Filmgroupie

An enthusiastic young fan of films.

Something About Me...

Mad and confused person with heart in films and body functioning in an IT firm, trying to evolve as a filmmaker...more about me

Some toughts...

Just imagine what genre of film will be made if you have a magic wand in your hand which can convert your entire life into a movie. A family drama, love story, comedy or an inspirational one.

A bow and namaskhar to James Cameron

Do you ever walked in a dream with your eyes open? Do you ever travelled into a world without moving an inch from the place where you are sitting? Do you ever urged to touch a huge flower which reflexes? Do you ever experienced flying on the back of a dragon like creature? Do you ever watched a movie without noticing whether you are taking a breath or not?

Its a different world from where you don't want to return back though you know that its not real. I want to smell it, feel it, touch it but I cant still I don't want to leave that world. The big glasses on my eyes gave me kind of irritation at times but still I didn't blink or remove those glasses for at least once because I don't wanna miss even a Milli second glimpse of that world. I felt spiritually being there in that world. It was something like how a sage feels being with god when he meditates. The more he meditates he achieves moksha (a kind of trans). Here I achieved moksha for nearly 2 1/2 hrs and the god who presented that to me is James Cameron.

Its the world created by James Cameron where you can roam for nearly 3 hrs for just Rs 200/- with a free coke on to it.I watched Avatar 3D movie yesterday night on IMAX screen. Its a late night show which they played without even any interval for 2 hr 46 mins. Being an Indian cinema audience I am used for intervals and visiting fountain room to empty my bag. But yesterday though my bladder is full I didn't even thought of moving from my seat and don't know whether I am breathing or not may be I am because I survived to write this. Its a breathtaking movie in its real sense. I am awestruck. What an amazing experience that I had last night. Last year when I have been to Matheran(A hill station in Maharastra) for excursion I wondered how the experience will be if I jump in to that deep valley filled with thick and dense forest. Now I experienced it without even a scratch on my body. Its beautiful. Coming out of theater I am as excited as a kid came from amusement park, as thrilled as a guy who just did bungee jump.

Generally how do we define a movie? Its telling a story in visuals. So which is more important a story or visuals? Some say an interesting story gives scope for good visuals. Some argue a good visual itself makes story interesting. In the case of Avatar I think Mr.Cameron dreamt the world first and then drafted the story. Its the same old race dominance story on which lots of movies were already made across the world. So there is nothing new about the story. You can tell the same story with a village and city backdrop or an America and Africa backdrop. but James choose the background as two different planets and created a magnificent world on celluloid called Pandora. He not only created an artistic world but also made sure that the camera captures the world in a way that makes audience feel being there in that place with characters. As viewer you can experience each and every minute details of the world Pandora. The tall huge blue colour bodies of Navi people, the Namam (Vishnavas tilak) they have on their forehead and title of the movie indicates the idea of Pandora world and Navi people is inspired from Indian mythologies. We do have rich mythologies with so many dimensions to explore but still our makers struck up with formula commercial cinema. May be the advancement of technology, kind of resources and the amount of capital that is available in west is driving them to think beyond limits. In 10 years from now we might get chance to see these kind of films made in India(Always can hope for the best) but for now I bow my head bring my both hands together to Namaskhar(salute) Sir James Cameron who dared to dream the unimaginable and shared it with us.

PS: Waiting to watch second time this Wednesday night again. Then I planned to watch in 2D on next weekend. I don't know how many more times I go again to watch the movie.

Story Idea’s hard to find innovation?

In today’s time we rarely get movies with innovative ideas especially in Telugu film industry. It is the one which is producing largest number of movies in a year but all the hundreds of movies that releases every year are tested and tried formula based repetitive stories. On screen they all seem to be more mechanical than creative.

Something like in every movie there is a fight + a song + a love scene + a comedy + a bit of sentiment + a confrontation scene. Add those six scenes repetitively in the same sequence or in different comes till the time reaches 2&1/2 hrs there becomes a complete movie to test the audience patience. Again if you want to make a comedy movie compile ten scenes to perform buffoonery act or to make spoof of characters in recent blockbusters and tie them with non-existing story line there you have a super hit comedy. Every genre has its own formula and writer follow it rigorously with out using much of their brains. For this creative less film making makers blame audience and saying that they are not that intellectual to accept intelligent cinema.

Every time I watch these kinds of movies I wonder is it that difficult to prepare a good story with innovative ideas? Being an aspiring writer I tried to understand how can I get some new ideas to develop a story? These are at once hard questions to answers and at the same time are easy ones. The truth is ideas are everywhere. In daily experiences, the lives of people you meet, the newspapers, the old tales, your past memories, like that everywhere you can find hell lot of good story ideas. Only thing that you need to do is see them. Saying that here comes a question how can I see them?

Being a novice I am still trying to figure out how to generate good story ideas. When I searched on this topic I found many ways through which you can extract story ideas. Here I mention some of them that fancy me.

One way is set a target and write as many story lines as you can. For example let’s say you want to write a love story. Every story will have an ending it can be either a happy or tragic but how about a story with out ending? So our love story can have three possible endings one with happy, one with tragic and one without ending. Let’s put that on a paper. Now set a goal for you to write different ideas perhaps 10 different story ideas for each ending. At the end our love story should have 30 different story ideas. Remember while writing your ideas scribble whatever comes to mind, however ludicrous it may be. Think hard take your time but you have to reach target of writing 10 story ideas for each ending.



Now after you complete writing those entire 30 story lines, first, browse through your list, figuring out which items actually have potential. Next, choose three or four ideas and develop them a little further, maybe with one or two pages of free writing, or some basic musing about setting, plot, or the characters that might inhabit them. After that's done, there is sure to be a tantalizing idea that rise above the rest, idea that rouse the passion and make you eager to get to work.

The other way is free writing. It is one of the best and easiest exercises you can do. To start with select one word, it can be a genre, a character, a location or anything that you are very much interested to write on. Set a time limit of 5 to 10 minutes and that you will not lift you pen from paper before that time is up. Now think about that word and start writing whatever comes to your mind, it can be anything an event, an experience, a situation or write nonsense but don’t stop writing till time is up. If your thinking stopped after writing some line with in that time then re-write whatever you had written again and again till time stops. At the end look back over what you've written and see if anything sparks your interest. Now take that as lead for your next free writing session and continue the same until you get a proper story structure.

We all know a saying that pictures speak many words. Images can be one of the best sources for story ideas. Select a theme on which you want to write story and gather as many pictures as you can that represents the theme. These days you can search thousands of images at one click on internet. So search for the same and collect all the images that raised interest in you. Now write one or two line scene description that you can write to those pictures. At the end with all those pictures and descriptions see if any interesting idea sparks in your mind. Now all that is left is to figure out how to develop that idea further. The advantage of this method is these pictures can also give you an interesting scene or shot which you can accommodate in your screenplay at later stage.

So this is some of my knowledge on extracting story ideas which I want to share with you all. I want you guys to share your opinion, inputs and knowledge on the topic by posting you comments.

Intro...

Cinema..what an amazing invention that man made to showcase ones dreams to others. Which is started as one for entertainment in the early years of last century had become more than that by the end of the century. Irrespective of region, language, religion its enjoyed by people all over the world. There is always a discussion whether its films that impacts the society or its society that inspires the films. I always believe like how good books that we read in our life develops our personality, well made movies that we watched also equally inspires us for being what we are.

Since the days when I first consciously enjoyed cinema to till date it always amazed me. The first movie that I remembered watching in theater is Arunakiranam (Starring Rajashekar, Vijayashanthi..) released in the year 1985, I was four year old then but still I remember the emotion that I felt for Vijayashanthi character when she gets cheated by Rajashekar in the movie. At that age I don't know know what emotions are but still the visuals shown on screen made me feel sorry for the character. Such a strong medium cinema is.

I used to admire the characters that I watched in movies and urged to be like them. Its a different world which takes me in for 2&1/2 hours and leaves me out with wonderful experience, emotion and memories to cherish for lifetime. I believe the movies that I watched surely had an influence on the personality that I have been today. Not only just watching but imitating the favorite characters of the movies is always a fun in childhood. In my school and college days I had more fights with my friends over a favorite actor arguments than any other thing. Being part of an actors fans association especially in southern part India is a kind of status among young kids in those days. And the fun of watching popular actors movie first day first show is not less than celebrating biggest festival of the season.

Discussing the movies with friends is one past time till date which I never get bored instead the long and intense the discussions the more it excites me. Slowly from story and actors of a movie my interest expanded to film making and its aesthetics. The more I became interested the more I started learning about how the films are being made. All this knowledge I acquired created created an urge in me to make films and tell stories in my own way to the viewers. The glimpse of excitement in the viewers eyes while watching my movie, the thought itself giving me goosebumps. But then destinations can not be reached just by desires there are many other factors which effects your life. Though I am working in IT industry at present, I still live for my dream and one day I will definitely make a movie.

Meanwhile I am starting this blog to share the knowledge I acquired on films and film making in all these days and get your views and experiences on the same through comments. That way I believe I can learn more about films and create a repository of knowledge which can be helpful to me in future and other aspiring film makers as well.