The Chronicles of Happiness (Process)

Introduction

The entire process of ideating, scripting, shooting and editing ‘The Chronicles of Happiness’ initiated with two ever-consistent prerequisites; doing what I am confident about and secondly, using the available resources and constraints (be it distance, time difference, locations, crew or others) to our advantage. The ideation of ‘The Chronicles of Happiness’ began in the first week of July, where I got in touch with some of my theatre colleagues from ‘Pierrot’s Troupe’ back in India and we decided to produce some content that would not only keep us occupied in such unprecedented times, where one can’t perform in open space or produce an audio-visual ensemble content, but will also push our creative boundaries.

The idea of the short film had been subconsciously cultivated over last 5 years, where after achieving all the desired accomplishments or the goals I had set for myself, there was this unmanageable sensation of futility, dissatisfaction and thanklessness that dwelled in me and my surroundings. I was brought up in Mathura, a small town of India, where I did my schooling. While I was striving to excel in the academics of the last year of school, I had planned to go for the prestigious Delhi University that held high rankings and was famous for its courses, co-curricular activities, cultural societies, faculties, students, and most importantly, college fests, which witnessed an array of actors or singers coming and performing in the fest.

I was deeply moved when I made it in one of the colleges of Delhi University, but that exhilaration lasted for a week or so and then it gradually faded away. The University became a daily chore and lost its excitement. I joined the Theatre society. The exhilaration rejuvenated but again, didn’t last for more than a couple of weeks and that is how everything that grabbed my attention initially faded away as soon as I started dwelling my attention to it. The college fests that I was too curious to be a part of were something I never attended throughout my college life. I left the Theatre group. My attendance reduced. Basically, the entity of happiness faded as soon as I touched things that made me happy in the first place.

While I was in the last year of my graduation, I planned to opt for master’s in mass communication and narrowed down to several top institutions of India, with AJKMCRC (Asia’s best Mass Communications Institute) being my top priority. I appeared for all the entrance exams but eventually didn’t make it through in any of the institutions. I dropped a year and continued my diploma in German language, something that has long lost its excitement and oomph.

It was in the consequent year when I got selected in AJKMCRC and my happiness knew no bounds. I was delighted with the very thought of being a part of the same institution that cultivated some of the best filmmakers, journalists, actors and writers of the country. I felt too grateful when I listened to the faculty and indulged myself in group activities. But again, as it has always been, the exhilaration faded away and every activity that made me feel proud of myself or happier in the simpler sense was wrapped in the garb of banality and soared south as run of the mill routine.

To interest and offer myself something new to hold on to, I joined a professional theatre group, and again the same sensation unfurled. I had linearly achieved everything I believe my younger self back in Mathura would have thought of, but I wasn’t content with any of the accomplishments in the bigger sense. Everything; my college, my theatre group, my oeuvre of written works, everything had a glimpse of happiness but that feelings never lasted long, and as the time passed the frequency and the stability reduced profoundly.

Last year, when I had cultivated the idea of going abroad for studies, and narrowed down to England, I was thrilled with the idea of learning a new culture. The calmness, synchronised chaos on the streets and politeness of the people, precisely, made it a fruitful experience, but deep down subconsciously, I knew I am not happy with what I have and I am not happy with my growth and accomplishments either.

These perennial sensations of banality and ingratitude were not acknowledged till the time I started talking to my friends back in India. During those long video calls, my friends from the Theatre would tell me how blessed I am to have such a supportive family, such reliable resources, endless opportunities and envious talent (which I get deeply uncertain of, at times). It is when I look from their perspective that I realize how happiness has always been a mirage and it would always be. ‘The Chronicles of Happiness’ traces the ‘joyous’ lineage of two characters, Kundan and Jatin and in my opinion, portrays a contrasting picture of our futile attempts to discover happiness and serene sense of acknowledging it.

Pre-Production

The ideation began during the first week of July (July 6, precisely) when I started encapsulating the idea in the form of a concept note and worked on both the characters, namely Kundan and Jatin. While deciding the characters, I dwelled on the idea that our surroundings cultivate our mindsets. Consequently, the character of Kundan, a 17-year-old lower-middle class Dalit was initially written in such a manner that it would represent the hardships and discrimination faced by his caste. Jatin on the other hand, was envisioned to be a flamboyant, street smart boy in contrast of Kundan’s book smart persona. The baseline of Jatin’s character was conceptualised to be a character who doesn’t involve his thoughts much in the uncertainties of the future.

(1st draft feedback by the team)

However, it was after the first draft that when the team (namely Aryan Pratap Singh, Hemank Soni and Gyanesh Sharma) sat down to discuss the script, it was mentioned that the plight of Kundan’s caste is taking away the focus from his persona and giving his character more priority to his public identity rather than personal. It was also stated during the discussion that Jatin’s character is not coming across as street smart as it lacks the sharpness, dialect and wit that usually people of Mathura have.

The Sequence of the Story:

The sequential narration was the most tedious part of the scripting not only because it was the first step to give a shape to the script, but also because the sequence of occurrences in the film would have been more or less the same from the first sequential draft. It was important to give the both the characters equal screen time as they get to share their stories equally. It was also important for me to keep the anecdotes in such a way that they balance the emotional polarities. I aspired to juxtapose the sequences of Kundan’s hardships with Jatin’s carefree anecdotes as, in my opinion, it didn’t only heighten the contrast and perspective of both the characters, but also gave a hook to the audience. As shown in the next image, I had initially focussed on Kundan’s father’s profession, and the questions about ‘fear’, ‘religion’, which were later scrapped from the final draft as they digressed from the main theme and didn’t allow the characters to dwell on the important themes of the movie.

(First draft of sequential occurrences in the film)

As I worked on the sequential narrative, I also figured out how I would shape my characters and what is required of them. I focussed on the socio-economic background of the characters, where I planned to make them distinct in relations to each other but at the same time, they are bounded by the same element of joy that they either make peace with (Jatin) or keep striving for (Kundan).

Script Drafts:

(Character description – Kundan and Jatin)

After getting done with the first draft, the team would sit down and discuss the shortcomings of the characters, plot, dialogues and themes of the film, which would then be incorporated in the next draft. The team would regularly meet within a week or so to discuss the changes and come up with suggestions to make the film more concise and expressive in the context of the topics it is trying to cover.

(List of elements that were supposed to be resolved in the second draft)

As the team would sit down and discuss the script from hours and hours on WhatsApp video call, my teammates would point out the things that in their opinion can be either improved or changed for the betterment of the film. During the first draft, things like dialect of Jatin, dialogues of the characters, social depiction of the characters were some of the elements that required changes.

(List of changes on the 2nd draft)

It was after the discussion of the second draft that we figured out that Kundan’s character is too monotonous and doesn’t have an engaging quotient as Jatin’s character has. I conceptualised the entry of Kundan’s sister, Mamta (played by the sister of the actor portraying Kundan) who would shed some light on the things that Kundan, being an introvert wouldn’t talk about. Even after that, when the character of Kundan was coming across as monotonous, I planned to come up with a subplot where Kundan is writing a letter to Amitabh Bachchan, one of India’s greatest actor, as Kundan’s father is his big fan. Kundan is trying to get a letter back from Amitabh Bachchan as a gift for his father on his birthday, which not only hooked the audience in my opinion, but also elucidated Kundan’s benevolent attribute.

(excerpt of the Amitabh Bachchan sequence that is not used in the movie)

However, once we completed the final edit of the film, we had the choice to either remove the sequence of Mamta or that of Amitabh Bachchan because of the length of the movie. I eventually went with Mamta’s sequence to be kept in the movie because it appeared to be more realistic, emotionally engrossing and surprisingly added an undertone of Italian Neo-realism, where untrained actors perform in front of the camera. Mamta (played by Rachna Soni) being the only sibling of Hemank Soni, who essayed the role of Kundan Jaatav, helped us in the shooting, art direction, and also acting when it was necesassary, considering the fact she is a 17 year old student who had no idea of filmmaking till we shot the movie.

(List of changes on the 3rd draft)

As we progressed with the draft, the list of suggestions thinned, and it gave us an idea of what we were visualising in our heads. As we can see in the above image, the suggestions shifted from the character-based elements to the suggestions of the movie titles. It was after four drafts that we decided to go with the shot divisions (that have already been uploaded on the blog) and begin shoot.

Costumes and Equipment:

As soon as we wrapped up the shooting schedules and shot divisions, we moved to finalise the costume and technical layouts for the production. It was important to depict the story with the characters’ mise-en scene as much as with the script. Kundan’s shots were envisioned to be taken in dim lights with him on the either side of the frame to denote imbalance, whereas Jatin’s shots were planned to be taken outdoors with him mostly in the centre of the frame, which showcased his openness, vastness of the thoughts and balance in ideology. I had previously discussed the camera resolution and frame speed with the team that was decided to be 1080 30 fps for the interview footage (A roll) and 1080 60 fps for the visuals (B roll).

(Left: Asking the team to do a video testing by shooting a video on 1080 30 fps with 16:9 aspect ratio to match the quality and camera work. Right: A homemade light stand, made by Rachna, who essayed the role of Mamta in the movie that was used during the shoot by young Kundan)

(Left: costumes of young Kundan. Right: costumes of young Jatin.)

(Art Direction: list of things that were asked to arrange, which includes torn slippers among others.)

Production:

The production began in the first week of August where I had planned the shooting schedule in such a way that all the three actors were shooting between 1-3 August, which gave me time to concentrate on their shots rather than shooting myself. With the four and a half hours’ time difference between India and England, it somewhat became tedious to manage the shoot at odd hours of the day.

Before going for the shoot, I had asked the actors to make the frame and send me a photo of it on WhatsApp, where I would look at it and suggest the necessary changes in context of compositions, lighting, and angles. After I had told them the changes, they would ask their camera operator (friends or siblings in all the cases) to incorporate the changes and again click a photo of the frame. The frame would be sent back to me and the cycle would go on until we achieve the perfect frame I had envisioned. These are some of the examples of chats I had with the actors during the course of shooting:

(Chats with Kundan: In the left image, Hemank, who portrayed the role of young Kundan is asking me to check the frame. He is explaining why he can’t take the shot in the place we decided as it doesn’t have proper lighting due to rain. In the right image, Hemank is sending me the video of the running shots mentioned in the script and how I am directing him to keep looking in the left from the start of the shot.)

There were times when Gyanesh, who portrayed the character of young Jatin was supposed to shoot at 5 in the morning when it was 1:30 AM in the UK. It was the day when I was supposed to start my shoot. I was fast asleep when I get a call from him asking me to check the frame. I directed the shots, helped him to get the better audio and that’s how we directed the sequences with 7,658 kilometres between us. Below are some images of the conversation Gyanesh and I had during that morning shoot.

(Chats with Jatin: In the image at the left, Gyanesh is telling me that he would go for the shoot in the morning and it’s at 1:33 AM GMT when Gyanesh and I are discussing the frame and working on them. The time window was pretty slim as he had to compose the frame before the excessive sunlight would hamper the lighting in the sequence. In the right image, I am directing Gyanesh to pay attention to the pauses.)

Post-Production:

Soon after we finished the shoot in a week or so, I started with the editing considering the fact that it was my first time I was supposed to go for the out and out editing and I didn’t have much experience with managing the sound design, dissolves, colour corrections etc. So, I had planned to give at least a month for the editing, just to buy some time if my laptop crashes, or if I had to reshoot certain portions.

I had asked my team to drop the footage on my drive under the folder ‘The Happiness Project’ (the tentative title of the film), where they have to rename every audio and video with the shot description and categorise the content in three categories: A roll (the interview footage), B roll (the visuals of the places or sequences that didn’t require synchronised audio) and audio. It was at the time of shoot, when I asked everyone to follow a series of step before they go for a take:

1. Ask the camera operator to start the video.

2. Ask the actor to turn the audio on that they must have kept either on their lap or their pocket.

3. Ask the actor to say the shot description.

4. Ask the actor to clap and then begin the shot.

It was at times that the actors forgot to keep up with the process or didn’t do the drill in the order, which consequently problematised the audio and video sync for me. I also had to ask Hemank and Gyanesh to reshoot certain parts because of the lighting or the audio. Subsequently, the team kept uploading everything they shot on the drive and this is how it looked:

While I was putting the footage on the timeline, I had the question of varying sound design in my mind. Since the mood of the characters was polarised at different places along with the shift of geographical locations not only in context of India but also East and the West, it was important to choose background music that would accentuate the mood and geographical setting of the characters. It took me days and days of research to find the perfect background music because I wanted to go with traditional instruments (flute, percussion instruments like dholak and tabla) that I grew up listening to, to depict Mathura. However, on the other end, I wanted to use instruments like Guitar and Piano to eulogise the Western setting in the film. Artists like Anoushka Shankar, John Deley and Pandit Ravishankar were some of the musicians whose music helped me in getting the right idea of music.