Bharatbala’s roughly four-minute video,
Meendum Ezhuvom
(
Uthenge Hum
in Hindi), which captured the essence of the country during the lockdown, was released online a couple of days ago. The filmmaker says that he and his team, consisting of 117 members, wanted to use the
lockdown
period in creative ways, which led to the filming of the project. Excerpts from an interview with the filmmaker:
How did you come up with the idea of making a film on the lockdown?A day after the lockdown was announced, I felt these unusual moments should be captured for posterity. But I had no clue how I was going to do that. I also had no idea about the lockdown getting extended. First and foremost, I required a proper crew and permission to shoot in different parts of the country. Fortunately, many of my team members, who belong to different states, had gone back to their hometowns. I have filmed India many times, but this was the first time I had to do it without travelling. We had to make virtual pre-production, production and post-production. My past experience of filming the country helped us get permission, though it took some time.
How did you decide on the 14 states where you shot the film?We were looking for contrast. We were excited to capture the diverse architecture, landscape and mood of the country. We had sent messages requesting permission to shoot to the highest offices in various states on WhatsApp, and we received the permission, too, on WhatsApp. We got unprecedented access at all places — Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Varanasi, Srinagar, Assam, Chhattisgarh…
What did the filmmaking process involve?We set up a team in Mumbai and had people working round the clock for two months. People from different locations used to send their footage, we would suggest changes with regard to angle, lens, and so on. The post-production started as soon as the shooting began. It would have taken several days to shoot in different states to get such footage on normal days. But because of the virtual production, we got footage from Guwahati, Lucknow and Varanasi all in one day. On the downside, sometimes, almost 40 per cent of the footage turned out to be unusable.
Unlike regular movies, you didn’t have a shooting script. There aren’t any characters to which you could give instructions. How challenging was that?We set out with an open mind. What motivated us was the fact that we were doing this for the country, for the future generations. It was a unique thing to get footage of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus in Mumbai without any single person there! Many shots left us wondering where the 1.3 billion population of the country lived! Srinagar and the Himalayas looked beautiful like never before. Finally, we were left with more than 100 hours of footage in 4K resolution.
How difficult was it to coordinate with a team spread across the country?The spirit of the team was fantastic. Some of my team members haven’t seen their families for a few months. One of the cinematographers in Mumbai, who hails from Trivandrum, lost his father. He was not able to go there, and he was grieving in a corner of his room, watching the last rites of his father on Skype. The next morning, he was back on the streets of Dharavi with his camera. I couldn’t believe his focus and commitment to work.