FTII People

HMMMMM....SMALL LETTERS..PLZ EXCUSE ME FOR THAT....
any ways....but a letter regarding insti students.from my prev batch came 2 me......now i am wondering...is it true...did this happen..or....anyways.....
for me the reactions are very imp...and they flowed..very few but they did..
anybody....ON THIS PLACE FOR "FTII" students wants to say..anything abt the letter...?
there are very nice pts though...but end of it ..is it justified..or just the face of what happning...?
theres lot of talk happening that coz students are working outside..they cudnt finish "the" project on time. i would say...yes i agree to that.
but ...WHY? why students came out of insti....@all even if they were doing there course in inst..
anyways...me waiting for answers......even if everybody knew them....but stillll....why??

Mandy...Sorry but what are you tryin to ask or say..dint get it...can u elaborate or reproduce the letter so that things become clear to respond......

i think everybody got this one whomsoever is on GRFTII mailing list....






FTII - current situation
Posted by: "vinod subramanian" vinod@soundtrane.com dontpro
Date: Mon Jul 6, 2009 11:54 pm ((PDT))

FTII Batches.. And why are they 2 years behind schedule


2004 Batch:

The last few students of this batch have passed out about a month ago.
This batch had started their course on july 12 2007. Between first and second
year they had about 3 months of vacation for reasons unknown. List of teams
according to directors(director,editor,Sound,camera)

1)Arun Sukumar, Dipika Kalra, Anil R, JK(ex. student)
This was the first team to finish their diploma. Still it took them one
year from shoot to finished product. Although anil and dipika did work a little,
it was not much and they more or less worked on the diploma when they had to.

2)Manni, Manoj,
3)Jens, Sandra, Godly, Surjo
The above two teams had problems of a different sort. Here both the
directors were foreign students. The institute did not give them letters to
extend their visas which were for 3 years only. So they had to go back to their
home countries till they were issued fresh student visas. Jens could only come
back after almost 6 months while Manni came back a little earlier.

4)Debashish Medhekar, Monisha Baldawa, Anmol(ex. student), Subbaiah Kuttappa:
This was one of the last teams to finish owing to the director working on
outside projects when his film was not complete. Debashish had set up a
production house and was doing outside assignments including a feature which
later did not materialize. But due to this the diploma was held for more than 6
months. This film was completed just before lensight.

5)Deepak Nambiar, Rahul Boj, Reni Chacko, Alok Shukla:
This diploma was finished just a month ago, almost a year and a half after
it was shot. Most of the delays were due to the audiographer being absent. He
would come and work just for a couple of hours and in many instances not come to
the institute at all and keep the director waiting. He was extremely ill with
renal dystfunction for about two months but the film should have been over long
before this illness had set in. The cameraperson was also working in the
industry and was not available for grading for a very long time.

6)Arun Bali
This student was an editing student, yet he made a diploma as he was very
close to the then director Tripurari Sharan.

7)Debahsish Sarkar,, Anish John
Again, he was an editing student, but as no one wanted to work with him, he
was assigned a seperate diploma. This film was finished less than a month ago.
The director is working as a faculty in the editing department. Infact he was
hired before he had finished his film. The sound person Anish has been working
in the industry and during this film was assisting Vivek(5th year) on a feature
wherein he was not on campus for more than a month.

Neelanjana, Bakul Matiyani, Gunjan(ex. student), Karthik Ganesh:
This project was essentially delayed as the audiographer was an ex.
student and was working in the industry, so it was logical that he was not
available all the while as the institute does not pay much if an external person
is working on a project. The editor had also been working outside and the edit
was delayed as he was not available for any changes to be made to the film.

9)Saurav Dey, Dutta , Milind Bapat, Maulshri Singh:
This project, again, was delayed as the sound person is a faculty at the
institute and so he could not devote all his time to the project.

10)Lilium Leonard, Arunima(ex. student), Ruben(ex. student), Rrivu Laha:
This project had been jinxed from the shoot itself. The cameraperson
refused to co-operate with the director and took an unusually long time to take
a shot due to which at the end of the shooting schedule, less than 50% of the
film had been shot. The director then took another student from her batch and
shot the rest with an extra two day schedule. Again here the sound person being
an ex. student, he was not available all the while.

11)Dipti, , Manik Batra,Ranga(ex.student):
This was one of the first films to be completed and there were not many
delays in the completion of this film.

12)Shraddha, , Saurabh Kumar, Hitesh Thorat:
Again one of the first films to be completed where things happened more or
less on time.

13)Umesh Kulkarni, , Chandrashekhar Sagade, Nitika Bhagat,
this was an extra diploma for Nitika as no student wanted to work with her.
Sadly Nitika passed away before this film could be completed.

In all the last student from this batch completed his film almost 5 years
after his course had started.


2005 Batch:
This is the current final year batch. This batch had spent 18 months in
second year. In the beginning things were on schedule. But in the middle of the
dramatic shoot the printer in the lab broke down. Dramatic being a black and
white exercise, the negatives could not be developed anywhere else. This was
fixed only six months later almost after the dialogue shoots got over. The
dialogues got postponed for various reasons. Three shoots got postponed as some
students were seriously ill.
But there were a few shoots which got postponed because the directors
claimed that they were not ready to shoot at all.
Although students will attribute this delay to problems from the admin,
most of the delays were due to sheer laziness and a desire to work as soon as
possible in the industry.

Here is a brief list of teams whose dialogues have been delayed:

1)Saurabh Shankar, Tanushree, Mandar Kamlapurkar, Debashish Bandopadhyay:
This was one of the last films to be completed essentially because the
director just could not decide on his final cut. The film was in edit stage for
almost 4 months. After this when the edit was locked the audiographer went home
for a week as his parents were moving house and he wanted to help with the
packing. This was just a few days before the final deadline for the dialogue.

2)Dipen Chaudhary, , Akhil Sindhu, Jigmet Wangchuk:
Dipen finished his dialogue as late as February 2009 when he was to finish
in june 2008. His father had passed away in december 2008 due to which he had
postponed his shoot. But he took this to his advantage and kept on postponing
his shoot for a very long time. His audiographer Akhil Sindhu has never been
present on the institute campus for more than a few days at a time. He has been
working in mumbai and rarely comes to campus and yet he has been allowed to
continue with his course. He has been assisting Gyanesh and Kaamod who are
seniors, for some time now. Even for the diploma, Dipen has been granted and
extension and he will be shooting late september when his shoot was scheduled
for June 9.

3)Pierre Friquet, Collin D'Cunha, Radhakrishnan, Jigmet Wangchuk:
While their dialogue film was finished on time, their documentary is YET
to be completed. Pierre has already shot his diploma and yet he has not finised
his documentary which is necessary for completing his second year. His editor
and sound person have been waiting for a long time for him to even decide the
structure of the film. While the edit has been completed, sound has yet to start
as the director simply does not seem interested in completing the film. Moreover
he seems to be of the opinion that as a foreign student who pays a lot more than
local students he is entitled to complete freedom over what he does. His diploma
shoot took over 14 days to complete while the norm is 12 days. His shoot was
postponed as he did not have permission for the location, something which should
have been done a month before the shoot.

4)Suraj Ahirwar, Reshmi Sarkar, Alok Jha, Ujjwal Chandra:
This shoot had been postponed umpteen times simply because the director
was not ready. The shoot happened almost at the end as it kept getting
postponed. The sound person has also been working outside. He has missed several
workshops as he was doing location sound for a feature film. Their documentary
is also not complete as the sound and camera persons were not happy with the
edit and refused to complete the sound post on the edit which the director was
happy with.

Another unprecedented event in this batch being a film being shot without a
director. Dipu, Radhakrishnan and Ujjwal Chandra formed a team without a
director for their playback exercise and claimed that they did not need a
director. The Admin allowed them to go ahead even when the whole batch was
against this.



2006 Batch:

This batch started their second year in Feb 2008. As of now one dialogue
and several documentaries are yet to be completed. This batch did not have any
technical hiccups and yet they have been extremely delayed in completing their
course.

Mr. K.A.Sarkar seems to be out to please everyone so that he can get his
extension and to do this the second year sound students have been given official
shifts on Protools machines which is against the rules for making a dialogue
film. Due to this there is a dearth of machines to be used by the third year
students. The students have taken more than 25 shifts at times to finish a
dialogue film whereas they are allowed only 6. The administration does not seems
to be aware that this is happening.

Just out of curiosity, who has drafted the letter and done the research. Was this a GRAFTII initiative or did it come from the current students?

I believe this letter was written by Vinod Subramaniam. A GRAFTII initiative no doubt and circulating the group.

it is really unfortunate that this is happening in the institute.

but what is more unfortunate is that ftii'ans constantly like to wallow in pathos.

Alog with this well researched document (and the stupendous amount of time and effort it must have taken), I wish the 'well-wishers' had made a similar list of solutions.

A lot is bad with the institute. But a lot is the WORLD'S BEST TOO!

lets look positiviely at solutions and work towards them. I am not on the GRAFTII mailing list (obviously not now) but I am sure this is being discussed. I am also sure not many steps will be taken towards resolving this.

I should think the very act of first identifying the problem areas are a step towards resolving them, so yes, the letter was required.
Since my batch is involved, it affects me all the more. I anticipate that some of the points made will be considered debatable by some of us. Everything said and done, at least we are not brushing the problems under the carpet.
I think it is very obvious what the problem and therefore the solution is. It's upto us whether we want to receive the letter like adults or like spoilt two-year olds who want to contest everything all the time, just by virtue of being genius film students.

Dear Colleagues,
I'm extremely relived to write in this platform, a space of freedom and celebration of the democratic spirit. I truly hope Mister Vinod Subramanian will read my reply. It concerns him on two major points. One concerns a general questioning of his investigation and the second is a direct answer to his calumny.


There is a great mystery around the investigation that Vinod Subramanian has done. Was it a part of his contract ? From whom has he got the order to do so?


On one hand, I must honour the awakening of the administration on the accountability of the students: Accountability is the key to redirect FTII onto good tracks.
and on the other hand:On what basis does he have the legitimacy to sneak in such trivial and personal manner in the personal lives of the students?
A stalker, a bureaucrat, a security guard reporting in the goods and the wrongs of the students?

Batch after Batch, the exact same problems occur. The students join and pass out and the same amount of delays happen.
Isn't it rather intelligent to think that it's the responsibility lays in the people who have stayed since so many years ? This means the faculty members? Some teachers in the department ? Why doesn't Vinod simply critique his colleagues ?

When the assessment of the action sequence happened without the students, of the dramatic and docu (second year's projects) two months before the diploma and of the play-back never took place,
how to have faith in the educational structure?

All leads to my main inquiry: Where is the report of the accountability of the faculty members?


---
This is to respond to this such shocking inquiry of the reasons of the delay. I have been greatly troubled by the comment by Vinod Subramanian made upon me. I think this is a case of defamation. I'm referring to the sentence of his: "Moreover he seems to be of the opinion that as a foreign student who pays a lot more than
local students he is entitled to complete freedom over what he does".
I have never felt so discriminated on the basis of my geographical difference. I'm at the present so emotional about this. Tomorrow I'm "celebrating "my FIFTH year at the institute, a place that gave me so much as a Cinema lover and human being. A true land whose I've been dreaming and waiting for. The term "unfair" has never been so appropriate.
If any deed can be done to stop such misleading judgment.
If any legal action can be taken against Mr Subramanian, I would be extremely relieved. I might even have a word with my embassy authority to inform of the defamation. I can't tolerate my persona and reputation to be spoilt in the GRAFTII mailing list.This remark was unbelievably cheap and Mr Subramanian is superbly ignorant of my integration here. I never thought to be different from any other students because my skin tone and my geographical origin.
Five years here and this is what a faculty member thinks of me.
The last time I've been told that I don't belong here was from our dear local M.N.S.-supporters at one rally on law college road in 2005.

The fact is that our diploma shoot have been a subject of great problems, external factors beyond us (I will spare you the listing). It was the first one to happen because all my class mates haven't felt being ready. Since I have been very restless to finish my FTII education , I opted for the role of the Guinea-pig, going through all the shits that a first diploma shooter goes through: Apathy of the administration, ignorance of some department of the upcoming of the exercise, stricter rules...
We actually gave a favour to the faculty because the direction department was on his knees , simply because a stamp of an early date can be presented by the director when he reports to the ministry. So he prouves the legitimacy of this presence and salary at the institute. So much pressure, meetings among ourselves, with the faculty... we, as a batch have endured.
Anyway we started shooting on the 11th of June. The shoot was postponed by a week due to the medical diagnosis reporting a grave illness of the cinematographer's sister. It was postponed by a week. He was brave and professional enough to go ahead with the shooting.

Mister Vinod doesn't seem to be aware that the initial time given to the students is of 14 days, (10 shifts), until the last batch. But because of the general delays of the batch, this has been brought down to 12 days, after moult protests from our side. This was to save time.
Very smart action! The next one who is shooting is Suraj who just started shooting yesterday, the 10th of July! Usually diplomas go pair by pair, therefore, on paper, three more people could have shot till now. The faculty was okay with that.

One problem of our delay was due to the mistake done by the unit production manager. His lack of rigor led to pospone the shoot of one location, the Pune aiport. He simply forgot to follow a fax, which was just formality. So before going the location, he remembered that he forgot...

Another problem was the Palkhi procession. It happens every year but the production department didn't think they should inform us. They were suprised and apologetic later on. Instead of reaching the location in twenty minutes, the bus sent with the art direction team ,in prior to the shoot, took two and half hours. One million people on the road of Pune.

A major problem was due to the non-granted permissions for our outdoor locations. Three locations in total non-given for arbitrarily reasons by the traffic deputy commissioner of Pune. Again the FTII unit production manager followed up for more than one month and half. And only the day before shooting, we obtained the refusal. All this while, we are just waiting for the commissioner to come back from holidays, from finishing his chai... You know how it works.
So basically we had to find alternatives for all the locations on the spot. In fact, it led to the cancellation of a crucial sequence. We don't know how the story will unfold without it. We are greatly stuck.
This point is a source of bigger issue. How come a FTII diploma project cannot get permission to shoot outdoor locations in Pune. Every year they must receive twelve applications to do so. The whole third year exercises in Sound and Camera is about outdoor locations. If second year projects are about studios, the third year one are about outdoor locations.

One must add the timing. The rain, mister Vinod, the rain !
June=Rain, no ?
By the way, how come allowing us to shoot during the rainy season since cancellation or posponement of shifts are bound to happen?
Even though the dams are getting empty, it still heavily rained twice during our shoots. It delays for some hours that we had to compensate during the other shifts.

There are other factors that rather sound less important now but equitably relevant.


As far as the documentary project is concerned, it's been assessed in March. About the reasons that have been evoked, these are irrelevant of the situation. I simply didn't submit the tape of the docu because I have the feeling the administration is not concerned of the completion or the quality of the exercise. The assessment occurred in March in three days without our demands: None external faculty members were present. The format of the assessment was done in a very casual way (we were asked questions, sitting on the stage). And since I was among the last two docu presented on the last day, only five students attended, and the bare-minimum of faculty members. In fact, Chalta hai, none sound department members were present. Why ? Where was Mister Subramanian, sound faculty member?

i have been hearing this for the past sooooooo many years .. this ping pong between the administration - students and GRAFTII as the referee ..

why is the root cause of all this .. why is everyone so happy everything is in a soup floating because a floating state is good for both the students who delay ( and there is no denial there are students who do ) and for the adminsitration who can hide their short comings on the system and students and everything else is just

"रायता"

this is the word i am using .. intentionally because that is what it is .. a big pool of sour, liquid

"रायता "

there is some thing i was planning to propose to the chairman in the AC meeting as casual proposal , alas i would not be able to do that now .. (that is another topic of discussion )
but never the less i would do it here as FTII people has grown up to be a good medium for healthy discussion ..

somehow people at FTII both students and faculty do not like things that can be measured .. but administration of any institute is no art it has to be run on systems and there are none in FTII maybe here and there .. someone is afraid of measurements and hard work .. this can be solved and has been .. i have seen it with my own eyes .. but one would have to endure a period of chaos and discipline for few years ..

THIS PROBLEM CANNOT BE SOLVED IN 1-2 YEARS

so what is this solution megh is talking of .. something that has to be approved by the GC

Systems Management under the ISO 9001 series

what this is is a big subject , but those who are aware of what it is should get my point .. for a layman i would say .. this would enable FTII to have a procedure and system for everything .. and i mean that and something that would have to be followed strictly under the eyes of the International Standards organization who audit systems from time to time ..
now FTII is not the first institute to do it .. and its a shame that FTII is not already under that program
AIIMS, Indian Institute for petroleum, IIT and so many other govt institutes are there under this program
so why not FTII trust me .. that would solve 80% of the problem and a very special aspect of the ISO system is tracing and accountability ... so that system would pin point .. and i mean with proof and everything to the exact person responsible for anything .. (trust me, i have seen this happen) .. the exact student or faculty member would be pin pointed without ambiguity .

so does that install fear in the hearts of the weak .. YES IT DOES I KNOW IT DOES

the other scientific tool that can be used to manage the problem of FTII project management is

CPM
this is slightly scientific to explain .. but again i would do so that this system defines the critical path that would lead to project delay .. so anyone who comes in that path is accountable .. and every time that path is effected .. there are alarm bells ringing

now most of the "arty" people would be against me using such scientific terminology and planning systems etc etc but they should understand that just as they marvel at the ignorance of the "common folk" who do not know, understand or relate to arts similarly they too marvel at us in the same way .. i guess its high time we need them to solve some of out problem

it is not that easy to implement these as it sounds but it is not that tough too i bet it would not be difficult for FTII through the GC and ministry to get the expertise of someone like Mr E. Sreedharan to help us solve some problems.

all this i was suppose to casually discuss with the director but now i have to resort to writing this in a FTII forum .. as extension to a ping-pong chain of blame game

hope i get my point through

ps: it would be educative if anyone curious wants to google some terms i used up there

hi all
i dont think the kind of reactions vinods letter or whtever you call it is getting,is uncalled for....i think it throws light on some of the things which have always been prevalent in the institute.............my personal opinion is LIVE AND LET LIVE...FTII is too great a place ,and it will always find its way no matter whatever the hiccups are....as far as pierre's reactions are concerned i dont think he is being singled out just because he is a foreign student..the letter stated so many others too....
None of the others has reacted so harshly as pierre has viz.case of defamation etc...i really didnt understand where did geographical differences arise in vinods letter particularly towards pierre,(by taking it to the embassy you are trying to make it ,anyways)...its a senior who is atleast trying to analyse things....take it with a pinch of salt cos all might not be truth, but some is...
As far as ISO 9001 is concerned ......if that brings funds to the institute fine or else LIVE AND LET LIVE.......Cheers

well its not going to get money ... its gonna take a lot .. but it would bring a lot more .. stability .. i know most people do not like that .. they love to swim in

"रायता "

Dear Dara
thank you for your reaction.
With few words you made me observe a different perspective, which, in fact, made me see the matter with a little salt.
I expected a different of point of view of that kind before addressing the issue directly to him or to the graftii mailing list. This platform is healthy for that. Of course my writing and ideas will be certainly more "appropriately written" when I will email him (Mandar by forwarding the email, left Vniod's email id).

I never felt singled out. If the precedent reply showed that, well, I can only claim a misunderstanding.
But the reason of my relative loss of temper in the email is due to a single line. The rest I could deal with rationality and serenity. There is a dissociation between this particular remark and the rest of his report. The defamation concerns the remark, nothing else.

The remark of arrogance is "cheap" (no other words, it felt like someone hitting below the belt. The point is sometimes the person might have a right to punch somebody else but a war rule stipulates, "not below the belt".)
In other terms, Vinod's remark is prejudicial: What will people think if the passed-out students, who doesn't know me, read ("as a foreign student who pays a lot more than local students he is entitled to complete freedom over what he does")?
What if one replaces "foreigner" and "North Indian",
so it will be
as a North Indian who pays a lot more than local students he is entitled to complete freedom over what he does...
What about this?
It's stupid, no ?
All apologies if it sounds insulting though.

It's clearly an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason regarding my national group.
In other words I felt insulted.


Maybe I should give you some background information. There have been several instances of discrimination towards me throughout my five years here. Never a clear proof, always discrete enough.
From the students drunken abusing me in Hindi or behind my back ( it happened many times: I recall an example of my third day at the institute where an acclaimed=for=his=diploma cinematography student, after a glimpse of few seconds, jumped on my friend, Bangladeshi origin, and me when we were passing by in the boy's hostel. If there has not been an intervention of some other students, I would have been beaten up badly. And you would find shocking the abuses he said, all because I came from somewhere else), to some remarks made by some teachers influencing decisions on my projects, through the plain racism of the security guards who stopped an African friend (it happened also with an Iranian and Korean friend) from entering in the FTII premises.

Since I have had a little hard time by the past dealing with the Prabhat road cops (Extreme right-wing inclination, dixit Shiv Sena-ite), a feeling of powerlessness arises. The law is to report to the nearest police station, but I can't. The only institution I can think of, to guarantee my "safety" is my embassy. The only power that they have is to "push" (only for some cases) the justice forward, just by their name. Usually, they do nothing (non-legal and executive power) but sometimes just merely phone calls. The name of it is enough imposing (any embassy does that). All what I wanted to state is a threat without really using it. The atomic bomb theory... (same thing with the media. Anybody could say "I will take it up to the media !)
The feeling of alienation has been stronger and stronger over the years despite the natural logic which is to feel integrated due to habit. Right now this is a written proof. So in a sense, he was the little drop...

Other point you mentioned:

About your remark of harshness of reaction,
well a lot of discussions has been taken place and a lot of students hasn't expressed their opinions yet.
Like in Cinema,
what hasn't been distributed, doesn't mean it hasn't been produced.

Last point:

Vinod's quest has nothing to do with analysis. This has been interesting, a real analysis. His material is composed by a detailed report of personal life's stories. What is an analysis, is to write, for example, that a lot of students face grave personal reasons that disturb the stream of their education, not like "this guy couldn't complete his project because she had to help her parents to move out..."

His Quest, concerning all the names he mentioned, is highly questionable and subject to a democratic inquiry. i leave the issue with everybody else.


I think where ftii students and the faculty have made a mistake is to blur the borders of formality and informality.
The faculty is, both, not enough informal and formal, too friendly and not enough, too laxist and not enough, too harsh and not enough. Same conclusion for the students.

The over problem is a media-related problem, the issue of reporting an information from one source to another. Not only his mistake not to address directly the students of the reasons (the main source, us, from our little personal stories) but also the medium used. I'm referring to the language used, trivial and definitely not pedagogue.
Furthermore more than several times, he didn't have the right information (in my case for example).
So for me he's guilty of disinformation: Information-spreading but a distorted one.


As a friend said, reacting to my letter

"While, of course, no ones work ethic is perfect, neither yours nor mine,
it seems rather silly to criticize your slackness, when they...the administration, the parent body, fails to set up rigid boundaries, dates, perform efficiently...etc. etc
They are not looking for a genuine solution or a way forward...they are looking for scape-goats,
in order to sacrifice the students (the blamable ones) for their inferiority complexes"


In conclusion,
all Yes for Megh's idea...
and Jai FTII

Pierre

I just managed to read the letter by Vinod Subramaniam and i must say it's really throughly researched in terms of fact finding especially from the rumour mill point of view. Great job on that front, also I would have to agree with Pierre's astute observation about the fact that maybe the problem lies more with the fixed assets (the admin) of the institute rather than the varible ones (the students). In any case it is really gratifiying to see the GRAFTII members taking interest in the day to day functionings of the institute. I'm not even going to try and get into which parts of the letter are true and which are not, all I can say with a considerable amount of confidence is that the similar letters that my batch has sent to the administration throughout the duration of our third year about the problems faced by the students at the pre production, shoot and post production stage are several times that of what has been amalgamated in the Vinod Subramaniam letter. So yes we do need a solution to the delay problem that persistently occurs during the course but pointing fingers at the students and not holding the admin accountable on any front is an extreemly myopic view of the problem. There are multiple bottlenecks at both the student and the admin level which need to be identifiyed and and solved, but i guess the good to come out of the VS letter is that at least every one is talking about the problem. A small step from Vinod, a giant leap for the institute (I hope).