SearchingSirocco

The only reason I watched this film was because of Emma Watson. She didn't disappoint me. How can anyone be so perfect? Though I hated the kiss in the end because the man who should kiss Emma Watson has to be a perfect guy even if it for acting purposes, except that everything was good.  The story is simple, something which we have we have read and seen before. The good thing is that the Director and Writer have remained mostly true to the original story. The only thing that bothered me while watching the film were too long musical songs. There is a song on Gaston, the antagonist, where his best friend his praising him to lift his spirits and it kind of gets too long after a while. It was entertaining in the beginning but drags after a while. I loved the character of Gaston, played by Luke Evans marvelously, and provides the very much required comic relief in the otherwise heavily romantic film. Girls will love this film because the film survives on the ancient story of r...

Sex, Cinema and Lies - A Short Film  Reunion is a story of Two filmmaker friends who meet over one night for a casual chat which later turns into an egomaniacal fight. Big fan of film Deewar, coincidentally their names are Vijay and Ravi too. Ravi is a successful film director down south and Vijay is still trying his own luck. As the night progress, one event leads to another and more people are called to join in the Ego Parade This was basically a 125-page screenplay, for which I didn't have a budget to shoot so I decided to shoot the first 25 pages of the film just for the heck of it. I have started this film so many times and it never gets made, to remove the curse from it, I and my friend Raashul decided to shoot this one night.  Please share the film as much as you can and subscribe to my channel. Direction, Produced, Written, Edited, Sound Design: Shitiz Srivastava Associate Director: Raashul Tandon Operative Cameraman: Abhinav Kaushik Co-Producer: Nishadh ...

So I finally made it. But I only shot 25 pages of the script. I tried to make this film for last six years and every time I tried to make it, it never got made. So an idea struck me recently that why not just shoot the first 25 pages of the script and take it from there. I talked to my friends and the production started but then again, it couldn't get made and as usual it let me disappointed. I started feeling like this film is a curse and will never get made. But Raashul, one of my closest friends in Mumbai and also one of the actors int he film kept pushing me to shoot it, with me acting along with his side. I didn't want to act in it or two reasons, First I am not a terrific actor and secondly, I wanted to concentrate on the direction in this film. But again, just like it happened with my first feature film, Amphigori, I had to act. Another problem arose, I couldn't squeeze my time for rehearsing the dialogues and since Raashul has rehearsed the dialogues so many ti...

28 Filmmakers Reveal How They Financed Their Movies I have been struggling to make my film for last three years now. I have made two films before. My third film has taken a long time. This is the right kind of motivation that i was looking for. Great documentary. 

Link to the website:  30 Free E-books will help you master Filmmaking I love this website - "No Film School" and I keep visiting it because it has tremendous resources for a Filmmaker to update himself every day related to everything about cinema.  Here are fabulous links to few E-books which you can easily download by following the links on the website. Learn as much as you can before making your first film. I am game for it because after one month I am going to make my own low budget feature film.   

I first met Kamlesh in 2010 and it is very important for me to write about him because he has been a tremendous influence in my life during my prolonged stay in Mumbai. I was struggling at the time when we met as I was new in the film industry and I was working in one film where officially I was production assistant but later I was thankfully burdened with responsibilities of an assistant director and art director too. Not that I was given those responsibilities but I took those responsibilities because I just wanted to work as much as I can on sets and understand filmmaking in a better manner. I had the best time of my life working on that film and I met some of the good people there who became my good friends later. One of them, and most important of them was Kamlesh. Kamlesh’s full name is Kamlesh Puri Goswami and he is a Marwari. He can speak four languages fluently- Marwari, Gujarati, Marathi and Hindi, and now he speaks English as well. He is good at accounting by birth ...

I needed to have a review of a Rajnikanth's film on my blog, it was a necessity. I chose Baasha because it going to released again soon, a digitally remastered version of it. Baasha was the film which gave Rajni's stardom new heights. He became sort of a Demi god after this film. It was a phenomenal blockbuster and no one had seen such euphoria before. Frankly, since i am not a south Indian person so i don't find any special in Rajni's acting. I don't even find his film good or excellent. They are entertaining but then that's that. But what impact's one thinking is the craze of people towards Rajni. Baasha was developed in Rajni's mind when he was working with Amitabh Bachchan's film 'Hum'. He took a part of the film's undeveloped storyline and developed it according to his own culture and thinking. I watched Baasha two years back on Youtube. I wanted to watch it earlier but I couldn't find any copy of it with subtitles....

Writing. It is one of the most beautiful things invented by human beings. The invention of writing has opened so many ways to store the human experiences life for infinite time. It is a process of recording your thinking and giving a life to it and putting your brains on paper. But most the writers I meet here in film industry have no idea how to write a film script or screenplay or what is the difference between the two. There are lots of words that you are going to hear from the mouth of producers who will ask you to present them with Loglines, Synopsis, Screenplay, Story, Script or may be some new fancy words and you  might get afraid as well as confused what they actually mean because the meaning of these words might take away your job from you. So let me just help you by describing a little bit what these words really mean. These are the definitions that I have made up due time and these are definitely not standards, but they will help you understand these things better....

Here are 12 important rules no low or no-budget Film Making that I have learned while making my own films AMPHIGORI and LASAFOT.  They are based on my personal experiences and have worked for me. Pick anyone who wants to act for free, observe him and then write a character in your film according to how he actually behaves in real life.  Shoot in your hometown. There you won't have pay for anything and its more comfortable. You will save yourself from Police, BMC( municipality), Film Unions and Locations charges. If you have lights, shoot color; if you don't have lights shoot black and white. Black and white looks more classy with contrast and gives you an edge in Film festivals. Also in B/W cost of art direction and location can be easily saved. Pick any camera to shoot your film, even mobile camera. Technology has really advanced, check out the new Samsung Galaxy which offers 4k resolution, so don't wait. I had made my first film promo on sony cybers...

"Two Men looked out of prison Bar, one saw mud and other saw Star" One of my Actor Friends once told me a story about Mohammad Gauri (I hope I am remembering the name correctly) that when he came to India, he came with boats through sea and when all his soldiers landed in India, he ordered to burn all the boats. He was asked the reason by one of his ministers and he told him that if the boats will be there, the soldiers will  have a dubious state of mind as they will be having an option of safe return in mind because of which they won't give their complete efforts in war. But now since the boats are burned, they are left with only one direction to proceed with one single aim, win the war or die. There is no option of retreat for them.  On that note; Here are Fifteen things that may help you in your struggle. 1.      First and foremost rule, start calling yourself an Actor. If you are embarrassed about your profession or your passion, you can never be an a...

1.     You are not a director till your film is released, so pretend that you are a director but never believe in it. That thought might destroy you. 2.     Directing an independent film with no budget has nothing to do with Direction. It’s all about human management. Making a film is equivalent to marrying a daughter. 3.     Everyone will have an opinion about your job. Listen to what they say, smile sarcastically at them no matter how good their advice is and move ahead like they don’t exist.  4.     Never appreciate anyone or praise anyone. Keep that for the wrap up party. 5.     Never show irritation, anger or panic. These are bad qualities of leader. If you do that, soon people will stop listening to you. 6.     Shout at first person on the first day of shoot. No one will disobey you after that. 7.     Make changes to st...

Few days ago, I went to a friend's place for dinner. We were discussing something related to our profession. His wife and kid were also sitting there. We were discussing things while eating and as usual, what happens in normal house the TV was on and some south Indian film with Jnr. NTR was running on it. We weren't too keen to watch it. TV was on for perfunctory reasons for it being 'On'. Suddenly there was some action scene and we started watching it. We were watching it because it was so illogical and funny at the same time, not to mention entertaining that we couldn't take our eyes off it. After ten minutes, we were into the film, the whole family. Later, we watched the film for another half an hour before we came to our senses and changed the channel. It was only later that I realized something about the film and our behavior, which I discussed with my friend too, to which he just noded. So I decided to write about it. The film was illogical, stupid and ev...

I often advice people to watch all kinds of films. A grade, b grade or c grade or any film. I feel that if a man could get out of his house, leave his comfort zone to convince and collect a group of people, raise enough capital to pay them, direct his movie ; then he deserves a viewing at least.   Direction is an easy job, yet direction is not an easy job. That Oxymoronic statement develops only because of the state of mind of an individual. I have never been fortunate enough to sit in a production house, gotten a script, assigned a project and direct a film within my comfort zone. Though I do feel fortunate that I never got that otherwise I wouldn't have understood what it takes to make a film and feel good about it. People think that film direction is about directing the film, which sounds obvious but it is not. In my personal experience it is more than that. It is about human management, dealing with problems, taking wise decisions, standing for your convictions, trying to ...