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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Filmmakers Talk #6 Brief to Casting Director

Post your funny comments that you may have come across and it just might make it to the Film-Makers Talk List

Some past Talks:

FT#5 - Dedicated to clients

FT#4 - Agency to a young director

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, quotes, places and incidents mentioned, either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, from the film industry or outside the film industry is entirely coincidental.





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Filmmakers Talk #5 Dedicated to Clients

Post your funny comments that you may have come across and it just might make it to the Film-Makers Talk List

Some past Talks:

FT#4 - Agency to a young director

FT#3 - Editor

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, quotes, places and incidents mentioned, either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, from the film industry or outside the film industry is entirely coincidental.

For more interesting articles click on Auggielicious Index to see the entire list.

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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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