Headline :The winding road leads to Indie film making

NEW SUNDAY TIMES-SHOWTIME
Date :17/04/2005
Page :04
Byline :By R.S. KAMINI
Type : Entertainment

The winding road leads to Indie film making IT was a rush job to get his first short film completed but it was worth it for Kannan Thiagarajan. R.S. KAMINI talks to the fledgling film
maker about his passion.

HE had set his eyes on being an engineer when he was in school but found his true calling as an independent film maker when he was in university.
For Kannan Thiagarajan it was a little bit of luck, some sacrifices and a lot of hard work, and dreams do come true.
The 26-year-old produced a short Tamil film entitled Chittapa (uncle) on a tight deadline and an even tighter budget earlier this year.
He counted himself lucky when his effort was noticed by another indie filmmaker, Amir Muhammad.
His work was screened along with other indie films at one of the Short Film Screenings at HELP Institute recently.
Kannan's film, among others, received good response from the crowd comprising mainly students and members of the public.
Chittapa is about a suave playboy, Raghu (played by C. Jayaretnesh) who meets Nisha (Kavitha) during an Internet chat.
They become close only to find out that she's his older cousin's daughter. It's a boy-girl relationship which could happen to anyone.
But something happened along the way to the editing room and Chittapa turned comical.
Two extra characters, a girl with a yellow umbrella and a frustrated man pushing a motorcycle, added that odd sense of humour to every scene.
"I never expected people to embrace the script, what more be amused by it," said a bemused Kannan, who is from Port Dickson.
Kannan said he has always enjoyed watching movies from young and by 13 he was able to draw his favourite celebrities to be published in magazines.
But Kannan who excelled in maths and science in school was not an arty type at all.
"Whenever anyone asked me about my ambition, I would tell them that I would graduate as an engineer. Everything seemed to be headed in that direction," he said.
But as circumstances would have it, he enrolled at the Multimedia University, where he pursued his degree for Film and Animation and met his now best friend, the director of Chemman Chaalai, Deepak Kumaran.
"I dreamt of making my own movie before I completed my degree and went on experimenting on several projects but dropped them half way through due to study schedules and lack of finance," said Kannan.
Until the Astro Vaanavil's Short Film Competition came about, he never made much effort to complete any of his projects due to mainly lack of finance.
Chittapa was originally intended for the competition but the pre-planning took weeks and he was left with only one week to shoot and submit the piece to Astro.
He almost gave up when he missed the deadline but Astro extended it. "I worked round the clock to get Chittapa done.
"I almost went crazy chasing people who could rent me equipment as well as act for me."
With a tight budget, he asked his close friends to act for him.
He met with disappointment as his effort was not shortlisted for the Vaanavil short film competition.
"It did get me down but I believe that when one door closes, another opens.
"Amir Muhammad noticed my work and shortlisted my film for screening at HELP Institute," added Kannan.
Chittapa is based on a true story.
"The script was written based on someone's personal experience: I'll let you speculate on that," he said.
As a first-time producer and director, it was indeed a learning process for Kannan.
"I had to learn the techniques of shooting, handling the camera.
"I had also to learn the art of being nice to my crew, especially when I had to retake one scene over and over again."
During the screening, he sat quietly with the crowd.
"To be honest, I didn't know what to expect and since it was in Tamil, I wasn't sure if the audience would be able to keep up with the story.
"But I felt that I had achieved something when people came to me and said, 'Job well done'."
- nsunt@nst.com.my
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