Saturday, June 27, 2015

Cricket of India - Film Shooting at Daksha

As part of the annual Father's Day routine at Daksha Kids I volunteered to speak to the kids about whatever I know. My time was yesterday morning.

In the fourth class which was not really on my agenda I made up a story of two cricketers (they wanted to hear cricket stories) with two mindsets and how the learning mindset fellow plays for India and the other guy - me - does not. Tried to tell them that perfect practice makes perfect, mistakes are a sign of growth, same mistakes again and again shows non-learning and new mistakes are a sign of growth and the importance of seeking help from teachers and coaches. They seemed to have got comfortable with the idea that not being perfect and making mistakes is fine. After all we all fell when we first walked right I asked. Yes, they agreed. We did not stop walking after we feel did we? No, they said. Great.

Then to Anjali's class. Since we had already played cricket and did a session on writing in previous years (we had a small cricket training session once and a story writing session at another time), I decided to do something different this time.

For starters I checked with Anjali if she would be the cameraman since she could work my phone camera better than I can. She said she would. That important issue out of the way I asked the children what we should talk about. They said the usual stuff - cricket, story writing. I asked if they would want movies as a subject. The class was split - little less than half for cricket and a little more than half for movies. So we decided to make a movie with cricket.

The idea was to give them a hang of how movies are made. So I took a quick quiz. How do movies get made? Actors, directors, music, dance they shouted. I told them that we need a story first. So we found a story writing team led by Karthikeya. We found a dialogue writer and a director(s) - Harsh and Saketh (one shouted 'action' and another 'cut'). Then the two cricketers (Keertan and Brahmani) were made into lead actors who have just won the championship for the school. Mansi, Jonathan, Aishwarya, Suvan and gang were the school children who decide to give a surprise to their champion friends. Rishabh offered to be music director and volunteered to sing the IPL numbers in the background. All others decided to pitch in here and there. We even got the teacher Ms. Rohini to give away the surprise gift in the final scene. Anjali was camera person and she took charge of my phone.

The first scene was to pan the class and zero in on a group - Mansi, Jonathan, Aishwarya and Suvan are discussing how their classmates Keertan and Brahmani won the cricket championship. They decide to surprise them. Jonathan says he has an idea. Cut.

The second scene is when the two heroes Keertan and Brahmani walk into class and everyone shouts surprise. They are surprised and pleased at the reception.. Cut.

The third scene is when the two are told that they have a surprise lined up. Teacher gives them the gift and everyone shouts loudly 'Yaay'. Cut.

We got the three scenes done somehow with a lot of coordination. The kids adjusted fast, acted well. Music director gave music well - standing right behind the camera person - background music you see. Anjali did good camera work. I showed the class the first cut of the three scenes. They were happy.

I asked them what we should name the film. They came up with many options. 'Cricket Kids' was one. 'Daksha Cricket' was another. But Harsh's 'Cricket of India' was an instantly popular name and so the name was finalised. Now we are ready to go.

I asked them if we should release the movie. They wanted it in the theatres and on TV channels. I said I'd go about doing that. First I need to edit it. Then someone said we need posters and trailers. Hmm. Now we were thinking. I shook hands with all of them and said I would now leave because I have much work to do if I have to get the film released. And who knows - if the film is a hit they will all become stars. They were happy again.

So ended the 30 minute film shoot of 'Cricket of India' at Daksha. Coming soon to a theatre near you. Thank you Rohini aunty, Prasanna akka, Anjali, Aishwarya, Akhil, Brahmani, Celesta, Harsh, Jashmita, Jonathan, Karthikeya, Keerthan, Mansi, Rida, Rishabh, Saketh, Suvan, Shivani, Shreya and others.

1 comment:

Harimohan said...

Yes Raja, it was a half hour of total madness and high energy. Great fun.