Showing posts with label Novella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Novella. Show all posts

Saturday, May 12, 2012

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

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The 0ne Rupee Novella - Part 1

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



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Perfect Cinema, where are you?
Where are you the cinema of Pure Images,
Pure Sounds…
Is there anything new at all?
A refreshing frame like a sunny morning during our winters
Or a tune that makes you see a moonlit valley of our autumns…

May be he was thinking. He thinks a lot, at least a lot more than he decides to imply. Taking a decision has always been so tough may be because he knows, the execution is going to be tougher. In an old town by the river, where no one can say whether it’s 2012 or 1932, standing on the stairs of a ghat at least 100 years old, finally he could make up his mind.

- I’ve decided

- What?

- I’ll make a film

- So, what were you doing all these days?

- No, not like that. A feature length film I mean.

- So, finally you father-in-law has decided to become a film producer I guess (giggles).

- You are not taking things seriously enough. Don’t you know me?

- (Laughter) OK. OK. Then?

- I don’t know, I just made up my mind and I’m not going to think about money right now. There must be a way.

- Fine, but what’ll be there in your film?

- You mean content? Story?

- Not that. I mean Sex.

- Fuck yourself!

- You don’t get it dude. Independently produced films do require naked women. It’s what the market demands.

They start moving towards home. They have a scooter kind of non-macho thing that no one would like to ride ever. It looks disgusting

- No, I know, but we’ll need a lot of money to hire such a woman. She’s going to cost me a three and a half feature length films of mine

- But, you’ll be rich, man. Just imagine – New york, Sundance, Seattle, Paris, Berlin, Budapest

- Ya, righto ! London, Athens, Chicago, Oakland --- Step into reality sometimes sucker. We won’t even be left with the money to submit at BYOFF

- Why? Ask your girlfriend to pose nude. Surely she can do this much for a piece of art.

- Sit on my lap, asshole! I’m going to ask your mom --- Auntiji, we are producing some art piece. Please untie your brassiere and pose nude in front of the camera.

- No, seriously

- Yes, seriously. Here’s your home. Get inside and stay there.

The other guy gets down and pokes with a vulgar expression on his face while the filmmaker seems to be deadly serious and sickened with the sick jokes of his friend.



- Did you mind? (The friend says with a giant smile. Evidently he is making faces now)

- No. Do I mind ever? I know that you’ve been a roaring psycho since your very birth.

- Come on man, It was just a joke

- Whatever! Just get lost! We’ll have a serious talk tomorrow morning



Without awaiting a reply, the filmmaker starts his scooter and starts to think again.
Time… why does it always seem to be like a road?
Why do the incidents occur, one after another, in such awful linear way?
Space…why do you tend to get filled so easily with vague objects?
Uncontrolled… Who is going to explain these patterns?
They seem so obvious!

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(Please share this post or re-share it on your blog to help us with the fundraising. Thanks)

Thursday, July 1, 2010

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...