What happens next?

Illustration/Uday Mohite

And so today, we've closed in on a year since Bugs Bhargava Krishna and I began our journey, the destination being my debut film, (Bug's fourth), titled Pune Highway - it was last September that we'd nailed the screenplay, dialogue was being penned,

"Is the film in English?", "No Hindi", "But dude your Hindi sucks", "That's why we have skilled Hindi dialogue writers, plus we still don't have a big enough audience for Indian English cinema".

Scenes were being broken down into shots, locations hunted down, between Bandra and Bhor with a spattering of Satara - Amit Sadh pitted against Jim Sarbh.

Twelve months later, the edit is locked.

And yet the finishing line is still some distance away. Fascination still abounds, as the sound engineer is busy analysing footage, figuring a sound design - do we need to dub, not a great option, as actors are rarely able to reproduce the same emotion in a studio, as they do on a set, with sync sound.

What's that final look of the film? The Digital Imaging, it's called, the grain, grungy, glamorous, gravitas, Darius Khondji's work in Se7en, the inspiration, for our ‘relationship mystery' - VFX is at play, the addition of effects. How do we maintain that sense of foreboding, to rivet an audience, keep them engaged, to not reach for that remote control?

"Which aspect of filmmaking have I found to be the most interesting… writing, shooting, and editing?" The three processes, the mind spaces are vastly different; the writer's hat, chalk and cheese, from the director's - planning what's on a page into a series of shots; figuring a shooting schedule, many technical decisions; filmmaking as much an art form as a science. But story is king - the editor's cap, another ball game - snipping out portions on the editing table. "Letting go of your darlings," as Bugs Bhargava terms it, "you may love the scene, but if finally, it has no place in the story, out it goes, even if you have spent half a day, shooting it."

"And adapting a play, in this case Pune Highway to a screenplay, how was that?" The play, restricted to one location, action happens off stage; in cinema you watch it happen, you can show, not just suggest.

"Theatre acting vs film acting?"

In plays acting is gentler, the actor gets one month, or even two months of rehearsals.

The stage actor has to live in the moment, night after night, he must convey absolute truth, like he's delivering those lines for the first time.

Film in contrast is brutal; actors' schedules being what they are, much time spent in vanity vans, preparing - in film acting, you get one shot at a scene. "In cinema you have multiple takes, but no second chances," Bugs Bhargava's says. There's no linearity to build your character, day one you may shoot the climax, day 41, it's the actor's entry; invariably, you work backwards, learning your lines, you plan how you want to act in a scene; you meet your co-actor on the day of the shoot, a couple of rehearsals if you're lucky.

And finally, to that locked 120 mins of celluloid… decisions decisions, what's in the film, what's in the dustbin.

Every second counts… every frame… do you retain, do you remove, do you sustain, an extra second, do you stay on a silence… no dialogue… an actor's face… subtext in visual terms. Spoon feed an audience?
Or let them figure?

"When's the release? OTT or PVR?" - that is the question, couch or cinema seat? Film festivals perhaps, Cannes, Venice?

In OTT, content rules, in a cinema release, collections rule.

I'm now, heading to my friend cum composer Clinton Cerejo's studio, decisions on background score, pure dialogue, holding a pause, underlay of a cello perhaps, or crows cawing, a tap dripping water, a guitar solo. Do you punctuate a moment, or pare it down? And three songs, yes three songs to be recorded.

I return to the screenplay to see if we've veered from the bound document, which scenes have been deleted, additional dialogues, rearranging, making sure one last time that we have been true to the script.
To our vision.

If it's not in the screenplay, it's not on the screen.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com