The making of a filmmaker

The making of a filmmaker

A creative bent of mind, interest in arts and abundant talent alone do not make a successful filmmaker. Mastering the many facets of filmmaking demands professional training and technical skill, and many film institutes that have come up recently are catering to this need. These institutes equip the students with necessary skills that go into the making of a film. Besides the art and aesthetics of filmmaking, students also get to acquire technical expertise and learn the economics of filmmaking.
“Intelligence, observation, creativity and imagination, combined with organisational and analytical skills are essential for a successful screen writer and director,” says Louis Cadier, faculty, screenwriting and filmmaking, Mindscreen Film Institute, based in Chennai.
Moulding skills
A transferable skill, screen writing is a relatively new discipline worldwide, even though filmmaking is much older. A lot is expected of the writer and new ideas are emerging from these young writers.
“Screenwriting is a vocational skill. While many see it as an artistic activity, in reality it is mostly a technical skill,” says Mr. Cadier, who has a postgraduate degree in screenwriting from Goldsmith University.
When Mr. Cadier started designing the course for the institute, he decided that major focus will not be on theory but on practical hands-on experience. “The institute emphasises incredibly vigorous practical training in screenwriting. When one writes well, they are naturally good directors as well,” he says.
At Mindscreen, the intake per batch is 10 to 15 and the participants must be above 18 and below 42 years of age. One needs to be dedicated and remain highly motivated to be a successful filmmaker.
The selection process involves five stages. Applicants must have one of his/her work published locally, write a critical analysis of a novel, watch a film and write a critical analysis of the film, write a one-page profile of a real person whom they know and finally, they also must take a written test where they have to read a newspaper article and write a narrative or screenplay for it.
Screen writers must be able to sell their script and therefore must move away from cliched situations and characters, says Mr. Cadier. Eighty per cent of the students who pass out of the institute find their way into the industry and make a successful career, he says.
Emerging trends
Director Vasanth, who is the chairman of ‘Imaging cinema: Emerging Trends in Filmmaking', organised by the department of humanities, IIT-Madras, from May 6 to 10, says a workshop of this kind will help aspiring filmmakers to learn the ropes quicker. “When there is a whole band of professional filmmakers to help you out, then realising your dreams is not a quite difficult one.”
The workshop will have resource persons from various fields of cinema. Speakers will be directors R. Balki, Abhishek Chaubey, Dibakar Banerjee, and Sathish Kasetti, cinematographers Alphonse Roy and Fowzia Fathima, writer-actor Saurabh Shukla, editor Sreekar Prasad, actor Nasser, and digital photography expert Michael Filimowicz.
The workshop aims at exploring recent trends in filmmaking. A major of chunk of institutes, be it arts or engineering, have made sure film workshops are integral part of their cultural fest. And not surprisingly, the workshops end up being crowd-pullers.
“The love of cinema is in all of us. Some take it passionately, some look upon it with awe,” Mr. Vasanth says, adding “the world of cinema is open to those who take it seriously.”

To register in the workshop, log on to: http://www.imagingcinema.com

Source Link: http://beta.thehindu.com/education/article320963.ece