The Vulture: My first attempt at filmmaking.

It began in 2004. During the time period between graduation and the first job the evenings teased me to watch movies. The tease was ultra-psychological to write something. An idea for a short scene was burning in my head about two friends sitting on a park bench talking about something that went wrong. The basic plot and assumed twist could not reach to the paper. I trashed it untill in 2007 PassionForCinema (PFC) announced their first one minute online film festival. If my temptation to see through the lense wasn't enough then it was the prize of an internship with one of the Bollywood filmmakers was a strong motivation. I wonder how my idea would have worked. Whatever the heck was it, I wanted to participate in the festival. The idea re-surfaced and I wrote the screenplay. The obvious choice, because of the minus budget, was my wife Nisha. During numerous script reading sessions she never reached to the feeling of an audience might reach as I had expected. It was a disaster. I ran out of time then and decided for something else.

Enter 2008. Swine flu epidemic and the media frenzy was overwhelming. I was speaking with my father and we discussed the same and a thought came to my mind. As soon as I uttered the word he understood and no extra effort was made to be on the same page. I did not think of it until the announcement of the third online film festival on PFC. My urges haunted me again. I came across Jose Martinez, a colleague at UT Arlington. He mentioned once that he composes beats/music on his home computer. I immediately asked him if he is willing to share his composition for a movie I am planning to make. He agreed and brought me a CD. Now I wanted to storyboard the film. The basic premise for a new idea remained and for the finale I thought about few approaches. The deadline for submission was almost 3 days away. One evening I called my friend Ninad Thakoor. He was welcoming in using his Sony DCR VX 2000 camera. Now everything seems to be coming together. Every point of time I thought I am going to jinx it again. I sat down and storyboarded it. 2 locations were finalised and two actors. Obviously me and Nisha. Her scene was shot first. This was the only time I was behind the camera. There were 5 takes and 2 different setups. Her input of Mangalsutra came in handy. I ended up using the 2nd take. Then we shot the 'hospital' scene. Then at home. Food color was used for the blood. The editing was the hardest part. We ended up shooting around 15 minutes and 1 min of it ended up in the final film.

The movie was submitted but could not make it to the final favorites. Yes it hurts but I will always remember what experience it gave me. A taste of filmmaking I had imagined before but never felt until now. For that I want to thank Jose, Ninad and Nisha for their love and support. Thanks PFC for that chance. For this blog post I cannot review my film. This time I leave it upto you.