Expecting the Unexpected Delhi based filmmaker ANUPAMA SRINIVASAN shares her experiences of doing filmmaking workshops with children. Her workshop film 'Kyon' was shown at the 7th IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival in 2010.

The question in my head was: How can I make sure that my own limitations don’t come in the way? The first decision I took was that I would not teach. In front of me were 8 youngsters, 12-14 years old, all boys. They were from the Katha Khazana school in Govindpuri in Delhi. I showed them a VHS camera, saying, “This is a camera. This is the record button, this is how you switch on and off, here’s where you look through. Now go and take one shot that for you expresses ‘anger’. The rules: you have to shoot in the school premises, you can have one character in the frame, no sound, you can’t move the camera, and you can’t use the zoom within the shot.” Some children trooped off to plan their shots. Others asked, can we please use the zoom? Can we have two characters instead of one? Can we not move the camera a little bit? Can we not have some dialogues? Can’t we go out of the school? The answer to all these was of course, a firm no. I was doing a ten day filmmaking workshop with them, and I am sure at that time they wondered why they had signed up for this! These restrictions were only for that first shot, but I think it made them value each freedom more later on. They finally ended up making a fiction piece in which they acted as well. The idea came from a one liner that someone shouted out and which we all liked. Then we all sat together to figure out the story, the script, the shot division, the actors, the locations etc. The story was about a boy who pretends to be very quiet and innocent, but who is always playing pranks and making trouble for others. The children were equally enthusiastic about being behind the camera and in front of it. The moment of the

workshop for me was when we were taking the scene of our hero wandering about in the school by himself during lunch break while all the other children are playing and having fun. The shot was of him sitting in a room by himself, pretending to play a guitar and singing a song. We planned the shot and the song, a Himesh Reshammiya song which seemed to be popular amongst all the students. The camera person switched on the camera, the director called action and the hero started singing ‘Bulla ki jaana main kaun.’ We were all surprised at the sudden change in song but we let the shot go on. The instructions were that the actors have to keep doing their thing till the director calls cut. In this case the actor didn’t know any other line of the song, so he sang it a couple of times, then he started making the guitar sounds, and still no one called cut. But he kept at it as did the camera person, and it turned out to be the best shot of the film. Be the first to see what you see the way you see it.* This has been the guiding principle during all the workshops I have done, with children, college students or film students. The topic or idea for the film can be anything, but it’s what you do with it, it’s the way you see it that’s important. The camera holds centre stage during the first part of the workshop. The question that is asked is: Can the camera be used to create rather than record? So it is seen as a tool that helps you express yourself, and that allows you to share with others the way you look at the world. I encourage children to hold the camera (usually a PD 170) in their hand rather than use a tripod. It just helps to make the process of shooting personal and intimate. It also allows them to experiment freely with movements. I try to bring in the technical aspects only as and when the need arises. But one thing I insist on even with 10 year olds is that they have to set the aperture manually. How much light you allow into the lens is a crucial creative choice that you have as a camera person and I feel it would be shame to give that up. Surprisingly, most children get the hang of exposure after using the camera once or twice. The heart of the matter is perhaps to get the order ‘right’. We don’t learn about lenses, focus, aperture and

depth of field, and then figure out what we want to do. We start from the other end. We want to explore something, we want to observe something, we want to say something; and we use the camera to help us do what we want to do. Doing workshops with children and young people has helped me simplify and clarify my own thoughts on cinema. They have also sharpened my skills of observation and concentration. I never accompany the students while they are out shooting non fiction. And I insist that everyone shoots because that is the best part—holding the camera, actually shooting and experiencing the image as it is being recorded. This means that I have to watch the footage shot by anywhere between 4 and 24 students and respond to each of them. Viewing footage is actually the most important part of the workshop. So it is done in all seriousness and the footage is always seen in its entirety—no fast forwarding even if it is ‘bad’ or ‘boring’. This makes each person feel responsible for what he/she has shot. Also, seeing it themselves teaches them more than any body else’s comments can. Children usually don’t envision the final film during the process; they just treat it as an adventure, relishing every part of the experience as it unfolds. I have been utterly amazed by some images I have seen. For me that’s the high—to see something unexpected, something magical. Once a group of students in Bal Bhavan were making a film on the Blind school. There was this shot of a blind man moving around and then interacting with someone within the premises of the school. After a minute or so, he starts walking towards the main gate. The camera person follows him from behind, maintaining a fair distance. We see vehicles whizzing past on the road outside. The camera follows him as he steps out and starts walking. The shot holds as he walks away from the camera with a stick guiding him and the traffic flowing steadily against him. The shot lasted for about 4 minutes. It was like it was an entire film in itself and it was utterly moving. It

was shot by Pushpa, a girl who had seen a camera for the first time five days earlier. I was so impressed with Pushpa that when I got a chance to do a workshop with young people for a UNDP project, I built a group around her and did the workshop in Ghaziabad in her house. This initiative was part of the launch of the campaign for the prevention of gender based violence. I didn’t want to tell that to the students at first. I just said we will make a film together. There were 4 of them, 1 girl and 3 boys, aged 16-18, none of them going to regular school. We started with some small shooting exercises. One of the days, we decided to go around asking people why they get angry. The students got some interesting responses. Then we thought, why can’t this be the film? Can we explore why people get angry and what they do when they get angry? At this point in my inadequate Hindi I tried to bring up the topic of gender and if girls and boys react differently when they are angry etc. They didn’t understand much of what I was trying to say, and they felt that girls and boys did not behave very differently when they were angry. I left it at that. For the rest of the workshop we didn’t discuss it—we got too engrossed in the making of the film! So with no agendas and no preconceived notions, they went about asking people in their neighbourhood about what makes them angry and how they react in anger. They asked their friends, teachers in a school, their parents etc. I used to leave a handycam with them so that they could shoot whenever they wanted to. I would take the PD 170 and go to Ghaziabad to meet the students twice a week. First we would watch what they had shot and discuss it. Then they would shoot a bit on the PD and we would watch that as well. This process went on for 4-5 weeks. Towards the end, one day while we were watching the handycam footage, we were surprised to see a shot of Lokender talking earnestly to the camera. He was one of the students, the shyest of the lot. He had felt that he wanted to answer the same question that he was asking others. So he put the camera on a pile of books on a table, sat in front of it and poured his heart out. We were

all excited to see this and I was especially impressed because we had never discussed this “filming yourself’” idea. He had just done it on his own. After the shoot, we entered the editing phase with 10 hours of footage. We spent the first few days just watching all the material, then making lists of what we all liked. We thought we would put together all the interesting and fun sequences and see what happens. Editing is actually the most tedious part for non filmmakers to sit through. You have to watch the same footage again and again, and it has none of the glamour of strutting around with a camera. It is always tough to keep up their energies and enthusiasm. Once again Pushpa came to the rescue. She soon took charge, made suggestions, asked me politely to shut up while she could watch and think about a sequence. We took 10 days, spread over 3-4 weeks to edit the film to a duration of 17 minutes. We called it Kyon (Why?) and were quite happy with the way it had turned out. But when we had the first screening at the UNDP launch, we were a bit surprised at how much it was appreciated. Though the students themselves hadn’t thought about gender while making the film, it brought up many interesting points of discussion about gender, anger and violence. Subsequently wherever I have screened the film, everyone has responded to the raw energy of the film, and been amazed that it has been made by young non filmmakers. What works for the film is the fact that the students filmed within their own community with people they knew well. It was actually quite an empowering experience for them just to walk around in their locality holding a camera, and even more so to point the camera at their father or uncle and ask them questions. More than a journey, I think for me a workshop is a leap across a ravine. It is the power and magic of cinema that save the day.

_______________________________________________________ * Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer