Title or How I Learnt To Let Go And Say 'It is what it is.'

 

Unsure what this one's supposed to be, working title - 'Title'. I suppose it's a rant? Nevertheless, I should begin. Production Day Two went worse than the first day, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed we drove head first into day one and we were rewarded with an atmospheric entity that new filmmakers can only dream of. But, come day two and we staggered, fell-off the wagon; so far down in the dirt I can't tell head from toe. Indra's performance the first day was lacking, but it held charm. Yesterday, things went catastrophic. We sat, started shooting around 3.30-4 till 9; 5 hours toiling just to get the simplest dialogue wrong, over and over. Indra's frustrated with himself, I'm afraid I can't direct him; I lost patience multiple times, but even I have to realise I'm working with non-actors, but even the lines don't suit him. Maybe changing the script will help, lighting was another issue we faced, fixing in post can no longer be a solution, it's a problem. I can't keep out-doing myself just to get a simple shoot right. I have to tell Indra all shots from yesterday are unusable, except the ones he doesn't speak in. Even there, the shots are too less actually. It's just four shots to tell the story that he drinks and it doesn't make sense because the bottle he pulls out contains Coca Cola and doesn't fit the story practically. Every frame a painting? Not really, the scenes are well-shot, they're aesthetically viable but when Indra starts speaking, chaos theory first finds order then escapes into disorder.

An alternative I presented to Sachi and quickly regretted was me playing the MC. I really don't want to; I physically can't stand the idea of doing the role myself then. I repeat, I do not want this role. Handling the direction and being the only cameraman is hard as is; piling acting, direction, photography and editing all on one person is just making a solo film even when you have the characters and their motivations well established. Indra can pull it off ngl, he just needs the right motivation and not a room chockful of people trying to tell him what to do with their own interpretations which goes nowhere.

We spoke and I told him to practice so he improves, he believes he can - so I believe in him.