This Week

23 Mar '06, 2:29 am

Today a friend sent me an sms asking whether I had stopped blogging. Gosh how I wish I had the time to blog. Wanted to write about the wildest, most fun Holi I’ve ever had, the beginning of a comfortable friendship, the usual emotional shit, and the discovery that I had a Messiah complex not so long ago. But all that was last week…

TODAY I was offered the role of a mother whose twenty-five year old son has just died. Think I will have to wear a white sari and all – good fun! AND I convinced the batch meeting that we need to get the 16 mm exercise postponed by at least a week – right now I am the first to shoot and have precisely one day after the exams for pre-production.

TOMORROW I meet with the director of the dramatic to discuss my role at eleven and find out whether I get to wear the white sari. Meet with the Dean to explain that we need at least one week of pre-prodn. at three thirty.

FRIDAY I act as the bereaved mother and act as assistant director/continuity girl/prod ass for $’s dramatic when I am not required for shots.

SATURDAY, SUNDAY and MONDAY I am full time assistant director/continuity girl/prod ass for $’s dramatic.

TUESDAY I shoot my interview exercise, am still not quite sure what I’m doing for it…

Then a week off to prepare for the exams. THE EXAMS. And then hopefully a week for pre-production else I shoot my 16 mm right away.

I have the craziest team for my 16mm. The Psycho German on sound and the Weirdo Who Talks to No One on camera – I have no clue how I’m going to communicate with him. Focus Pulling by The Pain. The only saving grace is the sound assistant, determined, no nonsense P. All five of us are direction students, so you can imagine the mess it’s going to be. Plus as a bonus, I am the Psycho German’s cameraperson. I swear I will walk off the set, no matter how unprofessional it may be, if he abuses me.

I got to know I was the first to shoot 16mm right after the preview screening of our ten-shot, so the appreciation received for it was short-lived. Immediately developed a stress headache for the next two days. And then the clouds parted and I knew what I was going to do – a take on Alice – working title ‘Vaishali in Vunderland’ with Mary Ann as Vaishali.

I think the magic is with me once again on this one, or according to FTII lore Ghatak’s ghost, cos as I went through the book yet again to relive it, I discovered that the White Rabbit mistakes Alice for his maid Mary Ann…

And then today I got a comment forwarded to my email from someone called Mock Turtle…

M-O-J-O rising!