Day 577: An Awesome Story...

17 June, 2011

Here is an awesome story. A story that is evolving as I am writing this and which I am thrilled to watch as it evolves. A story about how people walk into each others lives and what beautiful results it can produce.

Some time in 2009, I made a short film called "It's Magic" and put it up on vimeo. A few months later, when I had almost forgotten about it and was busy with my daily life, I received a note from a complete stranger who happened to watch the film, liked it and wanted to know more about the production behind it. Over several subsequent conversations about film-making, films, scripts, dream projects etc., the stranger became a friend. He, like me, had a full time job but was an aspiring film maker and we exchanged ideas, scripts, tips. etc. For the ease of addressing him from here on, I will call him the Film-Guy.

When I started on Mausams towards the end of 2009, I again kept him in the loop with pretty much all the details of its making. He gave me several valuable inputs to the script, shot breakdowns etc. He wanted to be involved in Mausams more in depth but given the fact that he was in UAE and me in Singapore, that wasn't really possible.

During this time, an old friend of mine from school messaged me on Facebook and introduced me to his colleague. This colleague of his is a super talented musician. He plays a million instruments, sings like a dream and composes some out of this world music. My friend suggested that I could consider this guy (whom I will call "Music-Guy" from now on) for Mausams soundtrack. I already had a music composer for Mausams by then, so that wasn't possible but given the great quality of the Music-Guy's works, I told him that I would definitely love to work with him in the future. And we kept in touch from then on.

Then one day, the Film-Guy told me about his short film project for which he was looking for a composer. I immediately introduced Film-Guy and Music-Guy and together, they made a very nice musically intensive short film. I wish I could share it here but unfortunately it is still not available for the public online. But it was to be the beginning of a great long term futuristic collaboration, something which I could not have predicted then.

A few months passed. I was completing my shoot for Mausams when two things happened pretty much at the same time. Firstly, I was editing simutaneously with the shoot till then but got an eye infection due to which I knew I could not keep up with the editing work on top of the shooting, office work etc. That was also the time when the Film-Guy decided to take a break from his work and explore film making full time. Given his interest in involving with Mausams, given that he is taking to film-making seriously and given my eyes were breaking down, I asked him whether he wanted to be the editor of Mausams. Thus the Film-Guy ended up as the editor of Mausams which in turned out to be one of the best things to happen to the film

Several things again fell in place. I completed shoot on August 9, 2010, Film-Guy's brother happened to visit Singapore on August 13, I could send the raw footage via him back to the Film-Guy, Film-Guy and I happened to be in Mumbai at the same time on October 1 (me - on a business trip, he - on his shifting to Mumbai as part of his break for film) which enabled me to watch the first cut edit of Mausams together with him etc. etc. This was also followed by Film Guy making two extended visits to Singapore to work on Mausams after which it was premiered on April 1, 2011.

Quite a journey, that.

But what also happened after the journey was that the Film-Guy started working on his first feature film, which is currently in scripting and pre-production stages. And, it has also the Music-Guy composing for it.

A lot of the above story has been written on this blog as and when it had happened. The reason why I have gone back to the beginning and decided to write all this here now, is because today, I downloaded the first few tracks from their collaboration on to my iPod to listen on my way to work.

And I was blown away.

The Film-Guy had explained the scenarios of how they are to be used in the film and when I heard the songs, I could visualize exactly how they are going to look. It was amazing! It was like I could get a glimpse of what lies in the future if this effort gets going until the very end.

It made me think of the story of how each of us ended up in each other's lives in several different ways. How we seem to find each other but without realizing what it means in the beginning. Why certain things happen the way they do. How things fall in place when you want something done. How some beautiful things are created by both the will of man and God.

To me, that's an awesome story.

I am looking forward to the end product, the feature film by the Guys, but more than anything else, I am loving this experience of watching how the different parts of a big jigsaw puzzle seems to be falling into place very nicely.

423 more to go.