Teaser for Cadillac ATS

Watch in full screen.

Another challenge given to me earlier this year, Cadillac ATS was launching a new model and of course the teaser had to be out before the actual campaign was shot and delivered, so after a long chat with the agency we discussed to use the previous years footage, the givens were we cant show too much of the car since the model has changed and it says coming soon, it had to showcase from last years campaign the different locations that the car was shot at, also the different weather conditions basically everything from the challenges that were shot in the previous years, also had to include the human element, scale and production scale, and most importantly it will be only 15 sec long. Another problem faced was that all the earlier footage was shot in different formats so had to try and bind that in as well. The result is what you see above. Of course the last image of the car is the final car which is just a still image tracked on with the earlier shot car... let me know what you guys think..





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The story behind GEM Hospital's AD Series

The story behind GEM Hospital - a series of 4 commercials made in very very low budget.

One directors illness is another directors film.

One evening at 5 pm I get a call from a producer asking me what I was doing the next day,
"Free, but why?" I asked,
"Can you direct some AD films tomorrow?" he went on
Shocked for moment then all the questions flowed "What, Tom? Where? How?"

So the director who was to direct these AD's fell ill and the location, actors, DOP etc were all booked and advances paid in some cases would all be lost, so I got lucky. (In a very low budget film thats like all money spent) I asked for the scripts which was promptly emailed across to me and I read them, there was no treatment note or references, or any homework done by the previous director or if done were not shared and by this time it was 6 pm, with all the chat over the phone and the booking of tickets I was off to the Mumbai airport by 7pm for a 8:15 pm flight, still talking to the producer on route,  passing on a few instructions of things that could be done and with questions still flowing I was off to Chennai.

In all the confusion of trying to answer my questions, booking my tickets and making sure that I got to the airport on time the producer missed his flight, he was coming from Bangalore, luckily since the distance is not too much he caught a night bus to reach early in the morning, so much for our plans of meeting late in the night to discuss details. At least I got to meet the DOP and discuss with him the way he was looking at these films, I was still trying to get all the films clearly into my head to see which way I could treat these films the best.

At 6 am I finally met the producer, we had a short discussion where I learnt that the client was a friend of the producer and on his request was ready to invest a tiny sum to make a few commercials. We reached the location which I was having a look at for the first time, followed by the actors, briefed them along with makeup and choose the costumes (which were self owned options carried) Then along with the DOP made a shoot plan and and the rest is there for you to see.

4 commercials all shot in one day with a turnaround for shoot less than 12 hours (at least for me) These are my showreel versions, the client versions ran in theatres and a few cable channels in the south region of India. Do let me know what you think of them.

"Missed Call"

"Treadmill"

"Sweet Tooth"

GEM Hospital Sound Sleep*

*For some reason the last video has some glitches post upload in youtube, tried various exports so click on the link above to see in Vimeo.

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Casting Brief Q9: Individual Character Brief

For the entire list of casting questions go back to

Casting Brief

Question 9: Individual Character Brief

This is a brief given by the director to the casting director about what they are looking for in each individual character. It is the director's perception of what they want the character to look like or act in a certain manner which would help to enhance the character, this is what the casting director needs to pass on or get out of the actor at the audition.

Sometimes a character brief is written down so that it can be shared with the actor so that they can prepare themselves for the role. These are usually one-page briefs and are not to be followed literately by the actors but the essence of the character is usually summed up in this brief. The briefing of characters in this manner is mostly done in feature films more than advertising. The reason for that is not always the entire set of people being cast will get to read the entire script and in order to understand the character, this description is important. Usually first round of auditions happens only on the basis of one scene that has been given and to be fair to the actor it is important for the actor to know what the role includes.

The brief which like I said is a one-page description, which in short says everything about the character like RAHUL (name of character) who is 28 yrs old, decent looking, coming from a lower-middle-class, has had to struggle for everything in life, right from education to even making friends, he is currently going through a tough time, having lost his job and his girlfriend had dumped him for a richer guy, he now stands at the bus stop where he has just seen a robber hide a bag full of money on the top of the roof, what does Rahul do.. 
The scene given to the actor at the audition is the scene where Rahul is standing at the bus stop. This example shows that the actor has been giving just enough to know how to play the part without revealing too much of the plot of the script. Some times the director's brief could be specifics like maybe the character should try a lisp while talking, or a foreign accent or something like a small limp while walking or even as simple as trying the audition with and without specs.

It is not necessary to have a detailed brief for each of the characters to be cast but helps in giving the casting director some direction to what the director is looking for. It is therefore important for the casting director to have read the entire script and know the story well, cause actors will have a few more questions about the character after reading the brief, of course, the casting director has to be careful while reveling information not to let out too much of the plot of the movie.

There are times when no brief is given as the director wants to see what the actor brings to the table, some of the most memorable characters we see on film are things that the actor would have brought to the audition sometimes even unknowingly.




For the answer to the previous question see
Casting Brief Q8: Competitive Brands

Read on for the next question
Question 10: Any reference to any character/actor?

For the entire list of casting questions go back to

Casting Brief

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Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -1 (1st A.D's Tips Part - 1)

"I'm king of the world!" - Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic (1997)

Chief A.D's  Thinking. Part - 1

As a chief assistant director or first assistant director (1^st A.D.) the way you look at all departments is a bit different than the way the director’s assistant (D.A.) or the director looks at that department. This blog is in continuation of the previous one How to plan a shoot in 10 easy steps. and this gives you the 1^st A.D.’s perspective to each department and understanding these might give you some tips on how to make your shoot a smoother one.

Remember not all projects are the same and therefore do not follow all tips and suggestions blindly, each project is unique and one has to develop a style that suits all departments but mainly works for that project. There are software’s that help planning and scheduling a shoot like Ep-Scheduling, Celtx , Gorilla, Reel Production Calendar, etc while some of these are free you have to buy most of them, so before spending the producer's money do a bit of research and choose what software suits the best to that project or choose what you have used in the past and are comfortable with. While these software’s do help in large productions not always will one get the budget for picking up a planning software. Here one has to plan using tools like excel or word and try to bring in the same accuracy these software’s provide. 

The following perspective’s on each department give a bit of insight into planning and scheduling without the help of software’s. Like said in the 10 easy steps first one has to read all material, and then one does a breakdown of it. In this blog, we cover Script Breakdown, Genre of the scene, Number of Shoot Days and Actor’s availability and timing. I would put all these under the direction and production team's responsibility. 

Script Breakdown

As the 1^st A.D. you have to know the script and maybe storyboard thoroughly. In features, it is reading the entire script and knowing what the story is quite well, in advertising it's knowing the storyboard by heart almost frame by frame, in serials reading the script in advance and knowing where the story is going helps, while in documentaries there rarely is the role of any 1^st A.D’s if there are any assistants then they usually double up as production assistant as documentary’s rarely have a large crew. After reading your script you have to break it down get what’s required to plan your shoot from it. Below is the minimum information that would be needed to process in order to plan a smooth day's shoot. 

Sc No	Storyboard   Image	Description	Audio / Dialogues	Loc -ation	Actors	Costumes	Art	VFX / Special Equipment	Remarks
4c		scene opens on a wide shot of a camp...	“I am coming..”	Hero camp area	Hero + camp extras	Hero in  Set – 1	As per art break up	20x 20  blue Chroma  +   Jimmy Jib	Camp area  to be kept clean

Depending on the script and the style that you develop as the 1st A.D. stuff like the axis of the shoot, day/night, animals, hair n makeup or anything else that the script calls for can be added to this. Art can be further broken down into set/location dressing and key props. Some times when there is too much information or there will be a repeat in information a totally separate sheet is used and they are then coded which could be Set -1, Set- 2 or Costume 1, Costume -2 etc  Once you have done this break up it will give you a fair idea of the combination of the various elements that would be required so that time is used most efficiently at the shoot. In features you can use one sheet per scene to do the breakdown, this helps when combining scenes from all over the film to put your sheets in the order of the schedule and see if it fits all requirements. This is quite similar to what some of the software looks like Below is an example of what that looks like.

What you need to find after this exercise mainly is what is the key driver of the shoot? (importance could be different across different scenes) is it the actor or the equipment or VFX. A lot of times there will be more than one important factor that would drive the planning of the shooting order. You would then use your experience and assign the minimum time to the maximum time required so that the day's schedule can be completed without any hassle.

Sometimes there is not much time to get into this amount of detailing, in that case, one can also use different coloured highlighters and mark it out on the script, like actors (yellow) Art n Props (green) locations (blue) etc then coloured copies of these can be made and each department will have a colour to follow.

Genre of the scene

What makes shoot planning easier is knowing the genre of the film or rather more importantly of the scene to be shot. You arrive at the time required for each scene basis this like in a stunts sequence prep time before each take is quite long, sometimes you have only one attempt at filming it like in explosions or accidents, here you have to get all things right and everything needs to be double-checked before rolling that takes time. Or in case of a hair commercial the hair flying shot, or packshot in case of commercials reset time needs to be considered. Luck also has to play a huge role in trying to divide the no of the shot’s to be taken in a day as anything could go wrong or right, the hair will fail to bounce or the product splash won’t happen the right way, knowing how little time is left for the shoot to warp and how critical it is to get the right hair shot so that you could advise the director that either time is running out and therefore to move on to the remainder shots or when asked to say that we could attempt one more take if the shoot is on track and you can afford that time. In short, this helps in knowing how long that scene would take to shoot.  

Number of Shoot Days

The number of shoot days represents the shooting schedule or the number of days that the producer allocates according to the budget. Within this, there are usually breakups depending on a different number of locations, the distance between locations, and no of the scenes to be shot per location.  The first A.D. has to divide the number of scenes into the number of days allocated at each location and see if there is sufficient time to finish all scenes in the script at that location, if the number of days are not allocated then you would combine all the same location scenes through the film and then divide them into the time required to shoot per scene, add that up and you arrive at the number of days required at each location. For eg, 10 scenes in total at Location A, depending on the type of scene you will assign each of these scenes the number of hours you think it would take to shoot that scene, (here is where the previous points come in handy) therefore scene 1 = 2hrs, scene 2 = 1 hour, scene 3 = 4 hours and so on, then you will total the number of hours and divide it across the feasible shifts and you arrive at the no of shoot days or more precisely the no of shifts required.  You have to keep in mind master lighting of the location/set which could be part of the shooting days or extra. 

In advertising where usually it is one location, it’s easier to plan, it’s when u have multiple locations when this kind of breakups do help. There are ad's which are shot over multiple locations and here knowing distance and time taken between locations, how fast would it take for the crew to shift bases or is there one base and multiple spots close to that the main base while most of the crew then move on smaller mobile units. Here the challenge of scheduling is greater as usually, you have had a lot to do and much lesser time to it in.     

In Tv serials usually, the time allotted is that at the end of the day the producer should have a minimum of  18 mins of edit time which is the time required for 30 min episode. The time could be across episodes but is what is required for feasibility, in daily soaps there is usually some who is only in charge of scheduling as it takes quite a bit of time getting all combinations of actors and various locations in place and since most serials are shooting on a daily basis it requires someone dedicated to only doing this.

In documentaries, if it is budget dependent then one shoots till one is out of money or has the full story covered. Since the crews in most cases are small sometimes just the cameraman and director or even times when its just one person doing all the work, the main thing to get here is to cover as much as is required to finish a good documentary.

Actor’s availability and timing

Another step in planning your shoot especially if it involves lots of actors over various scenes is to know at the beginning what their available dates are. 

In features there needs to be a larger plan drawn up so that all scenes and locations are covered, usually, the A.D. would club all the same location scene’s together, then check the actor combination and date availability, going by the method the AD would request for actors availability at each location by trying to club all their scenes together, this is where it gets tough more the no of characters involved in scenes the more complex it gets when trying to club. It gets even tougher when one is shooting outdoors as actors have to be flown in and out and you calling an actor to travel twice to the location over a few days could add quite a lot to the producer's budget. In India, there is a reverse way that also happens when big celebrity stars are involved. Here the dates of the stars are given and then the A.D. has to try and finish all the scenes with that actor on the dates given, this usually results in shooting at various locations and coming back to the same locations to complete the remainder scenes at that location which is not ideal, there is a very thin silver lining to this, usually, these stars give the producer block dates, which could be anything from 1 week to 2 months, so it’s easier to schedule then. Another thing to be kept in mind when dealing with stars is their punctuality, each of these usually follow a pattern, like some will always come 3 hours later to the call time while some are bang on time, it’s important to know this as that helps in planning the day and covering as much without the crew waiting idle for stars to arrive. When working with these stars for the first time one can always find out about their patterns by asking other A.D’s who have worked with them earlier.

The same planning is required even further more in advertising when shooting with a celebrity, there is usually only one or two days of shoot and if time is spent waiting the producer might go in a huge loss if the shoot goes up by even by half a shift. Having said this one cannot keep the star waiting once they have arrived, in advertising usually these stars give only a limited amount of time, and extension of that could cost the client for a whole day more.

Some of these shift timings for stars begin from the time they leave their residence and therefore travel time to the location is also counted in their total time, eg:- if a star gives 8 hours for a brand for a day’s shoot then the clock begins from the time they leave home and if it takes 2 hrs to reach location then you are left with 6 hours to finish with them which includes hair, makeup, wardrobe, in effect you may end up with only 4 hours of the star on the shooting floor, so real smart planning is required in these cases. In non-star cases the A.D. can plan the shoot whichever way is best suited for that project.

In Tv, serials it's up to the person scheduling to figure out the dates in advance so that perfect combinations can be scheduled. The lead cast are usually available throughout the schedule while most of the secondary cast have no pf days per month as contracts, so an actor might give 3 - 4 days per month only as per contract and any further day costs the producer. Here when u have 3 or more such actors to deal with is when scheduling gets really tricky. The best way is to plan early to have the entire month plan drawn up before the schedule can begin and that way all the possible ways to combine have been considered.

In documentaries, if the subject is a person then his availability to the filmmaker had to be obtained, if its a topic where different people are involved then again finding out the right time to get from them in advance is required.   

Check out Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -2 as well, 

More of these coming up in Chief A.D's Thinking. Part -3.

Auggieism:- What do you call Auggie with a whip.... 

Ans:-  Floggie....

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My first attempt at direction

"According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway. Because bees don't care what humans think is impossible." - Bee Movie

Check out my first attempt at direction,

These were made for a competition for the London Film Festival, (MOFILM)

I made both of these without spending a penny, got favours from a quite a few people

lack of budget (no money what so ever) did restrict me to a lot of compromises but it was good fun and a great learning experience none the less.

One is called Nokia beach, Other is for AT&T called blink

Do let me know what you guys think of this first attempt.

Auggieism:- What would you say when auggie shoots in smoky conditions

Ans: Smoggy




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"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." - Forrest Gump

SCREENPLAY

So what’s the difference between a script and a screenplay? Well actually not much, a screenplay could be your script but a script is not necessarily your screenplay. A script can be the written text for a play or radio or the basic start (rough draft) for the film. Screenplay on the other hand implies a greater emphasis on the visual aspects of film-making. After you have written your story its time you put it in screenplay format, which also may be called shooting script (at a later stage), if you have the software for it then it's easier as it imports some formats like word directly and converts it into the screenplay format, but if you don’t then here is some rules that make it the standard format, make sure your story is almost locked for henceforward changes can only lead to confusion especially if not followed properly.

BASIC FORMATTING

The font to be used is Courier in 12 point size. The way it's finally structured is usually one page equals one minute of screen time, which means if your screenplay goes up to 120 pages then your film would be 2 hours long. Knowing how long your film is going to be in advance helps in budgeting and also determining if you want a film that is so long or short. There are different things that constitute the screenplay’s layout. It is mainly broken up into two parts action and dialogues. Also part of it is scenes headings, transitions, parentheticals, etc.

Here is an example of a screenplay

 

SCENE AND PAGE NUMBERING

Now as we see from this example, your screenplay will have page numbers on the top and scenes are assigned numbers alongside the scene headers, a new number is assigned every time there is a new scene which usually when there is a location change or the day has changed. The scene numbers provide a convenient way for the various production departments to reference individual scenes. The page numbers on the top help when there are revisions and the production can replace you with the revised pages, for example pages 5, 7, 12, and 35. So the whole script has not to be reprinted as a new draft. These page numbers have to be locked after the first draft as that becomes the reference point for all departments. If the length of the new pages are longer then it moves into 35A, 35B, or if the scene is deleted and there is no other scene on that page then a fresh page of 35 with OMITTED is given so as to avoid confusion of a missing page at a later stage, the reason for also submitting only these revised pages is to avoid the different departments to rewrite all the handwritten notes all over again in the new draft.

Revision pages are distributed on colored paper, a different color for each set of revisions, with each changed line marked by an asterisk in the right margin of the page. The progression of colors varies from one production house to the next, a standard sequence would be: white, blue, pink, yellow, green, gold, salmon, cherry, white (this time is known as "double white"), and back to blue ("double blue"). Usually, before the start of the filming process, a final draft is given out with all scenes and pages renumbered. The other way to also do it especially if the coloured paper is not easily available is to keep an index at the end of the script and a note made each time the pages go through revision. 

Example

PAGE	DRAFT NO
5	2
7	2
12	3
35	3

It is best that scene and page numbers are maintained throughout because too many changes could lead to some departments missing out or overlooking some of the changes. When a numbered scene is split across pages, (CONTINUED) appears at the bottom of the prior page, and CONTINUED: appears at the top of the subsequent page.

Each new scene is numbered differently so that any part of the script can be referred to by their scene numbers, scenes which are broken up into an edit pattern so that it moves back and forth from locations continue to have the same scene number, like a phone conversation that cuts back and forth to 2 different people at different locations but is still the same scene, for shooting purposes these are sometimes numbered as 7a, 7b, 7c or 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 this usually depends on what is comfortable with the production house and assistant directors.

SCENE TITLES

Scene titles also known as slugs tells the reader that the story has changed in location or time. It tells the reader where and when the action appears and the line comprises three parts:

INT. or EXT. - is the scene an interior or exterior scene?

LOCATION - where does the action take place?

DAY or NIGHT - what is the time of day?

EXAMPLES

• 11. EXT. MUMBAI MONTAGE – DAY
• 12. INT. SHARMAS VILLA – NIGHT

ACTION AND DIALOGUES

Action is the part which usually follows the scene title, it is usually written in the present tense. This part tells the reader what is happening in the scene, at times it also includes camera movements, lighting pattern, or costume description, etc, The dialogue are the lines the characters speak. The name of the character is written in all caps followed by the dialogue

EXAMPLE

SHARMA

Mumbai logo ne aaj tak mumbai ko

kya diya..?? meine ye sab diya hai

Mumbai ko. Ye sab mera hai..

When the dialogue is split across more than one page then (MORE) or (CONT'D) appears below the portion of dialogue on the first page, the remaining dialogue is headed by the character's name, which is extended by cont’d e.g. SHARMA (CONT'D). Sometimes the character speaks continuously with action lines splitting the dialogues, for such situations parentheticals can be used in the subsequent speeches. Parentheticals are positioned the same as standard ones, below the character's name and indented from the dialogue. Some writers use (CONT'D) beside the character's name for dialogues that are split between action (the same as for dialogue split across pages). Many writers choose not to indicate consecutive dialogue at all.

There is lot more to know but with this much of knowledge one can easily write your first screenplay. So now that your screenplay is ready just remember one thing, if your story aint’ good, your wasting time on the screenplay’s technicalities is useless.

Auggieism:- What to you say when Auggie is singing his heart out.....

Ans:- crockie..

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