On Monday, July 7th, Hansal Mehta (who is a film director as well as the film & media program supervisor) can to the guesthouse to brief us on what to expect in the coming 4 weeks, their expectations of us (basically to just have fun), and to see if we had any questions for him regarding his work and/or the program. He stayed for a couple of hours and then left. He lives rather far from the guesthouse. That was all there was lined up for us that day so we ended up staying at the guesthouse for the day and watched films.

On Tuesday, July 8th, we went to meet with Saurabh Sukla, who is a scriptwriter, actor and director. We asked him about how he got involved in films and what his motivation is. We had watched Satya the previous night so we talked a lot about that film -the inspiration for the script, its impact on Hindi Cinema, the actors, the songs, how the film fraternity, politicians, underworld and general public took the film and the 'gangster world' of Mumbai -particularly in the 1990s. He was very nice, knowledgeable and quite witty. He gave us an open return invitation! After meeting him, we went to the White Feather Films office to meet with Sudipto Chattopadhyay. He is a writer and director who just finished shooting for a film, Pankh, which is an art house film. He has worked a lot with Bengali films and is extremely knowledgeable in world cinema -European in particular. We had watched Meghey Dhaka Tara (a black and white film from 1960 - the English title is The Cloud-Capped Star) so he spoke with us about that film and other works by Ritwik Ghatak. He then took us to the editing room to watch an unreleased preview of Pankh. It is by no means your average 'bollywood' film. As he described it, it's a "mind f*ck." We talked with him about that film for a while and then ventured off into literature before we took a picture with him and left back to the guesthouse.

On Wednesday, July 9th, we went to Whistling Woods International. Chris Higgins, who is the ---, gave us a tour of the facilities and spoke with us about the various diploma and career possibilities that the Institute can assist in.

On Thursday, July 10th, we went to the set of a film titled Karzzzz (it is a remake of the original 1980 Karz starring Rishi Kapoor and yes, there are 4 zs) to meet Manoj Soni, a cinematographer. We watched part of a playback song with the lead actor, Himesh Reshammiya, and dancers (who I believe were all Eastern European - they were all scantily clad and wearing wigs). We tried to talk with them but they wouldn't talk with us. They said that they had to have permission to talk with us. I don't think they would have been fined or fired for having the decency to say hello to us! Anyways… After that there was a lunch break and so we were able to speak with Manoj Soni. We asked him a ton of questions -from how he became a cinematographer, to how various shots are taken, to his favorite, least favorite and dream locations, directors, and actors/actresses to work with, to experiences that he has had on sets, to the differences between shooting in India and abroad. After the lunch break they shot a piece of the song with extras in it. That was actually rather entertaining to observe. The extras seemed to be a bunch of random people -non-Indians of various colors and countries, who had each been asked if they would like to be an extra in a Bollywood film… that they would each get paid Rs. 500 (roughly $12) for the day. All they had to do was dance to some music and go crazy because the shot being taken was of the audience at a rock concert. After the shooting for that was completed for the day, we talked with Manoj Soni for a bit more and then left.

On Friday, July 11th, we again went to the set of Karzzz. We saw some more of that song being shot and talked with Manoj Soni again and then left to go meet with Suparn Verma, a director. At first they made us go in 2 by 2 for an interview/meeting but then the 4 of us ended up staying and talking for a while and then we went to eat (we were starving!).

We had the weekend to ourselves and so we kicked back and went for a trip around town. I've put up pics from this excursion. I'll tell more about it all next time!

xox -TG