F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b

We haven’t seen the film. Don’t have much clue about the filmmaker also. So, over to Innuendo’s director Arvind Kamath for all the details. And if you are interested, you can help him and his film.

ABOUT ME – I always wanted to be a part of films as long as I can remember, but was stuck in an IT job and after 9 years of being in IT, I finally quit to get into filmmaking fulltime in Feb 2011. Couldn’t afford a fulltime Filmmaking course, so I started my filmmaking stint in 2008 where I started with attending workshops, (cinematography, writing, Editing etc) then graduated to making a few short films – one short was among the top ten films of 2010 PFC One film festival (here) & another one which I co-wrote won the 2nd place (here), which gave me the courage to do more. So I went on to organize the 2009 Bangalore Screenwriting Workshop which was a huge learning experience and then started making documentaries, corporate films etc.

In Feb 2011, when I quit my job, I setup a small edit suite and started taking post production orders which is my bread without butter today. So all these years while learning, I also wrote many concepts and scripts, some trash worthy, some forgettable and a very few that I was still excited about. I took up one such screenplay which took me 1.5 years to write and Innuendo was born. More of my self indulgent rant is here.

THE PROCESS – Initially I bounced this idea of making Innuendo to a couple of my close friends and they brushed it off thinking it’s just the initial excitement of a struggler. But I announced the project of FB and called for a script narration to people who would be interested to join me. Folks from the Bangalore Indie/aspiring film circle came down. My offer to them was “I can’t pay you any money & I want to make this film with the Rs 50,000 that I have, so join me only if you like the script or connect with my passion somewhere because it’s a lot of slogging for nothing in return really, and if at all the film makes any money in any form I shall share it with you all”. Some wonderful people started signing up, most of them were experienced. One of my closest friends & a very talented chap Bharath MC came aboard. You can see some of his work here.

He was to do the camera, background score, sound, VFX and co-edit the film with me. ADs with experience in few short films which have done the festival rounds, signed up as production controller, location Manager, art director, casting coordinator and sync sound recordist. Once the team was set, we called for an audition and got a decent response of 300 profiles on email and finally 60 people showed up at the auditions. We had our 20 actors selected from a pool of talented young TV/theatre actors active in Indie/short film circle.

ACTORS – Sanjeev & Sruthi went on to do a commercial Malayalam film called “Cinema Company” which will release this year and had done another Indie from Bangalore called “Kya Yaaron”, which will also release soon. Adithi too was a part of “Kya Yaaron” and is now in Mumbai working on a film with a very well-known and talented young director (I’m not supposed to divulge the details). Monish, Khuldeep, Naveen are some of the well known names in the Bangalore theatre circle. We had 2 days of acting workshop and 2 weeks of rehearsals along with a lot of pre-production work like location recce, art framework, shot breakdowns (3 versions of it), sourcing equipments or building them on our own, scheduling the shoot etc etc.

A team of 35 members started the shoot on September 9th and completed it in non-stop schedule of 25days with 3 more days scattered here and there. Then we started post production in the month of November and finished it in April. The film was screened on 21st & 22nd of April for a private audience on an invite only basis & a review by a Cinephile can be read here.

THE CHALLENGES – We too faced our fair share of challenges like every other Indie film. DOP calling in sick with typhoid just 2 days before the shoot, crucial locations which took time due to budget constraints, actors issues due to long hours of shoot, food issues when we were shooting in the middle of nowhere, cop issues during night shoots, health issues due to long schedules sometime 2days and nights continuously and all that jazz.

WHERE ARE WE NOW – We have completed the film and had 2 private screenings to get an initial feedback. Now aiming to send the film to a few festivals and see where it goes and also travel with the film to Chennai & Mumbai in the month of June to have a private screening for filmmakers, Bloggers, Cinephiles, Indie filmmakers circle, aspiring filmmakers and others.

WHAT SUPPORT ARE WE LOOKING FOR – I am looking for venues in Chennai & Mumbai which is cost effective so that I can bring my film there in the month of June. Anybody who could help us with venues which are cheap or free, that would be great. Also, I have created an online fund raising campaign on Indiegogo to raise money to help us send the film to festivals, which is our first benchmark and priority. If we make more money than necessary for festivals, I shall pay my cast & crew and settle the vendor bills.

DETAILS –
Synopsis: – A single mother wanting to rekindle her relationship with her teenage son, trying hard to bridge the gap times have created. A failed writer trying to revive his creativity amidst external and internal conflicts. A group of friends meeting up for a celebration and end up trying to revive an unexpected situation. And how these characters cross paths willingly or unwillingly forms the storyline of the film. This film is an introspective take on life the way it is. It’s about communication issues, creative obsession & self destructive motives.

Genre – Drama

Duration – 125 minutes (festival ready cut)

Language – English & Kannada with bits of(Tamil & Hindi)

Format – Digital (HD)

Budget – Rs 44,700 (spent on production mainly, without paying anybody)

Writer, Editor, Producer & Director – Arvind Kamath

Co-Editor, Sound Designer, vfx & DOP – Bharath MC

Background Music – Bharath MC & Aveer Thakur

Crew – Madan, Kiran, Vishwesh, Prince, Poojitha, Supritha & Kempraju

Principal cast – Sanjeev Nair, Adithi Kalkunte, Kenneth Sebastian, Anjana Ajith, Monish Nagaraj, Khuldeepak & Naveen Kumar J

On IMDB.  On Facebook.

Indiegogo fund raiser campaign page is here.

OTHER LINKS –

An experiment called Innuendo – Rediff

The Reel Mag interview is here.

Coverage on Madaboutmoviez, LongLiveCinema and Indieturf.