One Rupee Film Project - First look

The first look of Aashmani Jawaharat aka Diamonds in the Sky [widely known as the 0ne Rupee Film Project] (2013) is now live on youtube. The film is suffering from lack of funds. Have a look, if you like it consider to stand by this initiative financially. Any and every amount of contribution above 1 rupee is welcome...

The 0ne Rupee Novella - Part II

We have started a project named The 0ne Rupee Film. The film does not look forward to traditional producers neither to traditional distributors but to your support and contribution. The film will be made by whatever you donate. The minimum contribution is just One Indian Rupee. We are posting the story line in form of a novella to gear up the fundraising process.






If you are interested please follow the blog http://onerupeefilm.blogspot.in/
Or the official Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/onerupeefilm

A man opens the door with a smiling face; must be a servant who already knew that another young filmmaker is coming in search of luck. No one would have guessed that such a rich man can live here in this soon-to-be-abandoned kind of building. How did he become so rich, the filmmaker tries to think while moving towards the drawing room. Suddenly, the thoughts gets obstructed as he sees a young man playing cricket. Not exactly playing, rather practicing, but where's the ball again! What is this man trying to do? He's got a bat, he is posing as if he is playing different shots and, nevertheless he is also narrating the whole action in English. A shadow practice with commentary, nice! The filmmaker stood motionless, watching, until the servant calls him inside. Unexpected association of images and sounds! The fat film producer enters the room

-- 'Welcome, my dear friend, what'll you have, cold drink or beer?

-- 'Beer of course!'

As if tea or coffee is meant for a mediocre only! He knows very well where this conversation is going to end. Sometimes he thinks he must learn to lie. Does it really matter if you cheat some fatsos to make your dream a reality? You just need to say that you know some buyers and they live in some UK or USA and the only thing needed is three or four copies with Spanish, French, Itallian and Russian subtitles other than English. You need to convince them that you know every bit of the international market but, fuck man, you are a maker and not a merchant. You can't humiliate yourself at least! So, again he says the same things like even Uttam Kumar had to cope with flops. Absolutely no one can be certain whether a film is going to work in terms of revenue or not. And the producer would say

-- "See, it doesn't matter to me if your film is a flop. It's my money and I just want to know how I can get it back, I mean at least what I invested. Can you show me a structure?"

-- "That depends on a lot of things."

-- "Then my financial support too depends on a lot of things."

Then they will talk about the market trends and how much investment can assure some return etc. The producer will talk about his previous experiences with other directors whom he thinks to be eminent names now-a-days in the industry. How they came to him when no one had heard their names and how he changed their lives etc. All the same, all the same! Then after a couple of bottles, the filmmaker would get depressed and open up again

-- "The taste has changed a lot, you see. No one likes a good film now-a-days. If you use some slow moves, prolonged zoom-ins and zoom-outs, they will call you outdated. No one wants a Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the 21st century. The longest shot should last less than 6 seconds, that's what they like. Even these kinds of conversation sequences, like we are having a discussion now, sitting face-to-face on two sides of a table, shot-reverse shot-over the shoulder-POV; they will call it cliched. I know, I've used these devices previously. I've heard that film insurance is an option in Mumbai provided that the project profile looks fine. The the kind of casting required to avail that...well, I don't think you are that much strong financially.

-- "Who told you to think about my financial background?"

-- "No, on a second thought, the kind of stars that we have here won't be fit for my film. Most of them are incapable I think. Moreover, viewers can empathize more with a new man, a new face. This is a psychological factor that always works. In case of stars, the process of self-identification gets hindered.

-- "Whatever! If you comne up with something interesting let me know. Just give me a call and we'll see"

Another door is closed.
New face?
What's new again?
It's just a common face
But a face that's uncommon for the screen
For the spectator
In a sea of thousand faces how'd you know who finds empathy in what shape or which complexion
Everyday
I stand in front of a wall
All covered up with posters
Everyday
I shuffle between a thousand images
All I look for is a face
Similar to mine
Yet dissimilar

...And the rain starts to fall

The 0ne Rupee Film - 3

We have started a project named The 0ne Rupee Film. The film does not look forward to traditional producers neither to traditional distributors but to your support and contribution. The film will be made by whatever you donate. These are some recent posts shared from the official blog.


If you are interested please follow the blog http://onerupeefilm.blogspot.in/
Or the official Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/onerupeefilm









Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Story Behind It
The truth is, I'm an idler. Although I was suffering from fever since we were back from Jadavpur and then something happened to my broadband connection (I was able to access internet using my dongle) they just don't stand up as good alibis for not posting on the blog since the 13th. It's been 9 days without writing. The feverish feel didn't even let me feel how fast time flies by when one is not working.

On the 19th evening (or may be night), in the month of February, at around 22:30 hrs. when I told Mr. Gurpal Singh "Gurpal ji, bahat ho gaya, abhi feature banani hai. Logon se ek ek rupiyaa leke suru karne ka socha hai [It has been enough, now I want to make a feature. I thought of starting it by putting a demand of one rupee to everyone]" Sriparna and Surya were there in front of Chakrateertha House, Puri, Orissa and I was quite astonished that I've actually said it. Before that, the idea was shared only once with Sriparna. Gurpal replied smilingly, like he does on every occasion, 'well, it's a great idea but is there anyone here who believes that you won't spend those one rupees on fags and boozes. See, there have been many people in the last years, coming up with ideas like these, collecting money for making film and afterwards none of them were traceable neither their films." --- This reply is what made me feel the necessity of starting this blog.

Four hours before that, I was sitting in a train, Howrah-Puri Duronto Express, at seat no.2. Beside me there was a guy on no.1, named Mr. Abhayanand Pathak. Sriparna, her mom and my mom were on Seat no. 3, 4 and 5. Between us there was the passage, so, I really had no option but to chat with this aged friend of mine when he started talking. Normally I don’t like explicitly religious people, but this time it was different. I felt a touch of wisdom in his words. He speaks a lot (I mean when he starts). Soon I discovered that he is one of the uncles of actor Vinay Pathak. So we talked a bit about Vinay’s performances in different films. Mr. Pathak said that he is a poet and he has two books to his creddit. So, we moved on to poetry and he said he is not a regular poet. He does not understand poetry; rather he tries to understand his religion and the world through his poems. I said, one doesn’t need to understand poetry really, that must be left to the academicians and critics. One must understand oneself to write or compose. Thus, philosophy and religion occupied the central thread of this conversation. Mr. A.N Pathak is one of those guys who say Hey Ram even while yawning. But I, somehow, did not really have any problem to carry on chatting with the Bihari Pandit Brahmin. I myself came to know that I ‘m a Kankubji Brahmin and not a Gaudiya one. Later on, he told me a story of a writer he met at Kurla station. He saw this guy in a bit untidy white shirt and black trousers, asking for one rupee from everyone on the platform. He came in to the waiting room, approached a man sitting next to Mr. Pathak. That man replied negative in a rudely manner and then turned to Mr. Pathak and said “Look at this poor guy. He has learnt this much English only to become an unconventional beggar. What’s becoming of this country”. Mr. Pathak did not reply. He silently started to follow this unconventional beggar and wanted to know the reason of his begging. The man told him that he is a writer. He has written a novel and now he is raising funds as he does not have enough money to publish it.





Yes, it’s an idea copied from somewhere else. I don’t know the name of this writer (I wish I had) but his way can prove to be fruitful for us. Till date, as a forum, LFEBF has produced 14 short films and two feature length films since 2008 out of which 12 shorts and two features were released in three compilations in three consecutive years. Do you know another forum in this country which has been this much consistent? Do you know a filmmaker in India who did take up no-budget as a serious method of film production before or by the year 2008? And when you visit the websites on so-called “Indian Independent Films and Filmmakers” how many times do you find mentions of these works there? Except producing a feature there’s another aim behind starting this fund-raising that is the process itself works as a campaign. This is a good form of no-budget promotion. But some of these so-called ‘devotees’ of “Indian Independent Film” are not even spending a single word on this project. Moreover, some of them are not even responding or replying while communicated with proper information. Where is the problem, can you tell me? Is it with Bengal? Is it with the forum? Or is it with the No-Budget method? I mean if everyone knows us or keeps on following us on facebook why do they become misers when it comes to sharing or writing something about some honest and off-the-track initiative?

Recently my latest film Memories… of a Dead Township (2012) was reviewed by Dr. Ian McCormick. Dr. McCormick also interviewed me via email and posted it to his blog. It’s something adequate to make us happy but we’d have been happier if the review was written or the interview was taken by some Bengali friend of ours, or at least by someone from India.



Thanks to Dr. Ian McCormick and everyone who’s reading, sharing, talking about this blog/project/initiative or the forum. Thanks to all the contributors who helped us reach the threshold of 19k within one month.



The truth is not only that I’m an idler but I belong to a community full of slackers and idlers I believe.

The 0ne Rupee Film - 2

We have started a project named The 0ne Rupee Film. The film does not look forward to traditional producers neither to traditional distributors but to your support and contribution. The film will be made by whatever you donate. These are some recent posts shared from the official blog

If you are interested please follow the blog http://onerupeefilm.blogspot.in/

Or the official Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/onerupeefilm

Friday, March 9, 2012

Promised Post: Explanation, Expectation, Resolution

I hope I don't need to explain the delay. If you are a reader of this blog you must have already guessed that I'm really not doing some office-work, neither do I have a secretary to do this job for me and just like you, I too have my own problems like depression etc. Today, I updated my old website today for the first time as well as an old blog after 2010. And now, I really don't have much time. I'll have to leave soon for the city, I must be there by night. Anyway, let's come to the point.

Why is the minimum amount of contribution still Re.1 while I'm clearly stating that even more than Rs. 25 k is welcome from a single person?

My answer is: See, Firstly, Little Fish Eat Big Fish was initiated and founded in 2008 by me, Sriparna and Arupa da (Arupratan Ghosh). It's been quite a long time since then. In this period we've learnt a lot of things about films and also about other things. We have released three DVDs on our own. For various reasons we were compelled to set the minimum participatory contribution at Rs.100 (150-200 for other states). In kolkata till date spending 100Rs. for 5 short films is not an easy thing for all the students. Yes, there are students who can spend Rs.1000 everyday just for anything but they were not our target audience. People who found interest in our works mostly belong to middle and lower-middle class. What we used to do is, we first focused on recovering the production cost and once it is recovered we used to distribute digital copies for free to the people who could not afford spending 100.

Secondly, till date common people in Kolkata are not really that much interested about the independent efforts in film-medium (Well, basic reason behind this is the trash produced by rich kids and the idiotic school-goers who god knows why ever tried to make a film). Even those who are interested are not habituated to contribute to Independent films or filmmakers. This project looks forward to raise this habit. One rupee is nothing, it doesn't hurt. Most of the people use this very amount only to satisfy pushy beggars. The basic difference between us and the beggar is that we are providing them with a little piece of paper containing information regarding this project so that they can check back and verify or contribute more if they feel like. With the exchanged value of one rupee, the unique approach will surely help them remember the fact, we feel. It's not building houses in the air in the name of Independent filmmaking. Our fathers are not our producers and we still believe in the from-the-mass-to-the-mass structure.

I hope that's enough to clarify why the minimum amount is one rupee only. Now, why am I asking for more?

See, just like the ovum needs sperm to produce a new life, a film needs money to come to life. We believe that there are some friends of ours who like the way we are continuing against all odds. Some of them do receive a handsome paycheck at the end of every month. Among these friends there are some we know personally. They are film enthusiasts, fan of good literature, loves music too. It's a clear call to them, "Dear, it's the time for you to act. Maybe once you dreamt of making 'That Film' but then this job and all, and then you had to get married and now you raise a family... alright! No one is calling you to get out of your closet, but we are on the streets. Can you lend us your umbrella? We'd love to smell it and believe that you are still here with us."

For the next two days, me and Sriparna, we'll be available at JU (Jadavpur University) campus. You can come, meet, discuss with us about the film, contribute. For any assistance call me on 919883103809. When I get back from the city I'll start uploading the storyline little by little in the form of a novella. Can I expect you to just copy and paste that on your blog / web with some basic information about this project. That'll be of much help. Let us know.

Thanks

Monday, March 12, 2012

Just Another Post

We were at Jadavpur University on the 10th and 11th at the stall of Guruchandali Magazine in the Sanskriti, 2012 (a festival organized by the students of engineering dept). The collection is now INR 7,807.15 /- But I'm not really feeling like writing anything else tonight. I'm tired. Moreover, I expected some comments or responses on the last post. OK, so it's clear now, no one is going to come forward and say, "here, I can help". It's more like, "you are fighting for your own cause. So, you shall face all that on your own". But what did I really ask? -- I just wanted some friends who can copy from this blog and paste on his own with some basic information on this initiative when I start posting the the story-line in the form of a novella.

Anyway, depression is natural, and it's only temporary. I believe I'll be able to keep on posting like before because I've gone through worse phases and those days have only encouraged me more.

Thanks

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Trends

Depression is like cloud, you know what I mean if you are a sensitive man.

I came across another talented friend of mine today who seemed to be in a mood of a quarrel. These kinds of friends, see, I used to have a lot of them before. They will never do what they should have been doing. They would opt for a job at some office and curse the society for being so cruel. They'd curse their social and economic whereabouts for everything i.e the obstructions of becoming a popular artiste. But it's actually them who decided to sign the papers because they felt insecure at a point of time.

If you know what you are doing and who you are inside, is there a reason to get distracted like that, my friend? Lack of confidence and recognition can make feel a mediocre artiste that he is somebody like Rimbaud or Artaud, only if people could get it! Gosh!

What's there in recognition? If you are all for work why should you care at all? No matter what, just keep on working, use your brain and muscles and don't become jealous of anyone around.

Analyze, won't you?

Whatever, let's come to the point, if you are subscribed to the Facebook page you must have already come to know that the figure now stands at INR 12,908.15 /- but what you don't know yet is that the highest individual contribution is Rs. 2500. Let's see who's going to break it and donate 5k for the first time.

Our first identified donor from another country is Ginnetta Correlli, a filmmaker friend. Her generosity was soon found in another filmmaker friend named Jason Marsh. We are thankful to them, we think their contributions would motivate others in other parts of the world too.

Be it Re.1 or Rs.1006 people are contributing for real. It's not one month yet since we started at BYOFF on the 25th of February and we're almost at 13k already. May we call it overwhelming, the response? Now we have a reason to be confident and announce, Yes, We'll Start Shooting this April. Now, whichever comes first, 20k or the first shoot, We'll start posting the story-line in the form of a novella, post by post, serially. Friends, asking again, do you have a blog where you can share the novella with some basic information on this project to help raise funds more effectively? --- We think we'll have MAM (Mad About Moviez) beside us. Are you too MAD, about MOVIEZ? Join hands, let's make it happen for the sake of the pure madness

Replica (2012)

Sriparna Dey has started shooting her forthcoming film Replica (2012). The story revolves around a teenage photographer who stays with his father. The boy (played by Twish Mukherjee) is haunted by a painting he has never seen in his real life. He is not even sure whether it's a painting or not but the image keeps on appearing repeatedly like a vision. He feels that someone is trying to communicate with some message that he must receive. While searching the root of this uncommon phenomenon the untold history of his root gets unfolded to the teenager.

Mr. Director (2012) - Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

Campaign started for Snigdhendu's forthcoming film Mr. Director (2012). The film would be released in the 3rd compilation of LFEBF.


 Khyapa Tui Na Jene by Indie FM Bangla 

Thanks to The Bengal Post for covering us in their article on Indie films of Bengal

Click on the image to read the article

Or

Read The Underplayed on Postscript Official Blog

Up Country by Lucas McNelly - Chapter 6

Lucas McNelly is the award-winning filmmaker behind such feel-good movies as BLANC DE BLANC and GRAVIDA, as well as the screening series Indies for Indies. His work has been featured all over the place. Maybe you’ve heard of him, maybe you haven’t.

After Blanc De Blanc Lucas McNelly is planning to make Up Country (well, the title may change later as McNelly says). He is publishing the narrative as a series of Novellas on his blog 100 Films. We are supporting him to raise funds for the film by reposting his posts here.

Please feel generous to back the film on Kickstarter.

To call it a road was...generous. Sure, it fit some definition of a road--chiefly, you could drive a truck down it--but it was little more than two tire tracks in the woods. Despite the fact that the bridge had been gone for what seemed to be several years, the road looked to be somewhat recently used. Paul guessed that someone had been driving ATVs across the brook, or perhaps a truck with 4 wheel drive when the water was low, but the traffic had done little more than maintain the integrity of the ruts. The trees hung over, creating a gauntlet of branches under a canopy that blocked out the sun. They could only see thirty or so feet until it made a gradual right turn and was eaten up by the forest. It could at best be described as a tunnel through the woods that was just barely big enough to fit a vehicle.

John was pretty certain that this road would lead them to the highway, or at least to a dirt road, so without discussion he started down it. And really, what was there to discuss? They could either follow a river or a road and a road was, at very least, man-made. It seemed to be taking them in the general direction from which they came, so it was something of a no-brainer. It never occurred to him to ask the others.

And so they walked, John in the lead, for a quarter mile until the road came to an intersection. To the left the road spread out a bit, opened up into something a little more spacious. Straight ahead appeared to be more of the same. But through the trees to the right, there was a building.

They had found their way out.

John motioned for Paul and Mark to catch up and they all stood there for a minute, staring at what appeared to be a hunting camp.

It was a small camp, placed in among the trees with a semi-attached shed over to the right. The trim and the porch had long ago been painted green. The shingles on the roof were badly in need of repair. It was obvious this building had been around for decades, if not longer. But in the area in front of it someone had gone to the trouble of doing basic masonry around a campfire and there was firewood stacked in the small clearing that served as a yard. As abandoned as the camp itself looked, it wasn't.

John went first, walking about half-way before he started calling out to no one in particular. Hello? Is anyone there? There was no answer, so he walked the rest of the way and stepped up on the worn, knotted planks that made up the porch. The camp was covered in gray shingles (had they always been gray?) that looked similar to the ones on the roof, only a different color. There was a hunting knife with a 6-inch blade jammed into the windowsill. John set his fishing pole down against the gun rack nailed to the wall and pulled the knife out of the wood, gripping it as a weapon. He slowly opened the wooden door, then the screen door patched with duct tape. It slammed shut behind him.

Once inside, it took John's eyes a second to adjust, to focus. Despite the fact that there were four rather large windows, the camp didn't seem to get a lot of sunlight except for on the white table to John's left. It was old and chipped, but looked new compared to the linoleum on the floor, which was cracked and peeling beyond recognition. In some spots it was non-existent. From the gas lamps that hung from the ceiling, John surmised that there wasn't any electricity. He was right. They were too far from a power line for it to even be an option. To the right there was a sink, but the spigot had been taken out and taped over, and a metal bucket with quite possibly the original version of the "All" logo was turned upside down inside it. There didn't appear to be a single thing in the camp that wasn't older than John himself.

Hello?

Straight ahead was a wood stove, and behind that there appeared to be another room.

Is anyone there?

John pushed the curtain back to reveal bunk beds, two queen sized mattresses with another two more on the other side of a partial wall. The mattresses were lumpy and stained. John could see where a mouse had ripped out a good deal of stuffing and made a nest, exposing the metallic spring. There was a duffel bag on the floor and a sleeping bag rolled out on the top bunk, but no one was in the camp itself.

Outside, Paul and Mark looked around. Mark made a slow circle around the perimeter. Paul looked at the wood pile and spent a few minutes in the middle of the yard, taking in the surroundings while John went inside. There was a rusted out oil drum that had been used to burn garbage. He could see that the campfire had been recently used, as there was a tiny bit of smoke coming from it. He bent down to take a closer look as John came back outside.

"Anything?"

"No, but someone's been here. I'm going to check the shed."

The shed had been built more recently than the camp, but was in worse shape. There were gaps in the boards and from the smell, John could tell that at least part of the shed functioned as an outhouse. The door was shut. He walked across the porch and reached to open it.

Paul shifted his weight to get a better look at the fire, to maybe get an idea of just how long ago it had been used. He reached his hand out for a rock to steady himself and it landed on something sticky. Annoyed, he went to wipe what he assumed to be pitch on his pants, but it wasn't pitch. It was a dark red. He touched it to his tongue.

Blood.

The rock was covered in blood.

"Oh my God. Uh, John?"

John had the door to the shed half open when he noticed the silhouette of someone standing in the corner. He was heavy-set, hadn't shower or shaved in weeks, and looked as if he had been living out here for months, maybe more. But John didn't see that. What he saw was a crazed, maniacal look in the man's eyes and the gleam of light reflecting off whatever metal object was in his hands.

"Holy shit." He stumbled back and gripped the knife tighter.

The man took a step toward him and started to swing the metal object through the air.

"Oh fuck!" John scrambled off the porch, nearly tripped on the uneven ground, and took off.

"Paul! Mark! RUN!"

...to be continued when our Kickstarter campaign hits $3,000...

Up Country by Lucas McNelly - Chapter 5

[Lucas McNelly is the award-winning filmmaker behind such feel-good movies as BLANC DE BLANC and GRAVIDA, as well as the screening series Indies for Indies. His work has been featured all over the place. Maybe you’ve heard of him, maybe you haven’t. After Blanc De Blanc Lucas McNelly is planning to make Up Country (well, the title may change later as McNelly says). He is publishing the narrative as a series of Novellas on his blog 100 Films. We are supporting him to raise funds for the film by reposting his posts here. Please feel generous to back the film on Kickstarter.]

Their gear was gone, that much was certain. The packs had left an imprint in the grass, so there was no mistaking where they had been. As the minutes passed, it became more and more clear that their guide might not be coming back. He hadn't exactly been friendly or outgoing, and he had always seemed to be sizing them up, as if he was unsure they were worthy of the woods. It didn't take a detective to connect the dots. The guide was missing. Their stuff was missing. There were, as far as they knew, only four people for miles around, maybe farther. So unless Yogi Bear had mistaken their gear for picnic baskets, the only logical solution was that the guide had stolen their stuff. It wasn't a perfect theorem, but it was damned close. It was John who finally said what everyone was thinking, that the guide had stolen their stuff and abandoned them in the middle of nowhere. He shot a disapproving look at Mark, who seemed to be more at a loss than Paul. "It's just...I had no idea," Mark stammered. "He even had positive reviews online." He has a webpage? "How do you think I found him?" "Through your jailbird cousin?" John retorted. Mark glared at him. Paul's face said that maybe this wasn't the best time as he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. He was going to have to start thinking like a lawyer again. He started by taking a wider look at the area, but the woods pretty much all looked the same. There was evidence of traffic all around, but it was their traffic. The guide could have easily re-traced his steps back to the road or gone up river. There was no way to know. And considering how unfamiliar they were with the area, it would be a bad idea to head out into the woods looking for him. "Well then," John added. "That means we either stay where we are, try to find our way back, or follow the river. Paul, you saw the trail better than I did. How well could you pick it up?" "I would hardly call it a trail. For all I could tell, we were just walking through the woods." "Ok, well we can't exactly stay here. I don't imagine he's sending someone to come get us. What do we have to work with?" They all emptied the gear they were carrying. It wasn't much. Some worms and lures. Extra hooks. A lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Mark had a small Swiss Army Knife. John had his cell phone, but there was no service. The flares, the flashlights, all the stuff they needed was in that missing gear. Paul had bragged at the airport that he had brought enough supplies to survive for weeks. It was all gone. "We're fucked," John said in the most direct way possible. Mark was quiet. Paul was sorting through the creels, trying to see if he could channel his inner MacGyver and fashion something out of nothing. John looked around, trying to get a sense of direction related to where they had started. He paused staring at a 30 degree angle up-river. "So I think we generally came from that direction. Seems we have to follow the river. So I would think upstream would have a better chance of taking us to the road." Mark finally spoke up. "But if we go downstream, won't it take us to the ocean?" "The ocean is a hundred miles away. We have to go upstream. Right, Paul?" Paul thought for a minute. "Yeah, I think so." They worked their way upstream for a mile or more, walking on the shore where possible, but more often wading through the shin-deep water. The rocks were slippery under the water, which slowed their progress some and made for a few moments where it looked like one of them might fall, but they trudged on more or less silently, all three of them trying to sort out the situation at hand. They were lost in the northern Maine woods, in a place so remote they hadn't even bothered to name the town. They had driven by a sign indicating that they were in the unorganized township T2-R6, whatever the hell that meant, and now they were seeing it first-hand. That big rock over there might as well be the mayor's office, the fish in the water the town council. John was leading the way. After a while, he slowed to a stop. He motioned for them to catch up. "What is it?" Paul asked. "I don't know. Definitely something." Upon closer inspection, what they found was the remains of some sort of wooden structure on the shore, the logs connected like the corner of a log cabin. The structure was clearly gone, but the wood wasn't so old that it should be. And yet, it was too close to the water to be a cabin. It looked as if it had been knocked down a couple of years ago. John climbed up on the shore and suddenly his expression changed. "Guys, it used to be a bridge." "How can you tell?" Paul said. "Because up here, there's a road."

...to be continued when our Kickstarter campaign hits $2,500...

Up Country by Lucas McNelly - Chapter 4

Mark heard them yelling and wandered downstream to see what all the fuss was about. They were back-to-back, hands cupped around their mouths, hollering into the woods. It was comical, really, to see them standing there. They looked like idiots, the guy who married his sister and some lawyer friend of his. Mark had never met the lawyer before, but he seemed like a nice enough guy--quiet, courteous but not polite, and clearly excited to be in the middle of nowhere. You didn't have to know him very well to realize that this was a person who relished the opportunity to get away from urban life.

As for John...well...John was family, sort of. He was proof of the old saying that you can choose your friends, but not your relatives. And, in truth, he didn't know him that well. His sister hadn't exactly brought him around to meet the family, instead casually mentioning one day that she'd started living with this guy who until then had only existed in Facebook photos of her at a baseball game, her at the beach, her at the bar. He was in the background at first, sporadically in the same places as her. Then he was in almost all of them, usually right next to her, sometimes with his arm around her. Then her status changed from "single" to "in a relationship with...". Even when they skipped the engagement and got married one day, John still hadn't met her family.

Not that Mark was all that surprised. His sister was the poster child for rash decisions where reason was little more than an afterthought. She held the local high school record for pregnancy scares without a positive result and managed to do it without getting a reputation for being a slut. She was just...impulsive. A match made this quickly, this foolishly had disaster written all over it. Sure, a rushed marriage wasn't newsworthy, but it didn't say much for either of them. What sort of person gets married without meeting his wife's family?

His father had said it best: "Thank God there aren't any children". And he liked John more than most.

Mark could do without him entirely.

But he was sort of enjoying watching him and Paul standing there, yelling into the woods like their lives depended on it. They hadn't even noticed he was there, they were so busy shouting. Could they seriously not even remember Ryan's name?

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Hey," Paul saw him first. "Have you seen the guide?"

"You mean Ryan?"

"Yeah."

"He went towards you. Why?"

John and Paul looked at each other, both of them feeling too dumb to answer right away. "We can't find him," John finally said.

"What do you mean?"

"We don't know where he is."

"Well...maybe he went to take a shit."

Paul looked at John with a wry smile. "That's probably it. I bet he can't hear us." He looked back at Mark. "Did you catch any big ones?"

Mark held up a Ziploc bag full of brook trout. "I got my limit."

Paul smiled. "In my bag there's a flask with some 18 Year Glenlivet in it, should you want a celebratory shot."

Mark couldn't believe it. "You put that in a flask?"

"We're roughing it, aren't we?"

Mark laughed and turned to head back upstream to where they'd left the backpacks. It took him a minute to find the spot where the guide had pushed back the brush, but finally noticed something of a trampled path of grass where they had walked through. Once his eyes adjusted to the change in light, he found the matted grass where they had placed their bags. Only, there was something wrong. He walked back to the brook.

"Paul? John?"

After a minute, they walked into view.

"Did you guys do anything with the bags?"

They both shook their heads. John yelled back, "No, why?"

"Because they're gone."

...to be continued when our Kickstarter campaign hits $2,000...

Up Country by Lucas McNelly - Chapter 3

It was if the guide had opened the door of a pitch black room and let in the sun. It was blinding, overwhelming, disorienting. Once John's eyes adjusted, focused, he saw a brook (a river?) carved out of the woods. There was no banking, no shore. The woods stopped and the water started. He imagined that when the water ran high, the trees would be partly underwater, that the roots stretched into the brook itself. And if he remembered correctly from childhood--that a tree's roots spread as far as the branches--then they did, they dug under the riverbed, soaking up water as it filtered on down. He was pretty sure, mostly sure, more sure than he was about the moss.

Mark and Paul had already put their packs down next to the guide's. Mark dug a worm out of his creel and carefully threaded it onto a hook and, following the guide's cryptic directions, walked fifty feet or so upstream. Once there, he dropped the worm into the currents and let it float downstream. The guide shook his head, no. He pointed Mark to a spot on the opposite shore where the water had collected around a fallen log. Mark did as instructed and no sooner had the bait hit the pool then the line went taut. Mark yanked the pole, hard (too hard?), and reeled it in as fast as he could. From the tension on the line, it looked like a big one. He drew it closer and it flashed to the surface, fighting with everything it had. Back down into the current and then--suddenly--the line went limp. It was gone. Mark finished reeling in the line. The worm he had so carefully threaded was gone--the hook picked clean.

"Why'd you let him go?" John chided.

"I had him. Did you see it? He was huge."

"I don't know if he was huge..."

Paul was more methodical. He put his pack down and stood in the doorway to the water, surveying the brook, the sky, the opposite shore, and what else John couldn't guess. He took his hat off, selected one of the flies, and attached it somehow. John had never seen fly fishing in person and was curious about the mechanics, but not curious enough to be labeled a fool.

Paul waded out to the spot he'd selected and started waving the fly rod around, forward and back, 10 o'clock 2 o'clock, whipping the neon orange line around in the air like those rhythmic gymnasts John's wife would watch every four years. How did he keep it from going in the trees? After thirty seconds, he let the line rest on the surface of the water, then snatched it back up almost as quickly, as if he was only interested in catching the really motivated fish, the type-A personalities, the greedy ones. But soon enough, he had one, the fish attacking the fly as it hit the water, like Jaws going after a swimmer. It was a nice trout, big enough to keep, but Paul let it go, said something about it being bad luck to keep the first one.

John had never heard that. Then again, he had never read those magazines in Paul's office either.

"You fishin'?" It was the guide. His fishing pole ready and anxious to hit the water.

"Yeah, of course." John put his pack down.

The guide pointed downstream. "Go down they-uh, not too fah, just past the bend. Ok?"

Um, maybe? It was the most detailed thing he'd heard the guide say, and he still understood none of it.

"Did you say 'not too far'?"

"Ayuh. That way." He pointed, seemed slightly annoyed, muttered something about people from away, and cast his line.

John complied, left his pack with the others, and worked his way forty or so feet downstream, around the bend, and tried to find a spot similar to the one the guide had shown Mark. He spotted one without much trouble and spent the next twenty minutes futilely casting down into the deepest-looking spot. He let his mind wander, taking in the warmth of the sun on his face, closing his eyes and listening to the water rush over the rocks, the wind through the trees, the birds singing all around him. It was beautifully serene, peaceful.

Every so often, a fish would nibble at his worm, the line responding with a playful little tug, but it was never more than that, and John didn't mind. It was relaxing just standing there in the brook, the water up over his knees, the woods existing all around him in their uninterrupted form, the way they had for centuries. He imagined himself as one of the original settlers of Maine (or was it part of Canada then?), fishing this exact spot in this exact condition, his fishing pole nothing more than a stick with some twine tied to the end.

It was an hour later (Two hours? Three? John had lost all track of time) when Paul walked up to him, asked if he was having any luck. They exchanged comments about what a great spot this was.

"Did you see the guide go past you?"

"No, did he go downstream?"

"Yeah, I'm going to go down past him, and we can leapfrog our way down."

"Ok, I'll move down in a bit. Where's Mark?"

"Just killing it back where he started. No way he's moving any time soon."

Paul moved down the right shore as John cast along the left. Ten minutes passed, maybe more. He heard Paul calling to him.

"Hey John, what's the guide's name?"

"Uh...Brian? Ryan? Ian? Something like that. Why?"

"I can't find him." He called out again, this time in the other direction. "Brian? Ryan? Hello?"

There was no answer. John joined in. "Brian? Ryan?"

Still no answer.

"Mr. Fishing Guide? Ian?"

Nothing.


...to be continued when our Kickstarter campaign hits $1,500...

Up Country - Novella by Lucas McNelly

Lucas McNelly is the award-winning filmmaker behind such feel-good movies as BLANC DE BLANC and GRAVIDA, as well as the screening series Indies for Indies. His work has been featured all over the place. Maybe you’ve heard of him, maybe you haven’t. After Blanc De Blanc Lucas McNelly is planning to make Up Country (well, the title may change later as McNelly says). He is publishing the narrative as a series of Novellas on his blog 100 Films. We are supporting him to raise funds for the film by reposting his posts here.

Please feel generous to back the film on Kickstarter.

UP COUNTRY, Chapter 1

The truck pulled to a stop at the edge of the woods. They had driven a mile or so through a field, past a weathered red barn with a Dukakis ’88 sign facing the road. John had asked if people up here were that far behind the times. The joke had not gone over well with the truck’s driver.

As far as John could tell, there was nothing to indicate that the truck should stop here. No parking area, no path into the woods, nothing but a solid wall of bushes and trees. It was, simply, the end of the field. He looked over his shoulder, but the red barn was gone from view.

Six months ago, his brother-in-law Mark had told him about this fishing trip his cousin had taken in the northern Maine woods–camping in a tent and living off the fish you caught for a couple of days, a real back-to-nature vacation. It sounded compelling enough. But when Mark had scoffed that, no, it wasn’t Stephen King country, it was much more remote than that, he was sold.

It took even less to convince his lawyer Paul, a tax attorney who wore Armani suits during the week and a ratty old hat with fishing lures stuck through it during the weekends. Paul had copies of Field & Stream magazine in his office, framed prints of lakes and rivers along all the walls, and some sort of large fish mounted over his desk. He had described to John once–in great detail–the process of catching it, the lure he used, the body of water he had been fishing, the thrill of victory. John had nodded politely, but never could remember what type of fish it was. He was too polite to tell Paul he’d forgotten, and didn’t care enough to ask to hear the story again. He only knew it was impressive. Or, at least, he assumed it must be. Why else would he go to the trouble of mounting it?

The driver of the truck, the one who wasn’t impressed with John’s joke, was their guide. Brian or Ryan or Ian or something. He had said maybe twenty words since picking them up at the Portland airport four hours ago, and what little he had was so deeply buried underneath a accent that none of them had understood more than a fraction. John knew Pakistani cab drivers in New York that were easier to understand. Brian or whoever shut the truck off and muttered something like “this is it”. He took a sun-bleached Red Sox hat off the dash and jammed it on his head.

They all piled out of the truck, walking around to stretch their legs. The guide walked fifteen feet down the edge of the woods and without giving it a second thought, unzipped his pants and relieved himself. Then, he grabbed some gear from the back of the truck, walked to a spot in the tree line, and pushed aside a bush to reveal a well-worn, clearly marked trail.

Let’s go.

John, Mark, and Paul scrambled to get their gear out of the back of the truck and follow him before he disappeared into the woods. By the time John got his backpack on, he could barely remember which bush to move and the guide was already thirty feet away. He ran to catch up.

UP COUNTRY, Chapter 2

The first thing John noticed was the darkness. Kind of like walking into a cave. Here and there a shaft of sunlight hit the ground, but for the most part, the trees took care of that. It took John’s eyes a second to adjust, to focus, to take in the shift in brightness. The floor of the woods was covered with a thick coat of dead leaves and rotting branches that had broken off during storms or just given up all hope of consistent sunlight. All around moss poked through. John tried to remember what he’d heard about moss. Did it always grow on the northern side? On the southern? Or was that something else?

Hey!

Mark was yelling back at him. He was thirty feet ahead; Paul twenty feet more. John couldn’t even see the guide, even though he wore a blaze orange shirt with a deer decal on it and the phrase “Getchadeeryet?” all mashed together as one word. Actually, blaze orange probably was no longer accurate. It was an old shirt. Perhaps just orange or whatever you’d call that color when it had faded over the years.

John jogged to keep up, careful not to trip in the trail that was more of a footpath weaving around trees with a strip of flagging ever forty feet or so to mark the way. As he got closer to Mark, he started to catch glimpses of the guide. He was moving fast, walking through the woods with purpose, only occassionally checking to make sure they were keeping up.

“Fucking hell. Does he even know we’re back here?” The pack was heaving and John was slightly out of breath from jogging.

“I think so. I saw him check a minute ago.”

“Where did you find this guy anyway?”

“My cousin recommended him.”

“The one in jail?”

“I do not have a cousin in jail.” Mark’s voice came up a little. It was a touchy subject. “He’s a second cousin. Not even a blood relative.”

“Uh huh.”

“Anyway, it wasn’t him. It’s a different cousin.”

“You know, Paul’s a lawyer.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Hey Paul!”

“I don’t want to know,” Paul yelled back. “I’m on vacation. You see this hat? This is my I’m not a lawyer hat.”

“So I lose my attorney-client privileges?”

“Yes.” Paul stopped, turned to face them. “But replaced with the ever more solemn fishing trip code of secrecy. Like Vegas, only without the strippers.”

“So you don’t want to know about Mark’s genetic pre-disposition to crime?”

“Not a blood relative,” Mark protested.

“No. I don’t care.”

“Ladies!” The guide had walked back toward them and didn’t look pleased. “You wanna stand around in the woods or you wanna fish?” They all wanted to fish. “Ok then.” The guide turned and walked down the path, muttering something about people from out of state and city folk being a waste of time.

Like chastized children, they walked in silence for the next ten minutes, doing their best to keep up with a guide who was moving even faster through the woods. Finally, he stopped. They could hear running water, but they couldn’t see it. The guide put his pack down and pushed aside some brush. The woods opened and before them lay a bubbling brook. The burst of light took their breath away.

…to be continued when our Kickstarter campaign hits $1,000…