Ukigusa monogatari

Floating Weeds officially came into being today. Which is a good time to recount how it all happened.

Floating Weeds was conceived some time mid-January this year. It wasn’t called Floating Weeds then. The names the proud parents came up with then were Two/Timers and Daydreamers.

But I’m jumping ahead.

Let’s rewind back to April 2006. I’d just graduated from FTII and was at a crossroads. I wanted to make documentary films, but there wasn’t much of a living in it. I tried knocking the doors of news channels but none opened. There was an offer of an advertising job in Sri Lanka though, and I took it up for the experience of working and living in another country.

Six months into the job, I was disillusioned and frustrated with it. Luckily, Docedge, a documentary funding workshop in Calcutta happened just then, in January 2007. I attended with the script of a documentary film I was wanting to make. I didn’t find funds, but I gained the understanding that if I wanted to enjoy making films, I had to make them my own way. And the only way of doing that was by being on my own.

But I couldn’t do it all on my own. Making a film is a full-time job, seeking funds for it is another. I needed someone who could bring in skills I didn’t have, someone who was equally interested in films, someone who would be willing to risk a venture like this. One name popped automatically into mind. Vinoo.

Vinoo and I had met a couple of times at Contract Bangalore. But we only got to know each other much later when I visited Sajith in Chennai. Sajith used to be my flatmate in Bangalore, and he was then Vinoo’s flatmate in Chennai. Vinoo was interested in films, and just starting to build his now humungous DVD collection. I recommended a few titles to him and told him he must attend the Film Appreciation course at the Institute.

Two years later, April 2006 again, coincidentally, Vinoo quit his well-paying advertising job at McCann, when they refused to grant him leave to attend the FA course. He had been enjoying his prolonged vacation ever since, traveling, writing, watching films.

I called Vinoo up and outlined my plan to him. We join forces, and look for funds to make a couple of documentaries I had in mind. When the funds come in, we make the films. Till then, we get by, taking on freelance advertising assignments on the side. I was convinced it was practical. We’ll be Two/Timers, I told Vinoo. Or Daydreamers, he responded.

Vinoo seemed to like the idea, but he wasn’t completely convinced, I could tell. Though he said he was on, he wasn’t particularly enthused about it. Till two months later, in the course of an online chat, he asked, “When do we start, Chief?” We were on.

In April 2007, I returned back to India. We drew up plans on when to begin, where to set up office, how to manage till we get funds, what to call it. Neither of us was particularly happy with our respective working titles. But Floating Weeds still eluded us.

One of those days, we went looking to expand our DVD libraries to Moideen’s at Parsn’s Complex. Going through the cardboard cartons full of DVD’s, making our choices and discussing those we had already seen, we came upon Ozu’s Floating Weeds.

Ozu is one of the directors whose films I admire. I had seen Floating Weeds before. It tells the story of a traveling Kabuki troupe that drifts from village to village to eke out a living. It had struck me then that I was a Floating Weed myself, drifting from engineering to advertising to films. Vinoo was likewise drifting, and as I picked up the DVD, I knew we had found our name.

Since then, a few months have passed. We intended to start Floating Weeds on 7th June, Sajith’s birthday, a fitting date to start, since he brought us together. But we procrastinated. Vinoo had a few things to attend to in Bangalore, and I was lazily enjoying an extended break. True to our name, we would have let things drift a little more.

Deven, my former boss, however, willed otherwise. Joshi, an ex-colleague of his, was looking for documentary filmmakers to make a short corporate film for IBM. Deven recommended us to Joshi for the film, Joshi liked our work, and fought for us at Ogilvy for two months to get us the film.

Two weeks back, Joshi called to say we were being awarded the film. Since then, we’ve stepped up a few gears, meeting up with lawyers, accountants, production managers and interns to get both, Floating Weeds and the film, rolling.

Today, we start Floating Weeds, not as paupers as we had thought, but with a commission under our belt. More commissions will come our way, but our goal remains to make films we enjoy. Ultimately, we’d like Floating Weeds to be a collective of like-minded people, our friends and fellow drifters, pursuing our various interests on a commercial basis without compromising on what we enjoy doing. Is it utopian or practical? Watch this space.