CFD @ Suchitra

presents

The Practical Weekend Film making Course

October 20, 2012 to February 3, 2013

15 Weekends (Break: Dec 29 & 30, 2012)

Saturdays — 3:30 to 5.30 PM|Sundays — 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM (Excepting Workshops)

With practical, hands-on training from Script to Screen

Venue: Suchitra Cinema & Cultural Academy

 

Resource persons include:

1.HN Narahari Rao, author; Artistic Director, BIFFES; Secretary, Secretary FIPRESCI India; and formerly President, Federation of Film Societies of India

2.Prof. N Manu Chakravarthy, author and National Award winning film critic

3.MK Raghavendra, author and National Award winning film critic

4.Prakash Belawadi, journalist, theatre person and National Award winning filmmaker

5.Vinod Raja, cinematographer and documentary filmmaker, FTII

6.Abhiruchi Chandru, actor and director

7.Former CFD trainees

 

Eligibility:

Minimum age 16 years; Ability to speak, read and write communicative English;

Trainee scripts will be shaped for a professional shoot by our trainers by the end of the course.

Course Fee: Rs 15,000/-

Applicants must register for the course before October 18, 2012.

 

Camera equipment for shooting & Final Cut Studio for Editing will be provided by CFD.

Trainees will have to bring their own mini-DV tapes to shoot. They will have to bear costs of shooting – including professional help/location/sets/lights/costumes and properties.

To register, write to: info@suchitra.org

Suchitra, 36, 9th Main (BV Karanth Road), Banashankar II Stage, Bangalore 560070

Phone: 267 11 785

 

TIMETABLE – 15 Weekends

Sat, Oct 20/11:00 AM – 1:00 PM/Introduction to the Course/ Prakash Belawadi: 2:00 PM – 5: 00 PM World Cinema – Early Years*/ HN Narahari Rao

 

Sun, Oct 21/11:00 AM – 1:00 PM/Screening & Discussion/ Documentary ‘WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE’; 98/ min/USA /2005/Dir:Robert Greenwald/Panel Discussion

 

2:00 PM – 5:00 PM/Indian Cinema – 100 Years*/HN Narahari Rao

 

Fri/Sat/Sun/ Oct 26-28/ Film Appreciation: POSTWALL* (see note by MK Raghavendra further below)/ Cinema of the Former Soviet Bloc (12 FILMS): The first 4 of 12 films will be screened between Oct 26 and Oct 28. The films will be introduced by MK Raghavendra on Saturday, with context and background. The post-screening discussion will be held on Sunday 5:00 PM: Fri, Oct 26 5:30 PM/Introduction by MK Raghavendra/ 6:30 PM – 8:45 PM/ Movie ‘4’/ 126 min/Drama/Dir: Ilya Khrzhanovsky/Russia/2005

 

Sat, Oct 27/3:30 PM – 5:00 PM/Film ‘Taxidermia’: 91 min/Comedy-Drama-Horror/Dir: György Pálfi /Hungary/2006: 5: 15 PM – 7:10 PM/ Film ‘Morphine’/ Morfiy /110 min/Drama/ Dir: Aleksey Balabanov/Russia/2008

 

Sun, Oct 28/3:30 – 5: 00 PM/ Film ”Cargo 200’/ Gruz/ 89 min/Drama-Thriller/Dir: Aleksey Balabanov/Russia/2007/ 5:20 PM onwards-Discussion with MK Raghavendra.

 

Sat, Nov 03/SCRIPT WORKSHOP* : Practical Output – Trainee Scripts: Narratives, Semiotics, Left- and Right-Side Functions of the Brain and How Film is Different from Other Narrative Forms; Prejudice, Race, Gender, Society and Politics (Why they are More Sensitive in Cinema)/Prakash Belawadi

 

Sun, Nov 04/Story, Research, Setting; Location and Sets; Scripting, Dialogue, Casting, Scheduling and Budgeting; Approaches to Non-Fiction; Filming the Documentary

 

 

Sat-Sun, Nov 10-11/CAMERA WORKSHOP*: Practical Output – Trainee Films: Optics, Photography, Still Camera, Motion Picture Camera, Video Cameras, Digital Technology/ Vinod Raja

 

Sun, Nov 11/Lenses, Accessories; Lighting; Camera Axis and Spatial Reference; Camera Operations; Review of Trainee Films/ by Vinod Raja & Prakash Belawadi

 

Sat-Sun, Nov 17-18/ Film Appreciation: POSTWALL-2* / MK Raghavendra

 

Sat-Sun, Nov 24-25/ Film Appreciation: The Director’s Method*/ Focus of directorial techniques; Screening and Discussion/ by Prof. N Manu Chakravarthy

 

Sat, Dec 01/11:00 AM – 1:00 PM/Mise en Scene/Prakash Belawadi

Sun, Dec 02/3:30 PM – 5: 30 PM/Location, Scheduling, Shot Breakdown, Continuity & Edit Notes/Prakash Belawad

 

Sat-Sun/Dec 08-09/Film Appreciation: POSTWALL-3*/MK Raghavendra

 

Sat, Dec 15/POST-PRODUCTION WORKSHOP: Practical Output – Trainee Films:Live Sound, Post-Production Sound, Editing, Dubbing, Sound Mixing, Review of Trainee films with sound CFD Panel

 

Sun, Dec 16/Screening of Trainee Films before CFD Panel of young filmmakers; Discussion with CFD Panel

 

Dec 20th to 27th: 5th BIFFES – Bangalore International Film Festival

 

NEW YEAR WEEKEND BREAK

 

Sat-Sun, Jan 05-06, 2013/Review of Final Trainee Scripts/Group Discussion and On-on-One Sessions/Prakash Belawadi

 

Sat-Sun, Jan 12-13/ACTING WORKSHOP: Practical Output – Auditions & Casting for Final Trainee Films/Improvisation Exercises and Demo by Trainee Actors/Abhiruchi Chandru

 

Sat-Sun, Jan 19-20/SHOOTING OF TRAINEE FILMS/Mentoring Trainees during shooting by CFD Panel

 

Sat-Sun/Jan 26-27/POST-PRODUCTION OF TRAINEE FILMS/Review of Work-in-Progress/Prakash Belawadi

 

Sat-Sun, Feb 02-03/FINAL SCREENING: Review & Certification

 

*Workshops and Appreciation Courses are open to others as independent modules

 

POST-WALL: CINEMA FROM THE FORMER SOVIET BLOC

 

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 marked the end of the Soviet Union and what was called the Eastern or Soviet Bloc. This even came after Communism had dominated the entire region for nearly half a century. This meant that there was a cultural thaw as artists and intellectuals were able to now express themselves as they had not been.

 

It is not that little was known about the functioning of the Eastern Bloc in the West but cinema from the West had largely been propagandist – as part of the American efforts during the Cold War. When filmmakers in the East were unshackled beginning with the Gorbachev era, the consequences were multifold. On the one hand, there was an unfortunate movement towards commercial viability (largely in Poland, Romania and Germany) and on the other, there was a burgeoning of genuinely stupendous talent. Russia and Hungary, with a history of great cinema in the last century, are at the forefront of ‘Post-Wall’ cinema today.

 

People in India are generally not aware of what Russia has done in cinema but Russia has had an extraordinarily rich intellectual history in the 20th Century. Russia has so excelled in music (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev), art (Kandinsky, Malevich), literature (Bulgakov, Mayakovsky), physics (Lev Landau,) mathematics (Grothendieck), literary theory (Bakhtin), theatre (Stanislavsky and Meyerhold) and cinema (Eistenstein, Tarkovsky and Paradjanov) that few countries even in the West can even begin to compare. Moreover, the East has had political experience in the 20th Century that the West has not had and this may be expected to have enriched its cinema. It is this context that these four films have been selected – just to give a sampling to Bangaloreans of the ascendancy of Russia (and Hungary) to a position of aesthetic pre-eminence in world cinema in the new millennium. Needless to add, these films are unlike anything produced in the rest of the world.

 

About MK Raghavendra:

 

MK Raghavendra is a film scholar and a founder-editor of the film journal Deep Focus. He received the National Award (Swarna Kamal) for best film critic in the year 1997. His first book was Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in Indian Popular Cinema (Oxford, 2008). Subsequently he has published 50 Indian Film Classics (HarperCollins 2009), Bipolar Identity: Region, Nation and the Kannada Language Film (Oxford, 2011) and co-authored a book on Puttanna Kanagal with Sri HN Narahari Rao in 2011. His next book 50 International Film Directors is due from HarperCollins later this year. His essays on Indian cinema have appeared in important academic anthologies published in India and abroad (UK, France). He has written extensively on world cinema and his writings on Robert Bresson and Jacques Rivette have been put up on the international websites http://robert-bresson.com/ and www.jacques-rivette.com.

 

Taxidermia

91 minComedy-Drama-HorrorDir: György Pálfi Hungary 2006

 

The Hungarian film, directed by György Pálfi, is a metaphorical socio-political retelling of Hungary’s history from the Second World War to the present day. The story is told by means of three generations of men from Hungary, beginning with a military orderly during the Second World War, moving on to an aspiring speed-eater during the Cold War, and concluding with a taxidermist during modern times. The film has elements of dark comedy and body horror.

A Hungary / Austria / France co-production, the film is based on short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy. György Pálfi’s grotesque tale includes an obese speed eater, an embalmer of gigantic cats, and a man who shoots fire out of his penis.

 

 

‘4’

126 min DramaDir: Ilya Khrzhanovsky Russia2005

 

Two men and a woman happen to meet in a bar. We learn from their conversations both the intriguing and banal details of their lives. But is anyone really telling the truth? From the meat market, to the president’s drinking habit or the soviet cloning project, this allegory opposes different aspects of contemporary Russian society.

Originally conceived as a short film, it was turned into a full-length film after four years of work.

 

 

 

Morphine

Morfiy 110 min Drama Dir: Aleksey Balabanov Russia2008

 

The film chronicles the civil war that raged after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The year is 1917. We are in the Russian countryside. It is the middle of freezing winter. A pale young, newly educated doctor arrives. Having to deal with one medical challenge after another he soon becomes the center of everyone’s attention. To soothe the impressions of human suffering he turns to morphine.

 

 

 

Cargo 200

Gruz 89 minDrama-Thriller Dir: Aleksey BalabanovRussia2007

 

This thriller depicts a negative view of the late Soviet society. The action is set during culmination of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1984 and the movie’s title refers to the zinc coffins in which dead Soviet soldiers were shipped home.