This is the second post in the Baseline Wolves series. Link to the first post here.
Out of all the movies I made in the movie-making courses during my undergraduate years in IITK, A Day in the Life is closest to my heart. Though it is a bit difficult for me to explain why. It could be due to the personal nature of the story. It could be because when we started thinking about this movie, we were bursting at the seams with ideas. This was the first long (10+ minutes) movie that we made in the course, and hence it gave us the opportunity to put many of those ideas to the test.
The Story and Cast
The assignment was to show the life of an entity for a day. This could be a living person, like a teacher or a student, or even a tree or a piece of rock on campus. Following an inanimate object and giving it a personality would have been interesting, but we decided to follow an IITK student as we had many ideas and jokes we wanted to use in a college setting.
At this time, I was absolutely in love with the TV series Scrubs and it was the main inspiration for the plot. I wanted to capture the fuzziness that good episodes of Scrubs bring out. I wanted to have three or four parallel story lines which merge in a meaningful and poignant way in the end. I and Saketh were writing the script, and we decided that the main character would solve problems that his friends bring to him. To give the plot a little twist, we wrote it so that the main character inadvertently causes the problems in the first place.
As we were not a super-rich production house, we could not afford to have a round of auditions for casting. Instead, we went around asking our friends to join and act in the movie out of the goodness of their hearts. We were too lazy to think of fictional names for the characters, so we decided to use real names for the most part (except for Savita, who plays a girl called Mira, don't remember why!).
So, the main character was played by yours truly, and Aditya, Shashwath and Saketh were the three unfortunate people whom I would rescue in the story (after putting them in trouble myself, of course). The next step was to think of the problems they could have. So, we wrote Aditya as a bright student who misses an exam, Shashwath as a devil-may-care truant who hides his bad marks from his family, and Saketh as a hopeless romantic who can't express his feelings towards Savita (Mira), a girl he likes.
Now came the most challenging part of the writing. We had to figure out how my character (Ashish) causes these problems for his friends. We made Aditya and Ashish roommates and decided that Ashish would turn off Aditya's alarm accidentally making him miss the exam. One down, two to go. We then decided that Ashish would get a phone call from Shashwath's mom inquiring about him and Ashish would unknowingly spill the beans about the exam papers being shown. Two down. Saketh's problem was a bit difficult to weave in the plot. But in the end, we decided to use that classic element of humour, the switcheroo. Ashish would accidentally give Saketh's gift to Savita on her birthday. This will make Savita avoid Saketh and force him to express his feelings. Mission accomplished.
The Dialogue and Music
After we finalised the structure of the plot, most of the dialogue came rather quickly. We wanted to show the audience the different types of crazy people you might encounter at IITK, as well as the ebb and flow of a day here. Through our main character, we wanted to show the audience all the usual IITK meet-up spots: the Hostels, the chat stalls and MT, of course. (MT is the place on IITK campus where you get tea and cigarettes at 4 in the morning, from 5:57 in the movie)
Some of my favourite dialogue in the movie is during the "saying things that make no sense" scene in the first half (2:40), because it encapsulates the various kinds of characters you might run into in IITK, which makes it such a fun place to live. I also like the "84 mm at a time" dialogue at the MT, (6:25) kudos to Mohit for that.
I've got to say, writing the dialogue is one of the best parts of making a movie (as long as you've decided the plot beforehand). The thrill of creation really comes alive when you are writing the dialogue. You can glorify the things you love (cryptic crosswords, Arrested Development and gaming) while making fun of the things you hate (Himesh Reshammiya, sadistic professors and KSBKBT), all in your own special and stylish way with your own music playing in the back. The sense of freedom is exhilarating.
I've got to say, writing the dialogue is one of the best parts of making a movie (as long as you've decided the plot beforehand). The thrill of creation really comes alive when you are writing the dialogue. You can glorify the things you love (cryptic crosswords, Arrested Development and gaming) while making fun of the things you hate (Himesh Reshammiya, sadistic professors and KSBKBT), all in your own special and stylish way with your own music playing in the back. The sense of freedom is exhilarating.
As far as the music goes, I and Saketh were (and still are) huge CCR nuts. Bad Moon Rising had a nice, relaxed groove which fit well with the light first half of the movie. In the second half, we wanted a more emotional and fuzzy song. Aditya suggested Collide by Howie Day, which was incidentally used in Scrubs as well. We tried it and it fit great.
The Movie
It's been around six long years since we made A Day in the Life but many happy memories of creating it are still fresh in my mind. And I would like to thank all the people whose contributions made this possible, where ever you may be now.
Link:
