt all over home, that's the biggest drawback of terrace flat. As we had limited time in hand we cleaned only hall where we had do the shooting. To show bench in Waiting room,we removed cushions of the Sofa. 

        

      That day Daniel D'Silva was visiting my home after almost 6 yrs.In 2005 he and some other students from my coaching classes had came to Jivdani Temple of Virar.That time I invited all of them to my home for tea-snacks. Daniel was a little kid that time. Now he has grown as a young dashing dude. He is doing film-editing course in Arena multi-media, so we invited him to use his skills as film-maker. I liked his first short-film 'Some wounds don't heal' based on child abuse issue. So I was eager to work with him.

             

            Little did I knew about Anant's presence in Mumbai. I was under impression that he might have left to Nashik with her sister after Bhaiyya Duj. When he came for shoot, we all felt great relief. Anant is a good Director and so I requested him to direct this short too. Abhijeet and I explained him the concept and we started improvising on it. Hakim arrived at 5:30 p.m. and started helping us. We discussed sequences and shots while having some Diwali Sweets/snacks which I had brought with me. And when we were all set for shooting, all lights went off..'Ohhhhh Fishhhh...Load Shedding?' I shouted. Damn it !

  

        Ashish looked load shedding time table in his mobile inbox,and told us that light will come at 8:30 p.m., Oops...why didn't he informed us earlier about 'load shedding' timing? Ahh...what should we do till 8:30? I don't have generator at home. If we start shooting at 8:30, it would be atleast 10'o clock to complete entire shooting (considering all retakes etc.). Jitendra,Daniel, Hakim had came all the way from Santacruz; so I knew they will reach at midnight to their homes after leaving Virar at 10 p.m. It was hardly 2 min. short-film so they all decided that they will leave Virar only after completing shooting. Abhijeet had Night duty that day,so he left at 7:00 p.m. and Anant took the responsibility to play Uncle; and Ashish had to live for a family gathering so he left with him. Funky dude role of Ashish shifted to Jitendra and Hakim became the Executive person.All of us went down and  had tea. It was very humid at home and due to load shedding it was impossible to stay at home. We did healthy discussion during that gap and also discussed some scripts. 

           At 8:30 p.m. sharp we reached home. Power was on now. We started our shoorting. Jitendra took lot of time to get into bearing of funky guy as he was practicing  executive person's role from last 4 hrs. Hakim has a good grasping power,so he managed to learn things faster. Initially Daniel took some time to understand functions of handycam and tripod and once he set his hands on it, he did good job with camera. Anant helped Daniel in deciding the frame and angles. And we completed shooting sharp at 9:40 p.m. I gave raw footage to Daniel for editing purpose.We use different software for editing, but Daniel used 'Final Cut pro' a professional editing software which runs only on Macintosh. He included name HASYA-JATRA at beginning of Video which provoked me to add this short film also as Hasya Jatra webisode in our web-series. Out of few names suggested by me ( Waiting room,Perceptions, Books & Covers, Impressions and First Impression), Daniel chose 'First Impression' which was apt for the concept. After watching final product I still feel that even after 30 videos, we are still amateur video-makers. Hopefully we will improve our quality in coming future. 

                            You can watch 'Final Impression' webisode here

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