Film Education

The Post Modernist touching of feet – full of love

I will not forget the Post modernist style of touching my feet in school by my student Sidharth and it culminated in this by the entire batch after our final film shoot ended. I was taken by surprise and moved to the extent that the moment will be burnt in my memory for the rest of my life.

Why do I call it post modernist, because its playful, its gratitude but it can be many more things 🙂 !

A Letter of Thanks and Adieu – Sidharth Popli

Dear Ma`am,

I first must apologize that I have not written this mail sooner and I know that excuses and reasons are not important to you thanks to a two-year experience at film school which completely changed me not only as a person but also in the way that I thought.

I was always one to watch movies and so I could never find the class boring because of the fact that that you would put in so much effort into the class and come up with some of the most amazing activities and all of them would have reasons to how the activities would complement a person as a film maker. From blind folding us and guiding us around potentially hazardous locations like construction sites in school to making us take videos and photographs to understands emotion. You tried to show to us the perfect way to do everything, from making a story triangle to shooting the right way using a book from your inexhaustible library of film literature and encyclopedias.

Your constant super human effort into trying to make a good film from a basic idea and also the effort that you put in in a story writing exercise, even when some students only did half the job and decided to personally complement you and then fight with other peers and you stayed relatively calm was amazing.

Another day that I remember was when you asked us to experiment with the shot scales and shot angles using little smurf dolls and our phone cameras. This was interesting as it practically explained to us what you were trying to say the class before.

I remember our classes fondly, by classes I don`t really mean SVKM International IBDP 6 or 10 but I really mean “The Study” sitting with Zeel and Krina and Manav and working on the day we had between shoots from exactly 9am and expecting a scolding because of our unpreparedness for the first day`s shoot and actually seeing ma`am jump past it and go straight to work actually made us a little more productive that day we realized when we left the study at 12 in the evening. That was fun. We lived on chips and cokes throughout the day and in the evening we got treated by ma`am`s mother with Ragda Pattice, we welcomed it at the end of the day because we were starving.

Ma`am you bore through most of my antics throughout our process of making Look Inside from sleeping on the couch after a marathon session of “self introspection” to dropping some coke on one of the envelopes that contained the PoZ brochures after trying to open it with my Kadaa and having a Pepsi shower instead. I still say with pride, “I got the first PoZ poster and brochure with an autograph!” But I want to thank you and apologize to you again.

I know I can be slightly difficult to manage and can get hyper and passionate about things I love and I want to thank you for everything that you have done for me out on the set, at school on Dadabhai Road and at the study near Oberoi Mall.

Even though I may not speak to you now in person for sometime and our conversations will last on the phone calls and Whatsapp messages I would like you to know that I cannot write an entire description of the class that was Film Studies 2013 -2015 and the impresario and motherly figure that is Ms. Oorvazi Irani in just a blog post but here was my attempt to it.

Thank you for shaping me up to become a director and to some extent a man.

Regards

Sidharth

The Director

Look Inside

Zeel Mehta – Film student 

I have always looked up to famous businessmen and tech geniuses for their ability to be creative and breaking the rules to truly make a difference. When I chose film as a subject I never thought I would find people following similar ideologies in the field. Through the 2 years I’ve realised how present cinema is shaped by those rules breakers and rebels. This concept was what intrigued me largely in the two years.

Through the 2 years by the immense support from Oorvazi ma’am not only have I learnt enough to score a 7 but enough for me to remember a lifetime. The classes were interesting and brain wrenching to make us creative.

I’m truly going to remember the times we, the entire film class spent together from the lectures in school to the various workshops and especially while making our film. Especially the day when after a long day of shoot, the next day the crew met at Oorvazi ma’am’s study and to motivate us she bought a cake with the name of our film. Well, the cake itself was motivating enough for me, but the addition of our film’s name made it even better.

There are innumerable moments of learning I truly would never forget and miss you ma’am for the amazing (but long :p ) feedback you gave us and helped us with everything in these two years.

I hope you like this ☺️ It’s genuine, don’t worry :p

Zeel Mehta

Look Inside – Cinematographer and film student

Will miss you all and thank you for making me so proud !

Sidharth and Zeel thank you for the special film and special note

And Thank you Sanjay Nath for being the magic touch of our film which was truly inspiring.

Final IB film “Look Inside”