| Ram Gopal's profileMy BlogPhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
|
12/27/2008 Bad "Company”Somewhere in 2000 I happened to be in the company of a man called Haneef at some producer’s house. Haneef was the owner of Magnum Video, was in jail in the serial blast case for 5 years and also reportedly very close to Dawood.
Out of my curiosity and my obsessive tendency to know and understand the psychological aspects of criminals, I got talking to him. In about an hour I spent in Haneef’s company he told me various things on how the underworld operates. Also those were the days where the media was full of stories on the war between Dawood and Chota Rajan and in that context he said the following to me “So many people on both sides died in their war with each other. They so desperately want to kill each other but Ramuji I am telling you this that even today if Dawood calls Rajan on the phone and if Rajan is smoking a cigarette he will drop it and say “Haan! Dawood Bhai!” That is the inbuilt respect he has. They hate each other because they love each other”. Those lines of Haneef gave me the story idea for “COMPANY”.
Also in my research for “Satya’ there were so many things I learnt about the underworld which I could not incorporate in that film especially the police procedures.
So if Haneef’s quote on Dawood and Chota Rajan gave me the story, my research gave me the atmosphere and the supporting characters and the incidents I have more or less taken from my own company meaning my production office experiences with my staff over the years. The reason for this is that whenever I heard the causes for rivalry and the internal politics in the context of the underworld I always found a very strong resemblance to things which happen in any normal Company including my own office.
In a Company, the various people who work have their own individualities and relative intelligence levels and the only thing which will be common among them is an ambition and the greed to reach the top. So even though the Company as whole is working towards a goal, the people in the company will be conflicting with each other which creates politics, frustration, jealousy etc.
This is a truth for any Company whether it is a normal or an underworld company with the difference that in a normal company if you do a mistake you will be fired and in an underworld company you will be fired upon.
Everyone could easily understand and relate to Yadav’s jealousy that Mallik is favouring Chandu because everyone would have been one of those three and would have known the other two. So this is my proof that it’s not so much about knowing the underworld as much as knowing people.
I want to share an interesting aspect of Company’s prologue where we see the eagles flying over the city. Much after the principal shoot got over, I asked my cameraman to take some shots of the city to use them in the edit and when he was doing that on a certain location the eagles just happened to be there which he shot. When I saw the rushes on the Avid those shots reminded me of the opening scene of ‘Mackenna’s Gold’ one of my all-time favourite films and I was seized by a desire to somehow incorporate those shots in the film. My editor suggested that he can use them for exterior cuts of the city in between the film at various places to which I said that it will just make them informative whereas I want to make a big deal out of it like in ‘Mackenna’s Gold’.
So I thought if I do a very sub-textual and profound and meaningful sounding voiceover then I can get away with using those shots. I wrote the lines “Eagles have lot of patience and they for wait months to get to their prey”. When he read that line my assistant said it won’t work as we are seeing the birds literally and eagles don’t do that. So to counter my assistant I changed the line to “Very few people know that eagles have lot of patience and they wait for months to get to their prey”.
I told my assistant that most of the guys sitting in the theatre anyway won’t know anything about eagles and the fact that we are making a strong statement saying that “very few people know that” will make each and every one of them feel that he doesn’t know that. Even if a few don’t buy it by the end of the film they would take it for granted that it’s not to be taken literally.
Today since the last 6 years so many people talk to me about the effect of that prologue and only I know in my heart it came from nothing but a childish desire of mine to somehow have that “‘Mackenna’s Gold” shot in the film.
To move on to how “Khallas” song happened I did a unique experimentation in it. I told the choreographer let’s not give any objective space to the camera and treat it as one of the guests in the club. What I mean is typically in a song shoot we have the frame designed for the camera and everything is placed and moved to its convenience but the moment we take that away and we create a subjective space a kind of unpredictability is created. I told the cameraman to keep zooming and panning to whatever attracts him as an individual irrespective of what the choreographer has asked the actors to do and lastly I told the editor to edit it in a way that when you stay late at a club, come back, pass out and in the morning you only have recollections of some moments half dreamy and half real. After this brief to the three I pretty much refrained myself from both the shoot and the edit. The effort of 3 superb technicians with regard to their individual briefing and my effort to see that they don’t coordinate with each other is what resulted in ‘Khallas’.
When people ask me which is my favourite among ‘SATYA’ and ‘COMPANY’ I find it very difficult to answer as the difference between them is that ‘SATYA’ is Emotional and ‘COMPANY’ is Intelligent. So I think these two states of minds would make one feel whatever of those two films.
Incidentally Haneef, the originator of ‘COMPANY’ was shot dead a few months after I met him and the last thing he told me or rather advised me when he got to know that I was making ‘COMPANY’ was not to waste my time doing dark films and instead make a romantic musical with Nadeem Sharavan’s music. Maybe he was Bad Company but he surely gave me good “Company”.
12/22/2008 My reactions to reactions
1. What is your reaction to Shobha De’s comments on your Taj visit? 2. I would like to have a coffee with you. 3. Your Taj visit was a true judgment of error. 4. You can’t stop being an idiot. 5. If you live for wine and women what are movies for? 6. You had a collection of ideas. Now you don’t. 7. I can’t believe you can write a script in 20 minutes. P.S. I read Godfather 20 years back. 8. What’s the difference between love and lust? 9. How do you get away from guilt? 10. Comment – Dagny Taggart is a bitch. 11. Have you ever taken anything seriously? 12. I respect you because you believe in yourself. 13. Don’t keep giving smart answers. 14. Be sympathetic towards human beings. 15. Do something towards the crazzzzzy footage hungry media. 16. I want you to give a good thought to my comments. 17. I always felt your forte is not story but screenplay. 18. Why do you need to be always busy? 19. I want to work with you. 20. How do you manage to keep your personal life so private? 21. How do you describe yourself? 12/11/2008 My reactions to reactions1. My mother thinks that I am becoming madder and madder for reading your blog.
Ans: And my mother thinks that your mother is becoming madder and madder for thinking so. 2. How come you are not offended when people call you Ramu which is usually the name of a gardener or a dog.
Ans: Well I am mighty happy that I have reached this stage from being a dog and am managing to make the various concerned admit that by them still calling me by that name. 3. (Note: This is just one line from a long piece written by Mr.MG. Those of you with nothing to do please check it.)
Take time to read what I have written and introspect where you are heading as a filmmaker. Ans: Dear Mr.MG just take a chill pill or better still watch Katarina’s legs in “Just Chill”. 4. What do you need to become a director?
Ans: A passion to tell a story and a fool with money to believe in it. That is the truth in 99% of the cases but in the 1% where I figure… Ahem!... It is my passion and a passionate producer who believes in it.
Just kidding Boss. If you don’t like my joke please go visit MG. His super-serious piece on me in this blog is sure to make you laugh more than mine.
5. You look like a chimpanzee.
Ans: Oh! I didn’t know I was that good looking. 6. How much time do you spend on a script?
Ans: Around 20 minutes give or take a few minutes. 7. I hope “Rann” will tell how terrible media is.
Ans:… And I hope the media won’t tell how terrible ‘Rann’ is. 8. What are the similarities between great dictator Hitler and great director RGV?
Ans: Well he had his concentration camps and I have my theatres. 9. Does any politician ever tell the truth?
Ans: Well…. only when he calls the other politician a liar. 10. Do you believe that the best things in life are for free like sex for instance?
Ans: Of course. It is only what can lead to it which is expensive. 11. What do you live for?
Ans: Wine and women. It is just that the order changes from time to time and yes, you do need some wealth to get them. 12/8/2008 My Reactions to Reactions1. You are psycho.
Ans: Grrrr! 2. I think you are hurt.
Ans: Boo hoo! 3. Your blog entry is silly
Ans: Sillier is to read and reply. 4. Why is that you are not having meaty scripts and Mukul Anand’s visuals?
Ans: Watch Mukul’s films and read your own scripts. 5. You don’t have to explain.
Ans: You don’t have to advise. 6. Watch ‘Thank you for smoking’. It will bring some confidence in you.
Ans: Watch RGV ki Aag. It will make you loose your confidence in giving me confidence.
7. Don’t make Agyaat right now.
Ans: When should I make it Sir? 8. I hope these events corrected your ego and arrogance.
Ans: Yes they have become bigger.
9. Stick to your vodka.
Ans: Stick to your barista. 10. You said you had a ball or two.
Ans: I have balls… and Many. 11. What happened to your philosophy?
Ans: My philosophy is not to have a philosophy. 12. You are worse than a terrorist. Media is full of assholes. The officials who let you in were also incompetent.
Ans: Ok Sir except for you all of us are whatever you think we are. Happy now? 13. What is your opinion on platonic love?
Ans: Err… is it some disease? 13. Howard Roark embraces better thoughts than you.
Ans: I embrace far better and softer things than Howard Roark. 14. This is my last visit to your blog.
Ans: Bye. 15. Don’t enter our world and be in your world.
Ans: Look at who is in whose world. 16. You and Riteish should not have put Vilas Rao in this spot.
Ans: Both of us will seek your advise next time Sir. 17. Were you like this since your birth?
Ans: No… only since my mom dropped me on my head. 18. Which of the two traits do you like between Ram and Gopal?
Ans: I am basically Ravan pretending to be Ram to get the obvious benefits of Gopal. 12/4/2008 The Accusation…
There were reports in the media that I was planning a film on the terrible terrorist incident that happened and since I was casting Riteish Deshmukh in it his dad Mr.Vilas Rao invited me to visit the site which understandably created an outrage among various concerned. These reports are completely false. What happened was… I know Riteish since years as I have done films with him and also since we belong to the same fraternity. On that day I went to meet Riteish to discuss RANN my new film with him which incidentally has got nothing to do with terrorism. As we were talking Riteish said that his dad was going to Taj and he wished to go with him. So since I was with him I accompanied him there. Mr.Vilas Rao has never been formally introduced to me and he didn’t even know that I was with Riteish as me and Riteish were in another car. As far as Riteish is concerned his information was that the areas we might be able to see are the ones where the investigations have already been completed. By the time we reached Taj there were more than 60-70 people there including Police officers, some Government officers and Hotel staff. In that whole crowd I doubt Mr.Vilas Rao even noticed me. Yes, I was amazed that I got a opportunity to see the place where such a horrendous incident happened and I would like to know which person in the entire country would not have been curious to see the place. Now my question is, what is it that which could be affected by me being there? If the Officers there thought that there will be a breach of security or I will see things which I am not supposed to see, they would have stopped me. And if they did stop, why in the hell would Mr.Vilas Rao force them to let me in. The reason why they did not stop is as simple as this is because the areas we were shown were where the investigations were already completed and footage of which was already shown thousands of times on the media. In fact I saw far lesser there than what I already saw on TV. So why does me seeing broken glasses, broken tables and bullet riddled walls which the whole country has seen a thousand times on TV create an outrage. Here’s why. After seeing the footage which ironically was shot BY Mr.Vilas Rao’s own team and given to the TV Channels, the media minds started speculating on my presence there and developed conspiracy theories and to support their speculation they used slow motion techniques, putting red circle around me and putting a flickering arrow marks pointing at me. Added to this a voice over of their interpretation of why I was there and why Mr.Vilas Rao took me there completed the story which resulted in the understandable outrage. Even assuming for a moment if I went to research there for a film I am planning what possible information will I gain as a filmmaker of seeing lesser than what I have already seen on TV? In all the footage one saw of our so-called terror tour, was there a single visual of the place that the people have not already seen on TV? Research for a film can’t happen by visiting crime scenes as I am not some forensic scientist. Research can only happen if I have one-to-one conversations with investigating officers after they complete their investigations which might take months. Some News channels even went to the extent of saying that we were disturbing a crime scene. If that is the case, isn’t it the job of the investigating officers to stop us. They didn’t because like I said they were only showing areas where investigations have been completed. I find it shocking that in the wake of such a terrible incidents happening in the country, the media can waste so much time and telecast hours and subject the people of the country to something as inane as some filmmaker’s presence at a place which for the life of me I can’t understand how it can affect anybody or anything in comparison to what else is going on. Media makes us believe, not necessarily by intent, that only they have the interest of people in their hearts, and due to that people tend to believe in them blindly. This is a classic example of the blind leading the blind. Outcome of this can be many times ridiculous. As per some Media peoples suggestions even if remotely this episode can affect a Government’s standing, I find that almost as dangerous as terrorism. If people who attack the unarmed are defined as terrorists then Media at various levels with their coercive methods and insinuations are very similar. A terrorist attacks the mind and kills the body, the media attacks the mind with its interpretations and kills a person’s spirit with its insinuations. In a way I would say that Media is more dangerous than terrorists because they do it under the guise of safe-guarding values.
|
|
|
