Amongst other things, I teach Film Direction, in my hometown.
The place where I teach had sprouted up at some point in the 2000s, when most of the mushrooming of private education seems to have happened in Western Uttar Pradesh (though I can't be too sure of this). Which means that while this is not a coaching class kind of scenario, it is not quite the Film and Television Institute of India, my alma mater.
One of the problems I have had in the past is that the students just don't have much exposure to cinema of any kind. Up to now I used to let them choose a few movies that they thought were 'good' or 'interesting' and then analyse them and discuss them with the students to help them grow some knowledge of cinema. The method did work as the students did come to appreciate a bit of cinema.
This year I thought I needed to stop this and just go straight into classical cinema, begining with Satyajit Ray.
As it happened I got a bright bunch of students this year, so they grasped the classical bits of cinema very well. And I got bold enough to try another experiment- I started teaching them using Gurudutt.
I showed 'Pyaasa' and 'Sahab, Bibi aur Ghulam'. We went over the structure, pointed out details from VK Murthy's incredible camerawork, analysed Gurudutt's shot taking and editing choices. Then I turned to teaching them about misc-en-scene and art direction pointing out the details from Gurudutt's work. Oh, it was all very clear, clearly Gurudutt's magic had implanted images in their mind and that helped them understand aspects of cinema.
I realised that my students here belong to the Hindi speaking areas, so their appreciation of the nuances of a movie is that much greater with a Hindi movie. That really helped with Gurudutt.In addition to this, all the students had a knowledge of Gurudutt prior to coming to study filmmaking, they were already 'fans' of the movie- Gurudutt is a part of Hindi cinema's folklore. So I was able to build on a body of knowledge that they already had, which has given them enormous confidence in themselves and their knowledge of cinema.
Now we move to Satyajit Ray, but I want to show them more Hindi cinema first- I want them to get more confident with their own movies. I believe that this way the students can place themselves much better within the traditions of their own cinema.
I think my students agree with this, so we're onto something. Afterall most of these people want to work with what we from FTII have always termed 'mainstream cinema'. So its best that we learn to appreciate the traditions of this cinema. And those traditions have a lot to do with Gurudutt.
The place where I teach had sprouted up at some point in the 2000s, when most of the mushrooming of private education seems to have happened in Western Uttar Pradesh (though I can't be too sure of this). Which means that while this is not a coaching class kind of scenario, it is not quite the Film and Television Institute of India, my alma mater.
One of the problems I have had in the past is that the students just don't have much exposure to cinema of any kind. Up to now I used to let them choose a few movies that they thought were 'good' or 'interesting' and then analyse them and discuss them with the students to help them grow some knowledge of cinema. The method did work as the students did come to appreciate a bit of cinema.
This year I thought I needed to stop this and just go straight into classical cinema, begining with Satyajit Ray.
As it happened I got a bright bunch of students this year, so they grasped the classical bits of cinema very well. And I got bold enough to try another experiment- I started teaching them using Gurudutt.
I showed 'Pyaasa' and 'Sahab, Bibi aur Ghulam'. We went over the structure, pointed out details from VK Murthy's incredible camerawork, analysed Gurudutt's shot taking and editing choices. Then I turned to teaching them about misc-en-scene and art direction pointing out the details from Gurudutt's work. Oh, it was all very clear, clearly Gurudutt's magic had implanted images in their mind and that helped them understand aspects of cinema.
I realised that my students here belong to the Hindi speaking areas, so their appreciation of the nuances of a movie is that much greater with a Hindi movie. That really helped with Gurudutt.In addition to this, all the students had a knowledge of Gurudutt prior to coming to study filmmaking, they were already 'fans' of the movie- Gurudutt is a part of Hindi cinema's folklore. So I was able to build on a body of knowledge that they already had, which has given them enormous confidence in themselves and their knowledge of cinema.
Now we move to Satyajit Ray, but I want to show them more Hindi cinema first- I want them to get more confident with their own movies. I believe that this way the students can place themselves much better within the traditions of their own cinema.
I think my students agree with this, so we're onto something. Afterall most of these people want to work with what we from FTII have always termed 'mainstream cinema'. So its best that we learn to appreciate the traditions of this cinema. And those traditions have a lot to do with Gurudutt.
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