Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
mY tHoUgHtS !!
A woman since history is an image of fertility, her womb is thus considered sacred. But this idea has become so strong and embedded in our minds that we tend to overlook the other side of the coin. My story is a journey into the mind of a woman who feels incomplete, empty and claustrophobic in the life she is leading. She carries the blame of being infertile. It’s a blame she is not responsible for but the world likes to tag her with the term infertile. By profession she is a doll maker and thus the story is told through her dolls. In reality she is completely helpless, but she is in control of these dolls just like a puppeteer who controls his puppets through the strings. She relates to them and narrates her tale through the dolls like a puppeteer narrates his story through his puppets. At various points in the story her visualizations, hopes, dreams and flash backs are narrated through the dolls. Her in acceptance in the society is always there as the world till date looks down upon a woman who cannot take the family forward. Throughout the film there is a delusion between what is real and what is a dream. So it could be visions of a traumatized mind and its maternal longings alternately it could also be a story in which she adopts a real baby and the doll becomes a metaphor for the child.
I managed to reach this concept after much research and much help from various people. My earlier story though on the same lines was becoming very linear. I realized much later how I had taken certain aspects in the film for granted. Like her finding the adoption house, the happy ending I was trying to project made the story a little superficial. I like the twist I am bringing about in my current concept. The ending now is ambiguous and the audience doesn’t get to know if she really adopted. I prefer the open ending, because that way I become less preachy and I do not want state anything. When I had visited an adoption house namely shishu madir, I discovered the complexities of adoption. Even if it a solution to a major problem, but the problems do end at that. I have read articles on parents who adopted and had a tough time to get to their children to accept them. Many of the children who are adopted are chosen at a particular age, and that is for a reason. The younger they are the easier it becomes for them to adjust into the new surroundings. The children get so very adjusted to the routine they follow at their adoption home that it becomes almost impossible for them to suddenly adapt to a new home. The change needs to come very slowly otherwise it could psychologically affect the child. Even for the new born, they get accustomed to the timings they are fed on and the kind of food, also the smell of their clothes and surroundings so much so that it becomes a problem if this routine is suddenly changed by the adoptive parents.
I realized that in my previous story line may be I was projecting adoption an easy solution to infertility which in all actuality is not. It is a solution no doubt, but this solution comes with its own set of responsibilities and challenges for both, the adoptive parents and the adopted child. Though my movie is about pre adoption rather than post adoption but I do not want to sell adoption as a rosy solution.
New script
Shot-1
Lighting: evening light
Camera: close up shot of the family album
Action: she opens the album.
Voice Over: Grandpa and grandma, I can’t imagine they ever looked like kids. They were always old for me, as if born that way. That is mamma, in my grandpa’s hands. So young and fragile. She was the favorite child of my grandparents amongst all the brothers and sisters.
Action: she moves her hand slowly on the photographs and then turns the page
Vo: ma and pa…. Picture perfect!
Action: turns the page
VO: That’s me behind pa. daddy’s daughter.
Action: page turn
VO: this is me and him, our wedding pictures. It was a beautiful wedding. (Voice becomes sad now)
Action: She turns the page..and the album is empty now.
VO: 5 years to our marriage and still these spaces are empty, just like me.
Shot2- Cut to - she is stitching dolls and as soon as she finishes making a pair, of a mother doll and a child doll she stuffs some cloth into the clothes of the mother doll (making it look pregnant). She glares at it for a couple of seconds, trying to see herself, through the doll.
Shot3- Then she looks at the child doll and caresses it and kisses it. Just when the doll comes alive and calls out to gauri “ma”. Gauri very surprised at the same time thrilled to bits.
Shot 4- Cut to shots of she having a picnic with the doll
Shot5- she combing her hair
shot6- towards the end she is playing around with a toy. . (The doll will do everything like a child does. It wouldn’t be like a mute doll, but will become an animated doll with all the appearances of a doll but behaving like a child. )
Shot7- The toy then slips out of her hands. She bends to pick it up and that’s when reality strikes her. She sits straight and realizes it was all a dream. She looks at the doll which is now lying around like an object and
Shot8- with all her fury and disappointment she throws the mother doll on the floor.
Shot9- Camera captures the mother doll. It falls with it’s head facing the floor and after a few seconds it starts weeping like a human, how gauri once must have cried. (Audio- sound of a woman weeping)
Scene-2/ Setting-inside her doll shop
Shot1- Downward pan from the sky till the window of her shop. She keeps the doll on the rack and sits down at the counter looking outside the window, waiting for the customers.
Shot2- Flash back
She is sitting inside a bus. Two women are sitting behind her. One says to the other. Meera your delivery date is due. You must take care of yourself and most importantly keep yourself away from all the evil eyes, especially of the ones who could not be as lucky as u.( looking at gauri)
It will be a tight shot, of gauri in the bus with two women sitting behind her. The two women will be blurred and a little vague visually but it will be clear that they are talking about gauri. Gauri’s expression of embarrassment will be captured mostly.
Shot3- Cut to- flash back- she and her husband at the hospital looking disappointed. (there will be a voice over of the doctor who tells the couple that gauri cannot conceive.
Shot4- Left pan of the camera- she is standing in her room seeing her husband go away with his luggage.
Vo- (in a man’s voice) you smell of the medicines now and remind me of the barrenness, something that I want to forget forever.
Shot5- The shot merges into the present and she smells her clothes and her body, with a tear trickling down her cheek.
Shot6- Suddenly the door opens and a small girl enters the shop. To gauri’s surprise this girl looks exactly like the doll she dreamt of before. The girl asks her to put some money for charity inside the charity box. The girl shows a newspaper cutting, advertising ‘ fund collection for the adoption house’. Gauri glares at the advertisement for a couple of seconds and then looks at the little girl, who by now is staring at all the dolls in the shop.
Shot7- Gauri smiles at her and puts some money inside the box, along with that she offers the same doll child to the girl. The girl becomes excited to see the doll which looks like her itself. She hesitates a bit but then takes the doll and runs out of the shop.
Gauri looks back at the advertisement kept on her table. The newspaper cutting merges into the next shot.
Scene3/ inside her room
Shot1-Merges into Into an album. Camera zooms out a bit and we see gauri is putting in new snaps of her and the same girl whom she adopted.
Vo: I learnt that Anahita suffered from a weak heart, one of the reasons why she was left behind by her birth parents and also why she didn’t get a family till now.
Shot2-Cut to- gauri and the daughter sitting at the porch of their house on a bright sunny morning. Gauri is combing her daughter’s hair.
Shot3-The camera follows gauri’s hand as she keeps the comb down and then the camera captures the comb only which now is a toy comb, with the yellow plasticy strands of a dolls hair.
VO: it was as if we were meant for each other. Both suffered from heart aches…. but not anymore.
This infusive deliberate confusion in the story as the entire sequence was a flight of gauri’s imagination or has she adopted a child in real life.
mY tHoUgHtS !!
A woman since history is an image of fertility, her womb is thus considered sacred. But this idea has become so strong and embedded in our minds that we tend to overlook the other side of the coin. My story is a journey into the mind of a woman who feels incomplete, empty and claustrophobic in the life she is leading. She carries the blame of being infertile. It’s a blame she is not responsible for but the world likes to tag her with the term infertile. By profession she is a doll maker and thus the story is told through her dolls. In actuality she is completely helpless, but she is in control of these dolls just like a puppeteer who controls his puppets through the strings. She relates to them and narrates her tale through the dolls like a puppeteer narrates his story through his puppets. At various points in the story her visualizations, hopes, dreams and flash backs are narrated through the dolls. Her in acceptance in the society is always there as the world till date looks down upon a woman who cannot take the family forward. Throughout the film there is a delusion between what is real and what is a dream. So it could be visions of a traumatized mind and its maternal longings alternately it cud also be a story in which she adopts a real baby and the doll becomes a metaphor for the child.
I managed to reach this concept after much research and much help from various people. My earlier story though on the same lines was becoming very linear. I realized much later how I had taken certain aspects in the film for granted. Like her finding the adoption house, the happy ending I was trying to project made the story a little superficial. I like the twist I am bringing about in my current concept. The ending now is ambiguous and the audience doesn’t get to know if she really adopted. I prefer the open ending, because that way I become less preachy and I do not want state anything. When I had visited an adoption house namely shishu madir, I got in terms with the complexities of adoption. Even if it a solution to a major problem, but the problems do end at that. I have read articles on parents who adopted and had a tough time to get to their children to accept them. Many of the children who are adopted are chosen at a particular age, and that is for a reason. The younger they are the easier it becomes for them to adjust into the new surroundings. The children get so very adjusted to the routine they follow at their adoption home that it becomes almost impossible for them to suddenly adapt to a new home. The change needs to come very slowly otherwise it could psychologically affect the child. Even for the new born, they get accustomed to the timings they are fed on and the kind of food, also the smell of their clothes and surroundings so much so that it becomes a problem if this routine is suddenly changed by the adoptive parents.
I realized that in my previous story line may be I was projecting adoption an easy solution to infertility which in all actuality is not. It is a solution no doubt, but this solution comes with its own set of responsibilities and challenges for both, the adoptive parents and the adopted child. Though my movie is about pre adoption rather than post adoption but I do not want to sell adoption as a rosy solution.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Shot breakdown
Guddiya
Scene 1
Shot-1
Lighting: evening light
Setting- Inside the room
Camera: close up shot of the family album
Action: she opens the album.
Voice Over: Grandpa and grandma, I can’t imagine they ever looked like kids. They were always old for me, as if born that way. That is mamma, in my grandpa’s hands. So young and fragile. She was the favorite child of my grandparents amongst all the brothers and sisters.
Action: she moves her hand slowly on the photographs and then turns the page
Vo: ma and pa, when they found each other and decided to get married. Picture perfect!
She looks so scared, yet excited to start the new chapter of her life with a stranger. Pa, standing next to her, as if in assurance to never leave her side. (After a pause)….Why would he, she always gave him whatever he wanted.
Action: turns the page
VO: That’s me behind pa. daddy’ daughter.
This is at nanital I believe. My sister was born by then.
Action: page turn
VO: this is me and him, our wedding pictures. It was a beautiful wedding. (Voice becomes sad now)
Action: She turns the page..and the album is empty now.
VO: 5 years to our marriage and still these spaces are empty, just like me.
Shot-2
Action: She leaves the album on the bed and gets up. Swings the empty cradle next to her
Audio: sound of that toy which u hang on a cradle.
Shot4
Action: She serves a flower to the gods, kept on her shelf. And touches the many sacred threads she has tied on her arm.
VO: They say, I might have annoyed the gods in my previous birth.
Shot 3
Vo: 6 months of constant medication.
Action- she walks ahead, and stops at an open cupboard which, is full of medical reports and medicines.
Vo I smell of them now and remind him of that emptiness……that’s what he told me when he asked for a divorce
Action: she picks up a bottle of perfume from the shelf and closes it. The door has a mirror attached. she sprays perfume on herself and then smells her hands.
Audio- sound of children playing.
Action- she looks in the direction from where the sound is coming ie outside the window.
Cut 2- Present- Shot 6
Cut to- mid shot of her looking out of the window.
VO: I understand, after all I could not provide him with the most imp happiness, the happiness of being a father.
Shot8 - Cut to- camera @ the children playing downstairs. ( POV shot)
Shot-9 Cut to the close up of the window from outside the building.
Slow zoom out, fade 2 black.
Scene-2
Shot-1
Setting: street
Action: she is walking with a small carton towards her doll shop.
Camera- very slow side pan, following her.
Shot-2
Cut to: she enters the shop, opens the carton and takes out the new dolls and places them on the front shelf and sits, waiting for the customers.
Shot-3
Action: she is sitting inside her shop and stitching dolls. Many dolls which are just finished are kept by her side, on the table, along with cloth and needle.
Shot-4
Cut to: Mid shot- capture the doll only(the one that she is making)
Shot-5
Cut to: Mid Shot- Her face and the doll- Action: She keeps the thread between her teeth and breaks it.
Shot-6
Looks at the doll- Mid shot of both the doll and the lady.
Shot-7
Cut to: the doll, as if smiling. She caresses it, straightens her hair.
Shot-8
Cut to: the lady- She then looks at the other dolls and then back again to this new doll.
Shot-9
Camera: close up shot of both- Action: she kisses the doll
Shot 10
Cam @ the doll: the doll calls out “mother”.
Shot -11
Camera: cuts 2 gauri- suprised.
Shot -12
Camera: Mid shot
Action- The doll opens her small arms and calls her mother once again. They both hug each other for few seconds.
Shot 13
Cut to the mid shot of them looking at each other.
Shot -14
Cut to- the doll- Action- Gauri tickles the doll daughter on which the doll laughs and giggles.
Shot -15
Camera: long shot, slow zoom in - Action: Towards the evening next shot- she and the doll daughter are lying down in the park and looking at the sky.
Shot 14- they both staring outside the window looking at the stars.
Shot -16
Towards end- they both lying down in the bed and the mother is reading out a story to her doll daughter.
Shot -17
The door of the shop opens and 2 customers come inside.
Action: She gets up with a jerk. Looks at her side for the doll daughter. Looks at the other side n notices now an object. She takes a deep breath, wipes a tear and smiles at the customers.
Cut to- Lighting- late evening time
Shot -18
Camera- long shot
Action: Customers leave the shop. She locks the door and turns the sign board to ‘closed now’ and then begins to walk back home with the doll daughter in one hand.
Scene-3
Takes a turn…next street now.
Shot-1
She is walking.
Shot-2
Cut to: her leg, Action: Suddenly a ball hits her leg.
Shot-3
Camera: back to the lady. She looks back.
Shot-4
Cut to. Camera behind the lady: A green gate opens and a small girl comes out running for the ball.
Shot-5
Cut to Gauri’s expression: very surprised as the girl looks very similar to the doll.
Shot-6
Over the shoulder shot: Gauri looks @ the doll in her hand.
Shot-7
Cut to girl: Action: By now she is standing in front of gauri with hopeful eyes at the ball.
Action: The girl is very shy, points @ the ball in her hand.
Shot-8
Cut to: close up of the ball being given.
Shot-9
Cut to: Mid shot of the girl: while taking the ball, the girl notices the doll in her hand.
Action: The kid stares at the doll and gasps in surprise. (she wants the doll)
Action :Gauri looks at the doll in her own hand, and with action asks the kid if she wants it.
Shot-10
Cut 2: the kid. Very excitedly nods her head.
Shot-11
Cut to: the doll being given to the kid.
Shot-12
Cut to: Long shot: Gauri starts to walk back home when suddenly her eyes fall upon an old rusted board lying at the corner left of the house.
Shot-13
Cut to: her face- tilts to the right side a little in order to read the board.
The board read “ Adoption centre”
She is very shocked now.
Shot-14
Cut to turn her head towards the girl who just entered the house.
Cut to gauri: very sad
Fade to black.
Scene 4-Close up shot
Setting- her room, Gauri sitting on the corner of her bed.
Repetition of the 1st shot i.e. Photo album
Shot-1
She turns the page from where she had left last time. And we see many pictures of her and her adopted daughter with grandparents.
VO: I learnt that Anahita suffered from a weak heart, one of the reasons why she was left behind by her birth parents and also why she didn’t get a family till now.
Shot-2
We hear a voice calling her “mother”
Camera pans a little to the side of the bed. And we see the daughter playing with the dolls.
VO: it was as if we were meant for each other. Both suffered from heart aches….
Shot-3
Gauri bends down to kiss her fore head.
VO: but not anymore.
The end