FTII People

As a child what were your early influences towards cinema? Art, literature, graphics, photography?
My early influences were all the Hindi films and mostly where Amitabh Bachhan was present. Sholay is one film that i have seen over 500 times and heard the cassette over 1000 times , may be more. Films by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Raj Kapoor, Satyajeet Ray, Bimal Roy, Ritwick Ghatak were the ones which I got to see the most. Then in school and home and around I had a great no.of bengalis and so Rabindra Sangeet, dance drama and other cultural activities like skits, theatre, was a regular thing. And I participated in one and all. I was not a book worm but liked to read a mix bag of stories ranging from Thakur ma er jhuli to champak or chandamama. But most importantly my grand parents had a great influence on me. Every night I forced one of them to tell me some new jatak Katha and in school I used to narrate them to my school mates. So the influence happened from various sides. Parents, teachers, films, radio, theatre, story books, comics, ramleela, family traditions etc. all had their fare share on me.

How did you first become interested in the performing arts?
During durga Puja, as a kid I was mesmerized by the Kakus and Kakimas doing aarti of ma durga with dhunochi. That was the first performing art form I wanted to master. And later I became a regular attraction in my pada and every year my aarti was a celebrated item no. (hahahahaha). Followed by break dance, disco, bhangra and many more dances.

What steps did you take to train yourself as an actor?
I am born and brought up in Jhansi and there are no real acting schools or very good level of theatre that happens there. But during my matriculation I had decided to be an actor. So I started researching. One of my close friends told me that to be an actor one has to do plays, theatre. So the closest city where decent theatre happened was Gwalior. So i went to Gwalior to do my graduation and simultaneously did stage. But not good enough. Internet was little expensive and not available every where. Had to travel 20 Kms to surf net. So google helped me to get to know about Barry John, FTII, NSD, BNA, and many more acting schools.Post my graduation I joined Barry John’s acting school in 2002 and landed in Mumbai in 2003. Stayed in Mumbai for 5 years and in 2008 I went to FTII to study acting and film making.

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Monday 04/06/2018 : One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman/USA/133min/1975) : NFAI

Tuesday 05/06/2018 : Loves of A Blonde (Milos Forman/Czechoslovakia/88min/1965) : NFAI

Wednesday 06/06/2018 : Amadeus (Milos Forman/USA/160 mins/1984) : NFAI (FTII Copy)

Thursday 07/06/2018 : The Round Up (Milos Jancso/Hungary/90min/1966) : FTII MT

Friday 08/06/2018 : Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (Werner Herzog/West Germany/95min/1972) : FTII MT

Additional Titles

1. Silence And Cry (Miklos Jancso/1967)
2. Red Psalm (Miklos Jancso/1972)
3. Everyman for Himself And God Against All (Werner Herzog/1974)
4. Mandi (Shyam Benegal/1983)
5. Manthan  (Shyam Benegal/1976)
6. 2001 : A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick/1968)
7. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick)

As a child what were your early influences towards cinema? Art, literature, graphics, photography?
There was always something about movies. The action, the drama, the romance. I remember as an army brat we use to often go to an open air theatre every weekend. Trust me I would become very cranky if I were to be devoid of this. And after every movie my father would ask me how I liked it and if it had all the components that, in my opinion, made for a good film – hero, heroine, love, fighting and songs

Life was simple.

How did you first become interested in the performing arts?
I am a dancer at my core. Dancing is my solace. To be able to express all your emotions without words but were mere grace and posture. However my first date with acting was when I was in college. I was part of the dramatic association and it is there were I was able to fuse both and use acting as a medium of expressing myself.

What steps did you take to train yourself as an actor?
I am a post gradute in acting from FTII, and that was my pathsala where iron sharpened iron.

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As a child what were your early influences towards cinema? Art, literature, graphics, photography?
It began with literature given the usual atmosphere in an academically inclined middle class family from Indore. My room-mate was my grandfather, I called him ‘bauji’. His resources when it came to literature was never-ending and that spiked my interest. I was also greatly consumed by graphic novels. ‘rusi lok-katha’ ram rahim, nagraj and all diamond comics characters were my favourites and amusingly enough i ran my little library where books were select, varied and quite a rarity in the area i lived.

How did you first become interested in the performing arts?
Debates, fancy dress competitins and solo performances made for the typical rite of passage for the enthusiast in me just like it does for every aspiring artist in the country, in fact the world.

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As a child what were your early influences towards cinema?
My mother was an avid cinema watcher. She encouraged us, as children to watch movies at home and in the cinema. We would even watch regional movies on Doordarshan on Sunday afternoons and rent VHS tapes too. I was exposed to all kinds of cinema right from a very early age. I guess that, kind of, subconsciously influenced me.

How did you first become interested in audiography? most people don’t know about this field of cinema?
I became interested in Audiography primarily because of music. When I was younger, I was obsessed with music. That obsession led to, wanting to perform and later, record music. Recording music, eventually led me to, wanting to experiment with different sounds – not just musical sounds but all kinds of sounds. Once I got to FTII, I began observing film sound design more closely and was drawn to it.

What steps did you take to train yourself?
I just began noticing things more keenly I think. That’s the only real training I think I have provided myself with. I observe the world around me as carefully as I can. I try and travel, as much as possible, in order to explore newer worlds that I don’t normally have access to. I try and pay attention to people that surround me, so I can see and understand alternative points of view. I think all of this has been part of my training beyond the usual, academic techniques and methods. Besides this, I try and watch as many movies as possible, because that provides me with insights into peoples minds. The filmmakers mind.

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Arri intriduces a complete range of large format system. Bases on a large format 4k version of the Alexa Sensor, the system comprises Alexa LF Camera, Arri Signature Prime Lenses, LPL lens mount and PL-LPL Adaptor. These system elements have been designed to take fulkl advantage of the enlarged sensor while also offering compoatibilkity wiuth existing lenses, accessories and workflows.

Featuring a sensor slightly larger than full frame, ALEXA LF records native 4K with ARRI’s best overall image quality. This allows filmmakers to explore an immersive large-format aesthetic while retaining the sensor’s natural colorimetry, pleasing skin tones and stunning capability for HDR and WCG workflows. Versatile recording formats, including efficient ProRes and uncompressed, unencrypted ARRIRAW up to 150 fps, encompass all on-set workflow requirements.

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Lipika Singh Darai is a graduate in Audiography from the FTII. Apart from sound recording and design, she directs and edits documentaries and fiction films.

As a child what were your early influences towards cinema? Art, literature, graphics, photography?

I grew up in a few small towns in Odisha, mostly watching national TV channel DD-1 and hardly visiting cinema theatres. My father an easy going liberal man, a bank manager and mother, a very strict home maker, waiting for her two girls to grow up so that she could go back to her younger dreams, both being the first generation post graduates in their respective agrarian families. My maternal grand aunt and grand mother, two strong women in my life who lived in a remote village were my family extension and reason for beautiful earthy childhood memories. Around six years old, I started to learn Hindustani classical vocal, painting and occasionally Odissi dance. Training in music kept my mind mostly occupied as my mother was quite particular about my regular Reyaaz every morning around 5.30am, five days a week for years. I was about six years old when my music teacher Late, Prafulla Kumar Das was sixty. Little that I knew, music was shaping a new world inside me. I think, my first imagery from any of my imagination evolved through music, through sound while trying hard to understand what my music teacher was expressing.

From my childhood memory, I would bring out three scenes from three different films which had lasting impression on me. Woman turning into a tree in a deep forest, from the film “Cheluvi”, Man tiger dances on the drum beats and the villagers following him, from the film “Bag Bahadur” and Ajay Devgan, the Bollywood actor’s stunt standing on two running bikes, with loud music in the background from the film “Phool aur kaante”.

I was too busy with people and the world around me that I never got much time to read books, never liked still cameras, those consumer cameras which every middle class families had,I found a camera interfering and only for documentation of family occasions. I was fascinated by my painting teacher who always used to ask me to sketch the time you are in.

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As a child what were your early influences towards cinema? Art, literature, graphics, photography?
I wasn’t allowed to watch too many films when I was growing up.The only films I watched were the regional films that were shown on Sunday afternoons on DD national and during the week long children films festival in my hometown once in two years.Among the films I watched Satyajit Ray’s Sonar Kella left a lasting impression on me.I couldn’t stop thinking about that film for many days after I watched it.

Reading books took up most of my time during childhood. I grew up reading everything that I could lay my hands on as a child – Tagore, Assamese Folk tales, Aesop Fables,Stories from Hindu and Greek Mythology and Premchand to name a few. I was interested in stories of all kinds. Once I finished reading most of the books at home my parents had to get me a subscription in the children’s section in a local library to satiate my appetite

Besides that my mother a self taught artist exposed me to art at an very early age. Besides her Pranab Barua an eminent contemporary artist of Assam played an important role in shaping my aethestics too. I had the priviledge to train under him for a couple of years and spend hours in his house which nothing less than an art gallery. I grew up seeing art around me that made me think and my mentors taught me to question and helped me build my aesthetic sense through experience.

I am also a classical dancer (Bharatnatyam) and was exposed to Natyashashtra by Bharat Muni that lays the foundation of Indian Aesthetics at a very tender age.I guess this also laid my foundation to undertstand the different rasas, bhavas and helped me analyse and understand different characters.

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Anadi is an editing graduate from FTII and is one of the brains behind Human Trail Pictures, and continues to edit as an individual professional as well.

As a child what were your early influences towards cinema? Art, literature, graphics, photography?
I think I’m very lucky to have very supportive parents. My mother and father are both theatre artists and they are associated with IPTA in my hometown of Raigarh in Chhattisgarh. I have always been inspired by their zeal. When I was a kid, a friend of my father’s bought a small mini-dv camera, which he gave him to test and experiment with. That camera got into my hands and I started discovering what I could do with that. At that point it was just amusement for me. Later I got my hands on Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, which my mother got for me. I remember being mesmerised by his brilliance and the simplicity of his work. This is where I started taking cinema seriously. I remember watching a lot of his films and eventually got my hands on many other filmmakers including Georges Melies. I guess I figured what I wanted to do.

How did you first become interested in film editing?
I was unaware what editing was, before I met Mr. Sankalp Meshram. While working with him, I discovered how editing was a creative process, and it was much beyond the technical aspects of it. I started realizing that I really liked the edit room and the sense of calm which prevails there. I also realized it brings me a lot of joy when the film is able to evoke meaning and emotions through the process. I think editing is a very cathartic process for me. I can gradually see things taking shape, and it gives me immense satisfaction.

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One hell of a camera.

Technical Specifications

Sensor Type: 16-bit, 35.5 Megapixel CMOS
Resolution: 8192 x 4320
Sensor Size : Large Format: 40.96mm x 21.60mm (Diagonal: 46.31mm)
Dynamic Range :15 stops
Max Frame Rate : 60 fps at 8K Full Frame (8192 x 4320), 75 fps at 8K 2.4:1 (8192 x 3456)
Recording Codec : 8K RAW with simultaneous 4K proxy (ProRes or DNx)
Recording Media : SSD (up to 1 hour on a single magazine)
File Type: .r3d (supported in RED SDK)
Color Profile : Light Iron Color (compatible with all popular gamuts and transfer curves)
Weight : 10 lbs.