Kamal haasan's screen-writing workshop

Long time. I would not blame it on the lack of time, but my lack of interest & most importantly LAZINESS. But eventually I had to write a blog because something very important had happened in my life. YES! I attended a screen-writing workshop conducted by none other than the great Kamalhaasan. I had the opportunity to spend 6 days in the same auditorium with him & I was a part of a 250 member team, who got the chance to learn something wonderful.

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When I applied for this workshop, I only had a faint hope of making it thru' & I wrote the synopsis of "Salangai oli", my favourite film (the synopsis was the selection parameter along with your resume). There were close to 2000 applicants & I was fortunate enough to be selected among the 250 candidates. Even after getting selected, I was in a dilemma for almost a week, if I should attend or not because of my tight office schedule. I did make a decision of attending it after a lot of consideration & BOY! what a decision it turned out to be, atlast.

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It was an outstanding workshop conducted by Anjum Rajabali (Pune film institute), Hariharan (Chennai film institute) & Atul Tiwari(Mumbai script-writer). Kamal was there thru'out all the days & sessions. The workshop would begin by 9am & go on till 6pm everyday, after which an acclaimed international film would be screened in a different auditorium. Inbetween there would be a lunch break & 2 tea-breaks. There were people from all parts of India, people of all age groups & belonging to different industries. But there was only one language that we all spoke for the 6 days: the language of script-writing & films. It was amazing to see the kind of respect & admiration these people have of Kamalhaasan. He was almost like a Demi-God for most of them (including myself) & they were treating him like royalty.

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In the workshop, they covered diverse topics abt the art of screenplay writing & saw to that the session does not get boring by showing us a lot of visuals. Kamal would also talk abt his films & share his knowledge often. He was very down-to-earth (surprise!) & was easily accessible. He had tea with us in the same pantry & anyone can approach him & talk to him abt his films, beliefs etc. Infact I had a one-to-one session with him for 90 seconds inside an empty pantry & you could not even imagine my joy during those moments. Kamalhaasan looking at me (& me alone) & talking to me, answering my question(s) with a smile. It was like a dream. I asked him 2 questions - Why did you choose archaelogy as the profession for RAM in the movie Hey Ram, since it did not have any connection with the movie? - If you were to make the movie today, would you do it differently? He gave me some amazing answers, but truly speaking, I was not concentrating as I was in a state of trance. BTW, almost all the participants wanted to ask Kamal questions abt 2 movies only, Hey Ram & Anbe Sivam.

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One interesting thing happened on the 3rd day. While Mr.Hariharan was conducting a session, he took some situations as examples to explain the principles of characterisation & characteristics. While doing so, he gave us a situation like this - ' An elderly person working under a young lady boss catches her red-handed for doing some malpractise in the job ' . He went on to define abt characters, habits, traits etc , but my mind started to assess the situation & slowly a short story formed in there. I skipped the 6pm movie that day, came to office, typed the story in a screenplay format & took 2 copies(hard copy). I went home only by 11pm that night from office.

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Next day, I was waiting for the right opportunity to give my script to Anjum & Hariharan (I was scared to approach Kamal). I did find a suitable opportunity when they were alone & gave them the hardcopies. Anjum read it then & there itself and he was surprised that I came out with a script in such a short notice & that too he said was a decent script. (Hariharan never read it till the last day of the workshop). Infact Anjum approached Kamal with my script & they were seen discussing looking at my papers. I was watching it from a distance & I was perspiring profusely that Kamal might just take it & read it. But it never happened & Kamal just nodded his head and went on stage to announce that the next workshop would be an advanced one on screenplay writing & 30 students among us would be short-listed based on a short film script that we should be submitting. Till this moment, I do not know that if my script was the one that prompted the idea of short film screen plays (Now he has already announced it & has given all of us the topic "Chennai" to make a script on).

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I didnt leave it at that. The next day, I gave Anjum another hardcopy of the same story with a different ending. He, although, liked the first one only but nevertheless appreciated me. He did point out some flaws in my writing & my characterisations. Some of his points made sense & some didnt (to me), but I did not have time to discuss more abt it, personally.

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I made few friends there, I mingled with different groups & most of the times I just kept quiet & was only observing things. Few sessions were, ofcourse, boring but on the whole it was a great experience. I learnt few nuances abt film making & got exposed to some renowned film-makers & some fabulous international films. Abt screenplay writing, I found out a secret on the second day itself : ' SCREENPLAY WRITING CANNOT BE TAUGHT '. Its more of your common sense & your intellectual ideas transforming into intelligent scenes. These things cannot be taught, especially in 6 days. But we can learn them only by watching a lot of good films & reading a lot of good scripts. And thats exactly what I have started to do now.

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I also have to mention the professional manner in which the entire workshop was conducted. it was inside the IIT campus & the hall, food, service, co-ordination & everything made it look like an international business meet. Kudos to the IIT staff & Rajkamal team for this fantastic effort.

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The last day of the work-shop saw many celebrities like Shekar kapur, Rituporno, Shyamaprasad, Balachander, Balumahendra, Rakesh Ommehra, BharathBala, Ameer, Dharani, Balaji sakthivel, RadhaMohan, Sreeram Ragavan, a couple of American script writers, a French writer & many more (Kamal seems to be having amazing contacts all across the world & they too respect him just like the Indians). The final moments were very touching with Kamalhaasan asking us all to "prepare to bleed in order to take Indian cinema to the next level". Infact he mentioned that he has been bleeding for the last 20 yrs & is prepared to bleed the next few yrs also for the same purpose. Amazing guy. There was a thunderous applause at the end of the day, especially for Kamalhaasan as he had pulled off something unthinkable. What an initiative! As Balumahendra mentioned, even if 1 or 2 of us(participants) go on to make some path-breaking scripts, this workshop would have served its purpose.

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I can go on & on abt this experience,but most of the things I experienced there cannot be explained just like that. It takes time & better sense of writing to do so. I would always be treasuring these days in my heart & I sincerely hope that I go on to make full use of whatever little knowledge I gained during these fantastic 6 days. These are some memories which will stay with you always & you can talk abt them with people forever, till you die. Take a bow, Mr.KamalHaasan ! You are a real life hero.. Unlike many other fake ones....

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BTW, I would be posting the script I wrote in a couple of days. Dont worry guys, its a short story & you can read it within 5 minutes. Till then....

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