Watching your own work

On Monday I was in this position- watching my long documentary while showing it to someone who might do our commentary voice. The documentary has been more or less ready since last November, just awaiting the final sign off while the producers quibble over each comma.
Anyway, the point was watching your own work after a while puts you in a unique position of both 'owning' it as the creator and yet somehow developing a distance from it- seeing it almost from a distance. Strange emotions, the usual rush of excitement over your work being seen and appreciated has lessened, and yet its a work that's not been seen publicly, so you do await the response to it eagerly.
Hopefully it will all be over and I'll be able to point to the work and say this is it- love it, hate it, ignore it- whatever.
This is merely to document my emotions now, not what they will finally be about the documentary.

Driving in the mud in Uganda

Watching BBC's 'Top Gear' on TV, the presenters driving in the slushy mud of Uganda brought back memories of our days at Nakigalala in Uganda.
Driving any vehicle used to be an adventure, everything seemed to get stuck on rainy days. It was faster to take a 'boda-boda' (motor cycle taxi) up to our place on top of the hill than the 'matatu'(14 seat van) which we had as our only transport for a long time. The coming of the 4x4 Maruti Gypsy eased life a lot, though even that was 'too light' to cope with the mud on really 'bad' days.
The beauty of it was that in a few hours of sunshine, it would all dry up and you'd wonder what the fuss was all about.
I never really thought the mud driving of Uganda would be seen on international TV, but there it was- on 'Top Gear'. Is the world becoming small to the media?
There was a flip side to the whole East African adventure of course, which made it all feel very unreal to us living in East Africa. But that's the nature of television I guess- its fictional premises 'filmed' on real locations with 'real' people.
Reality TV? Is that the name for these new fictions/works ?
Seems the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction are no longer as they were (do I say good old days?). But were there boundaries ever or is it only a way of naming one's work? Don't really know.

Watching 'The Hurricane'

Had seen the movie many years ago, been very impressed with Denzel Washington's performance, didn't remember anything else.

Then recently, while waiting for a kitchen event- soaking 'dal' or waiting for the pressure cooker to cool, and switch on the TV- somehow reach a movie channel and 'The Hurricane' was beginning. 

This time around, its the sheer elegance of Norman Jewison's directing that caught my eye- the economy of effort and yet keeping your focus as a viewer exactly where it should be. There's nothing to say there's a Norman Jewison 'style' and yet there is clearly the guiding hand or presence of the director.

Its my kind of style, where you sort of get out of the way of the story being told and yet concentrate on telling the story very very intensely. Yes, it has less flourishes than some of the recognised 'autuers' of cinema, but its enormously effective in its story-telling.

Will someone see my work like that, don't know- I've right now been working in areas of content with a very narrow appeal- Asians in East Africa. Yes, I try like hell to see the 'universality' of the subjects, but does it work with audiences?  

Who knows. 

Me and the diary

I can't remember when I first began writing a diary, must have been a long time ago, almost as soon as I could write sentences on my own.
It began with writing in the back of old note books, then graduated to formal printed 'diaries'- the kind that medical reps and insurance agents distribute for free- and my parents would pass on to me.  Much later I began to buy diaries to write in.
But, you wrote to clarify your own thoughts, never to share them with another person- more for yourself.
The only diary I ever shared in public was a film school (FTII, Pune, India), where we used to have to write about the movies we saw for the Film Appreciation course. Dear old Professor Satish Bahadur would glance at them, never really read but only make sure that we have had our share of the course work.
I did use Prof Bahadur's words of knowledge when writing on twitter- he said use the 'film diary ' to record your growth- I did that with twitter, recording the making of a documentary. Of course its a commissioned work, so one needs to be discreet.
Nowadays it seem the moment we write, its assumed that its meant to be public. I suppose that's why we use different words for this form- its a 'blog' not a 'diary'.
All of the public writing is a novelty to me, as much as 'sharing' your 'likes' on the multitude of social media that envelop our lives these days.
But this is the new way of life, like it or not.
So lets flow along and write and and hope for the best- that you won't become the laughing stock for friends and family.

Death and the documentary

When you make a long duration documentary (like I've been doing for over a year now), you know that a certain amount of changes will take place in the lives of the people you interview. But when that becomes death, it really shakes you and shocks you.
One of the key interviews in my documentary was a brother of the senior protagonist, uncle and granduncle to the other protagonists. He was not just an interviewee, he was my guide to the family's past in another town- the old houses they had lived in, the old shops the family members had run- only he knew it all. He was seventy years old, but had applied hair dye for his hair for the interview, put on his best clothes and lovingly spent a day helping me with the documentary. In fact the last shots we took of him and with him were in the corner of the family's graves at the local cemetry.
When we started putting together the documentary, he naturally featured in a prominent role, providing information and even humour with his old world comments.
Now suddenly he is no more, before the documentary is out in public.
Aside of purely personal emotions (he had become close to my wife and myself in that shooting spell), I was left wondering about how to handle the whole issue of death in the documentary.
In this particular project, at least I had his interview- for another person I met him, spent time with him discussed the interview and the next day he was no more. That was pretty devastating.
Another person I met after he declined to be interviewed (saying he was nervous), but we chatted along and I realised how much he would have enriched the documentary.  A few days later he was gone.
Yes, I've read those quotes of Andre Gide: Cinema records death at work. But to actually experience it is a deeply moving and humbling experience.
You realise that its a privilege to do a documentary, to do interviews where people talk- they're never going to be the same again.
The very switching on of the camera is a transcendental act- you're transcending the moment as it exists in time.
If that's not a very very big privilege, I don't know what is.

The First One

After many many years, trying the discipline of writing a bit regularly. Maybe add in pictures etc later. For now, words will have to do.
At a cross-roads now, another of those that keep turning up in life, but one has to hope this one will lead to something/ somewhere better than where I am at right now.
For now, running a small household, trying to keep oneself financially solvent is a job enough. (I am not even trying to think of all of one's responsibilities as an individual.)
Writing in the middle of all this is a job, but I think its time to start doing it regularly.
But, this is the first one- no its isn't like the first step of a toddler, rather its the first step when you start walking after a sickness or injury- tentative, exploring, and then soon you wonder what the fuss was all about.