film festival submissions

Perhaps I'll write a bit regarding film festival submissions. First to note, I'm (already) indebted to the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival for two aspects of their submissions deadline: having one, and then, being flexible about it.

It was the deadline (31 May 2007) that initially served as a proverbial kick-in-the-butt, to make an effort to bring the film-edit to satisfactory completion. I had done one level of editing back in March or perhaps April -- had brought the edit to a certain point, and may have at first thought I was done with it. But it was not enough. The main problem was one of visual monotany -- despite my initial efforts to allay this via certain framing and processing techniques I applied to various scenes. One was still trapped in a small room with two people for more than an hour, with no break. This basic concept -- the real-time film -- involves many strictures, and poses problems that need real effort to address satisfyingly.

Sometime in May, as I studied the daily view (from my balcony painting-studio outpost) of the placid, lovely lake -- I became cognizant that the lakeview had changed. There were now lotus flowers in bloom! -- a thing I had not anticipated. Was it possible, I wondered, to hire a boat and see the flowers more closely? Indeed (I was informed), such a thing could be done.

Some days later, there I was on a small blue rowboat -- with a few companions (mainly, the spirited Gundecha children, who'd acquired a taste for nibbling lotus seeds: rare items of semi-tropical cuisine -- tasty seeds, a bit like green peas, consumed raw, fresh out of the lotus-pod) -- shooting pictures of these flowers for an hour. Problem was, this was in evening. My original idea was to shoot early in the morning (but group logistics had intervened). The film involves a morning raga (Alhaiya Bilawal) -- and the ambience of the particular hour of day is crucial to the character of music and film. Evening lotus footage simply would not do!

So I returned a couple days later, and the boatman Munna Bhai (otherwise employed as a fisherman) gave me a long solo tour of the land of the lotuses -- gliding into their realm, capturing their glimpses. We floated by the nearby Hanuman Mandir (which one can very briefly glimpse in one dark scene of the film), where the priest engaged me in chitchat. Munna Bhai was playing his transistor radio, with Hindi film songs -- which I was mildly tempted to include in some end-credits scenario, though this didn't transpire. I did, however, end up including (before he'd turned on the radio) some 20-30 seconds of ambient sound -- birdcry mainly, plus some morning horn-honking etc. -- which appears in the film's opening scene.

Well: meanwhile, May 31 was not only approaching (the successful morning lotus shoot was done May 23); I also had to leave Bhopal for Bangalore and Bangkok. Purpose of the latter destination: to renew my American tourist visa for India. One does this by going to any other country that will give your passport a visa-stamp. You could just go to some airport for 2 hours. In the instance, I planned to go for a week to Thailand -- a brief change from my now-accustomed haunt of India.

It was only I think on May 29 that I submitted my online application to Yamagata. And I hadn't yet begun to edit in the lotus footage with the music session! I did start doing so the vnext day, and maybe some more on 31 May (day of my departure for Bangalore) -- and I grew immediately happy with results that were emerging. Instinctively, I had reverted to certain methods (mainly involving chromakey transparency effects) I'd developed in earlier years of digital experimentation . . . applying these methods to this new footage and situation.

But I had to get aboard the train to Bangalore and hadn't yet brought the edit to completion. I emailed Yamagata, telling them the situation, and suggesting I could finish the project over the weekend and mail them a DVD from Bangalore on Monday (3 June). They kindly agreed to this mini-extension.

I settled in the home of a friend's parents, began more editing, and got more and more happy with how things were looking. Then, other friends came to visit and see the work -- and (in some flurry), I stupidly managed to (literally) pull the plug on my project. That is, while a Windows copying process was in progress, I tried to hook up some external speakers to my computer, and accidentally knocked-out the electric cord from an external (firewire) harddrive. Zap: this harddrive, plus another (daisy-chained to it), plus the firewire port on my Toshiba laptop computer, were all now suddenly in limbo. No access to the project (stored on external harddrive). No access to the film. And my flight was leaving shortly for Bangkok.

I went to Bangkok for 2 days only, after first arranging for a local computer wiz to salvage my challenged data. I had meanwhile been taken in by my other visiting friends, installed in their son's room (the son slept in living room), and thus given refuge from my own technical folly, -- while the Restorer restored the data.

The data restoral was a success. I had meanwhile (hoping for this), asked the chap (Raghav) to build me a new computer, and install the restoral disc in it. Back from Bangkok, I arrived to a new computer, with project onboard, ready to continue work. But at this point, it was something like the 10th of June. Oblivious of deadlines, I resolved at any rate not to leave Bangalore till I had brought the film to (by my own standards) a satisfying finish.

That took most of the month to accomplish, but finally (with a few twists & turns -- perhaps details to be filled in later), I arrived at the stage where I could dither over DVD menu design: the happy stage when a thing is nearly finished.

And I returned from the local courier service -- having mailed my DVD to Yamagata -- on the afternoon of my train departure (returning to Bhopal), 27 June -- with at least part of an hour to spare. Another friend had brought a ghazal-singer to visit, and I made a lame attempt to accompany him on saranghi (my music practice had temporarily suffered from the no-holds-barred film-editing enthusiasm).

So what was I saying? I'm grateful to Yamagata first for giving me a date to work against -- and then, for being (it appears) willing still to look at the thing, despite my failure to meet the literal deadline (they suggested they were still reviewing films, so if I could get mine to them quick, . . . ) Whether or not the work is selected, I'm happy they'll review it, and glad they gave me the frame in which to build this fragile thing.

Two other festivals I've contacted are the International Film Festival Rotterdam (October Deadline, January fest), and the International Film Festival of Kerala (in Trivandrum -- December fest, deadline not yet fixed). All three, for various reasons, especially interest me. In time, I'll likely submit the item to several others too.