Point Of View

Lensing and Lighting workshop with Tanmay Agarwal

Day 1

Let's start with a philosophical statement then, keeping up with the image of a film maker. In our pursuit of life(as we choose it to be) we generally seem to forget the PURPOSE of life.

But today I met a person who "re - reminded" me of the simple purpose of life.

"Pursuit of happiness" - it's that simple.

Tanmay Agarwal, came to take a lensing lighting workshop for us. But strangely (and now I know- rightly too ) he started the class with philosophy. Here we were thinking we would gather "technical knowledge" about film making and we ended up learning something much more important than that.

The class started with switching off our mobile phones and stacking them up on a precarious position, so that a slightest vibration(if slyly someone had not really switched it off) would actually topple it. Now you would ask me how was that helpful! And you could also say that Tanmay Sir was being way too strict and in today's world when mobile was so mandatory it made no sense. But I beg to differ. Apart from the simple fact that without phones we concentrate more, there was another lesson to learn. I learnt to commit. If I actually forgot then everyone's mobile would actually fall and probably get damaged. I could not afford that, so I committed. Now this led to a different set of problems. And what is film making without problems!! 

So the next problem was to commit that all of us would actually regularly for the rest of the workshop days switch off our mobile and put it in that stack and Sir raised a question, "What if someone didn't?"

After a lot of brain storming (what else do u expect when 10 directors are in the same room) which practically led to nothing...suddenly we were outside our classroom looking for a stick each which would be our punishment lest we forgot to place our mobile in a stack. So, say in 5 minutes all of us had a stick in hand, and testing it too and kind of scared coz it would hurt if seriously we went for it. But obviously Sir knew this was not the right way(Thankfully!!! Otherwise it would have really hurt!!). So we settled for GROUND RULE 1: Who ever forgets to keep the mobile switch off and in the stack, doesn't attend the rest of the workshop. Now that is a big commitment!

Now, once we had set the first rule it was time for setting all the Ground Rules.

GROUND RULE 2: Everyone comes to class 15 mins early.

Now that was a biiiiig deal for a class that refused to appear not only in time but say 2 hour after the given time. But somehow everyone nodded in agreement. Tanmay Sir smiled as he was not over with the rule and raised the same question again. What if someone didn't? And this time he gave the answer himself. If someone didn't then no one gets the class. Awesome!! Now came all of our responses. "How can that be?", "Individuals have to take their own responsibility." and few of us stated how we won't take responsibility of others coz they don't just listen(and yes, I voiced the last statement). Sir replied with another question. "So, is film making an individual work or a team work?" And believe me, it hit so hard. I instantly turned towards my friend, Kirti and I saw it in her eyes too. How could we have forgotten this. It's the simplest thing on earth, even a child could have answered it. Film Making was always and forever will be a collaborative effort, the team mattered. And we are all our "brother's keeper"s. I don't know in pursuit of what, I chose to forget this vital truth of life.

Though GROUND RULE 3 was a continuation of the previous rule. Whenever one takes a break all takes a break (ie. the class comes to a halt) and it resumes when all are in. This might sound simple but its not so. When for a particular individual the whole system gets block we forget team work, what comes through is generally the frustration and anger. But I learnt to be tolerant, to treat each team member as a loved one. And that really worked wonders - made a whole lot of difference too, in the attitude of the other person.

From there we went into a discussion of "An apple for an apple OR an apple for a pear." Sometimes we see things as the way they are in reality but sometimes we want to portray something else through our images. We tried clicking the picture of the sticks(yes, the ones that we had gathered!). Some of us concentrated on showing the bunch of sticks as bunch of sticks. But some of us wanted to show it as an emotion like fear. I wanted to portray it as unity. But I don't think I succeeded much. It still looked like just a bunch of sticks. So, basically I was going wrong somewhere and what i wanted to show was not coming across.

We shifted our class from outdoor to indoor and we took up a similar task. We had to take the picture of "the stack of phones". And this was an apple-for-an-apple exercise. We all chose the position and an angle from where we wanted to shoot. Once we had taken the shot, We realised how many of our shots were very similar apart from few. We also saw how in some of our shots the phones looked like a stack of books or a multi storied building. We realised until we are able to show the basic characteristics of the phone from certain angles we wont be able to show it as a stack of phones. So the few shots that was taken from a height were the ones that was atleast showed the basic shape and form of the phone and thus it actually seemed like a stack of phones.

Second half started with a camera in our hand. Suddenly after almost one and a half year in the course we realised how less confident we were about the camera we claim to have been using for so long. I realised so much work we think we have done but actually its just an illusion and in reality we have learnt to less. 

Anyways, we went to take picture of the most clicked item of SRFTI, "The Bridge". We all were said to take pictures of any one of the Bridge. The basic point should be that it should be a picture of a bridge. We all went to find our sweet spot and get the best picture of the bridge ever. We returned after few minutes and started reviewing our pictures. Each of us had taken few clicks and then chosen the one we thought was best. But sir insisted on showing all the clicks. Invariably what happened was all the other apart from the one showing the picture thought that some other click was better than the one the person had chosen to display. Half way in the review session we realised that it was all about the point of view. What we wanted to show and how we chose to show it and was it even being seen!

I took the the above picture and thought it was nice. Picture of the bridge for me meant a bridge leading from some where and to somewhere. So, I wanted to show both the ends. I also liked the railing which was making a line and lead to the curve of the bridge. But then once it was reviewed my class mates gave me some other views regarding the photograph. They pointed out the foreground part of the railing being too prominent takes away all the attention and also creates a negative space on the left side which takes away the attention from the bridge. 

Of all the pictures we saw, the picture we liked the most was of one of our friend, Ashok and weirdly that was an out of focus shot. What we realised is that its about the fact if we are able to show what we mean to show. No matter how much we know the technicality its about choosing and portraying the right point of view. 

Another thing that was important that we all realised that everyone has their own point of view. We saw the same thing differently. We realised how the same thing changes meaning or even looked different just because of different angles, distance and the light.

By the end of the class we stumbled across something which was so basic and all of us realised that we were just not sure about it. How did the eye focus? Do we have variable focal length in our eyes? Suddenly we realised we were back to square one and I felt like kicking myself. I suddenly had no clue what I was upto for all this while if this simple question confused me so. But I came home and read up. So now I know our eyes focus by squeezing or stretching our lenses, which changes its focal length to fit the fixed size of our eyeballs. Now comes the question, What is the definition of Focal length? Well, focal length was the distance between the lens and the plane where the image was being made. Now in the eyes case that plane is fixed thus the focal length is being modified by changing the curvature of the lens. It is not really a zoom lens as a zoom lens is basically a set of multiple lenses but the eye does have a variable focal length.

It was a nice day of work. And a lot of realisations. A whole new Point of view I suppose.....