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48 Hours

Shobha Warrier

Sunday, March 19. 2 pm. J S Films -- jointly started by two school buddies, Jayendra, an ad film director and P C Sreeram, a well-known cinematographer -- got a call from Mudra Communications.

Mudra wanted J S Films to make a three-minute audio-video presentation for Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu. The CM wanted to present the film to an audience which would include none other than the President of US, Bill Clinton.

They wanted it fast, very fast -- by Wednesday, March 22. That left J S Films with just two-and-a-half days to make the film.

Jayendra was shocked. A three-minute film in two and a half days! Impossible! "A film of that nature would take at least six weeks to make. We had to present it in front of an international audience and if we did not do a good job, we would have ended up making a fool of ourselves," he said.

Sreeram too, was hesitant. "I told Jayendra, wait, wait! The responsibility was tremendous. We always tried to maintain a high quality, but a film in three minutes! It was not an ad-film, it was a film, which was meant for an international audience and was going to be talked about. We wouldn't be able to say after the show, 'sorry, we didn't have enough time to make a good film.' "

In another half an hour, the script by Raj Mohan of Mudra, running to several pages, reached Jayendra, but he had no idea how to condense it into a three-minute film. The script talked about the 'Global Institute of Governance' and there was no material available with them then.

Jayendra found that they also had to create all the material that was necessary. "We looked at the script and said, 'no, we can't make this film.' We felt the canvas was very large. It talked about teaching governance to keep pace with emerging technology. It also talked about how it would benefit the rural poor and the common man. They wanted to convey the message that anybody from any part of the world who wanted to learn governance could come to Andhra Pradesh and learn it from the institute.

"It was a fairly wide and international concept. We felt three days were not enough! Unlike other ad-films, we couldn't work till we were satisfied. Clinton was coming on Wednesday and we couldn't say our film was not ready. So, please postpone your trip!" he added.

But the agency was not giving up. "You have to do it. We have to deliver the film and you have no other choice. We cannot go back and tell the CM that we cannot make the film," Mudra told Jayendra.

With no other option, they started discussing on how to give it a visual format, without wasting any time. The script was edited once, but they felt it had to be done further. So, Mudra Communications was contacted to get permission from Naidu to chop it further. Mudra sought Naidu's consent and agreed to the editing.

Then they decided to have Bharatanatyam as the dance form to convey the message. So, the next decision to be taken was: who would be the dancer?

The first name that came to everyone's mind was Aishwarya Rai. She is a former Miss World and hence well-known internationally. They tried to get in touch with her, but she was not in the country.

Then they thought, who could be better than Shobhana? She was famous for her dance performances and moreover, she also choreographed them. She knew the visual medium as well. They felt she would have no problem in interpreting the abstract concepts and presenting them in mudras.

Sunday night. They called Shobhana and she was game for such a challenge. Jayendra, Sreeram, Janaki (their colleague), Sreeraman, the costume designer and Shobhana met to discuss the film. Sreeraman decided on a black costume for her since "black was a neutral colour. We had planned the colours of the American flag and the Indian flag in the background and we wanted to play around with those colours," Jayendra said.

The meeting went on till midnight. Shobhana left for home, but those at J S Films continued planning the concept. Who would do the audio track? They decided to have Nikhil Kapoor's voice for the audio. But he was not available in Bombay on Sunday.

March 20. Monday morning. Without wasting any time, Sreeraman forced open a shop, selected a black silk material and Shobhana's dress was ready in no time.

They also got Nikhil Kapoor on line in the morning and the moment he said 'yes' to the project, the script was faxed to him. He was to record his voice in Bombay and then courier the tape back to Madras. Not to take chances, they asked him to courier one tape and send another by cargo!

11am. All of them assembled at the MGR film city and got ready to start shooting. As they had discussed the concept the previous night, Shobhana was mentally prepared with ideas. Every line was discussed before she came out with the mudras to express the concept.

"Initially, I gave them word-by-word expressions, but then I found that even they could not understand what I was trying to convey. So, it would be even more difficult for an international audience. So, we decided to interpret the concept through bhavas and finally, I used mime as the medium. The filmmakers wanted the message to get through immediately. I wouldn't say it was difficult. In fact, it was rather simple. I would say, it was a different kind of challenge. As I knew the film medium, I could use it effectively, I think," stated Shobhana later.

Shooting began at hectic pace. "We shot in an unconventional way. We had multiple cameras so that we would get all the angles in one shot. When she performed, we could get a long shot, a mid shot and a close up at the same time. The lighting too was tricky, as we had to light up the background, provide light for the long shot, the medium shot and also the close up. We shot against a blue background so that we could later composite it with graphics and computer generated background. The simple thing was to create a set and shoot, but we didn't want to compromise on quality. And the idea was not to present Bharatanatyam but use the dance form as a tool to express the global concept of governance," Jayendra explained.

While the shoot was going on, they kept sending the tapes to the editing room, so that they could digitise all the material simultaneously.

The whole shooting went on for nearly 12 hours. By 12 midnight on Monday, the shooting was over. Jayendra and the rest dashed to the editing room to edit the basic picture and start the post-production work. It was their second sleepless night.

March 21, Tuesday. They were still working on the graphics and the background. The audio from Nikhil Kapoor reached them by morning, without any problem.

By 4 pm, the basic edit was ready and Mahesh Mahadevan, the music director, rushed to a recording studio to compose music for the three-minute film and also to match Nikhil Kapoor's voice to the bhavas and mudras presented by Shobhana.

Tuesday night. Jayendra and company slept, but Mahesh worked without any break till Wednesday morning. By 7 am, Mahesh finished the sound mixing and the tape was rushed to the airport where a person from J S Films was waiting to catch the 8 o'clock flight to Hyderabad.

At 9.30 am, Naidu saw the film and asked for a few minor changes in the captions. The tape came back to Madras and by night, it was sent to Hyderabad again.

March 23. Thursday morning, Chandrababu Naidu presented the film to the President of US and a whole lot of other dignitaries.

After Naidu finished his presentation, an impressed Clinton commented, "I wish I too had brought an audio-video presentation. A picture can speak a thousand words."

As Jayendra had to finish another project, he could not watch the presentation on television. But Shobhana watched it at home. Sreeram took time off from his post-production work of Mani Ratnam's Alai Payuthe and watched it. Shobhana said she felt "very proud. It was aesthetically shot and I am happy that it has been appreciated now."

According to Sreeram, however, he watched it dispassionately, the way he views all his other creations. "I felt happy. I think the audience responded well to the film," he remarked.

Immediately after the presentation, Mudra Communications started getting calls from people appreciating the presentation. The biggest compliment, said Jayendra, was that "Alyque Padamsee was part of Naidu's advisory panel and both of them watched the film together on Tuesday. And Mudra told us that as soon as the film was over, he (Padamsee) stood up and clapped, which says a lot about the quality of the film."

He added, "We were worried even after starting work at an unbelievable pace. We worked the way we would have done if we had two weeks' time. So, what we normally do in two weeks, we did in two days! It was a closely guarded secret earlier that the film was made in 48 hours. I think we managed to give a quality presentation."

March 24, Friday. J S Films celebrated the success by sending cakes and flowers to Peak White, which did the editing and post-production work, Indian Artists, who did the graphics for the film, the music studio etc. "All of them worked with us, without any sleep for 48 hours. So, what we wanted to do was thank all these people who worked behind the scene."

Photographs of Jayendra by Sanjay Ghosh