Memories of a minimentary

At Jodhpur Airport, on a 4 day recce of Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, we are received by Alambhai. Alambhai is our local production co-ordinator; his job is to help us find people, locations, characters, stories, we can use for our film. Alambhai is big and broad with a shy smile and a soft voice. On our last night in Jodhpur, to make him feel comfortable, I ask him his story. How did he land up in this field? Alambhai smiles his shy smile. Bas, aa gayein, he says. I probe further: But, how? It was God’s wish, he says and tells us this wonderful story.

Alambhai never went to school, he never learned to read and write. He used to be a goatherd. One day, while wandering through the countryside with his flock of goats, he stumbled upon the shoot of Elaan-e-Jung going on near Jaisalmer. There was Anil Sharma, his father and Dharmendra. Anil Sharma’s father asked him what he was carrying in his bag. Alambhai removed the bajre-ki-roti that was his lunch. Anil Sharma’s father asked him if they could share in it. Of course, Alambhai replied, and milked a goat to wash down the meal. Dharmendra loved the simple food and asked him to be back the next day with a lot more rotis.

Alambhai landed up the next day, and Anil Sharma’s father asked him if he was interested in helping on the shoot. Alambhai became a part of the crew, and when the shoot was over, he was paid 5000 bucks. His family had never seen that much money in their lives, he remembers. They counted the money again and again.

Anil Sharma’s father spread the word around in Bombay that there was a hardworking lad in Rajasthan who could get things done there, and Alambhai was in demand. He has an extensive filmography comprising of Hindi films, regional films, foreign films and ads. He’s even there in a bit role in Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost, he says, but you won’t recognize him in the costume and get-up.

Today, Alambhai can just about sign his name. When he’s not coordinating yet another shoot in Rajasthan, he looks after a couple of businesses he’s started – a stone exporting firm, and a hotel in Jaisalmer.

Next time I watch a film set in Rajasthan, I’m going to keep an eye open for Alambhai’s name in the credits.

* * *

Babloo Chawaria is a poker-faced autorickshaw driver in Jodhpur. For two days, he bore us with patience, driving up and down the narrow streets of Jodhpur’s Blue City. From his stony expressions, I couldn’t tell whether he was excited at being shot for a film or horribly appalled at what we were doing to his beloved autorickshaw, rigging it up with plates and angles, nuts and bolts, belts and hooks, to place our camera. Finally, after the shoot, as he was taking us back to the hotel, he could not hold it back any more. He shouted out to a fellow autorickshaw driver, “Meri gaadi ke upar film bani hai…really.”

* * *

Armed with a camera, we travel down the coast from Cochin to take a look at fishing villages. Now and then, a villager asks what we are doing. We are making a documentary film, we reply. Ah, the villager nods knowingly, no further questions asked. I love Kerala.

floating weeds @ work

hola! over the past few days we have been taking our names a lil' too seriously. we have been floating. as for the weeds, lesser said the better. and between all the painful CA, legal, registration and all that we sure are finding some time for work. as for how hard we have all been working i'll let them pictures do all the talking. watch this space. will be back when not hard @ work.

Floating Weeds needs a logo

This is an invitation to our friends, designers whose work we admire, to design our identity for us. We'd like to use all the designs we like, but to get you all started, here's a sort of a brief.

Why the name 'Floating Weeds'
Floating Weeds is a film by Yasujiro Ozu, a Japanese director whose work we admire. It is about a group of travelling perfomers who go from village to village in search of an audience and a livelihood. Therefore, floating weeds. When we saw this film, we realised we were floating weeds too. Kaevan has floated from engineering to advertising to films and from Bombay to Bangalore to Pune. Vinoo has floated from microbiology to advertsing and now to films and from Bangalore to Pondicherry to Chennai and now to Bombay. And so 'Floating Weeds' was born.

What we will be doing
We are primarily interested in making our own documentary films, at least initially. Till we can raise enough funds to start shooting, we plan to support ourselves doing a bit of advertising consultancy and the odd corporate or ad film. We also plan to make a feature film and produce programmes for TV at a later stage. Our larger plan for Floating Weeds is to be a loose collective of like-minded people dabbling in anything and evertything to do with films, advertising and beyond.

What we want the identity to be
We want the identity to reflect the kind of people we are. Since you know at least one of us well, we don't need to tell you much. But we'd like the identity to be the kind that's so simple and obvious that most people overlook it. More importantly, it has to be 'us'. Purposeful drifters. Informal. Creative. Simple and straightforward.

An idea-starter
An idea we have come up with is a 'floating identity'. It's never constant and keeps changing, while retaining some common elements. Imagine letters caught in a stream, connected to each other loosely, each letter remaining the same, but being tossed around by the current. It's never the same on different media, but still identifiable.

Obviously, we'd like you to think beyond that.

Tell us if you can take it up. And when can we see some scribbles. We have an assignment already, and we need the works - visiting cards, letterheads, envelopes and all that.

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.