Narayanan AV, Director 

Fiction was something close to my heart since my pre-FTII days and even when after FTII when I was first an assistant editor and then an assistant director. I worked under Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta and other FTII seniors of mine in various documentaries and scripting assignments. I guess I did it partly also to go through the routine of doing the industry rounds and ‘make contacts.’ All’s well till you actually get to do what you want!

My journey with this film Anthiponvettom,(The Twilight Light) began when I was editing The Last Monk, a English feature film directed by Sudipto Sen. I met its producer, N Shiva Rao, in Kerala in September 2006, narrated the concept to him, which he liked. The initial idea was to shoot the film on 16mm but then as we discussed the other modalities like release options, we settled on 35mm cinemascope.The storyidea was mine and my co-screenplay writer was Dr SP Ramesh, a psychiatrist by profession, a film enthusiast and good old associate of the late G Aravindan). Like all filmmakers, I wanted the film to reach theatres, rather than only the “sensible audience” which meant having ‘saleable’ actors in the film. The search for cast began, the endless narrations, playing the waiting game while having yes lengthy mobile conversations to explain to each and everyone what I was doing and how I was plan to go about it.

So December 2006 to April 2007 saw me, an FTII graduate, trying to put together a ‘commercial film’ though till now my name was associated with only the so-called ‘arty directors’. I met a whole lot of actors (Mukesh, Siddique, Sreenivasan just to name a few) and while some appreciated the script, others had doubts about a new production house entering Malayalam cinema and even about me. “A director who has not been a associate to any of the big directors in Malayalam cinema attempting a Malayalam commercial film?” they all kept repeating.

Thus by the time we could finally zero on the lead final cast, It was decided that May 27, 2007 would be the first day of shoot for my first film. HM Ramachandra (Rama), a National award winner was my cinematographer, I know Rama from my FTII days and was inclined to work with him after seeing his brilliant work in Girish Kaseravalli’s Dweepa. The concept of sync sound is yet to take prevalence in the Malayalam film industry so that option was out.

The first schedule had Saiju, Arun, Rachna Shah as the IT people and we shot scenes and sequences around them, and though I got a first-hand experience of ‘normal’ filming problems – delays, locations getting cancelled at the last minute etc., in hindsight I think I can say that things actually moved pretty smoothly. The July schedule was the real challenge for me - with all the well- known character artists of Malayalam cinema, Nedumudi Venu, Jagati Sreekumar, Jagadeesh and so on joining the shoot. I had to maintain my respect for them, yet at the same time ensure that I got what I wanted. Nedumudi Venu and Jagati and Jagadish really helped me while instructing the younger artists, and I should be grateful to them. They are undoubtedly the best in Malayalam cinema regarding their sense of comic timing and improvization. The ease, with which they take in the scene, be it dialogues or emotions or getting the co-actors to perform that much better is an experience one can never forget.

Since we were shooting in July, the monsoon was in full swing, I had to adjust my shoot. Certain scenes had to be skipped or shot differently, others trimmed – All coupled with usual production problems. But fortunately and most importantly for us, the rain chose be keep off from my locations till 4 pm everyday ensuring we stayed right on schedule! The 30 days filming schedule was tough and packed, but then that’s how things are and especially so for a film that doesn’t have a huge budget.

The film demanded a Hindi party song in the city, so we got Sunidhi Chauhan to sing it with Amitabh Verma, again a colleague from the FTII, as the lyricist and Amit Trivedi as the music director. The other songs were recorded in Chennai with renowned Music Director, M Jayachandran.

I had already cut the first schedule scenes with my editor, Mahesh before the July schedule, so with additional material coming in, the rest of the edit happened pretty fast. I was not the editor and was on the other side of the table this time realizing that the law is the same for everyone. The same ahs and ohs were there - we could have done this, we could have done that. The dubbing took a bit longer than the expected time because of the Onam festival and also with certain artistes getting busy with their schedules. The rest of the Post-production was done in Prasad Chennai till the first print of the film, the first copy, came out.

As I watched the first copy with DTX mix being screened, I bit my nails, I grunted and seethed with anger at myself at places but also realizing that sitting through the screening was a very humbling experience of knowing oneself. The big magic of what one calls ‘cinema’ does not come alive just like that. It involves giving it more than 100%. I am not sure whether I gave that much, but I am certain about one thing, I did it with utmost sincerity, and I tried to involve everyone the same way as well. Inside of me, I felt that urge which took me to FTII to learn filmmaking finally bear fruit and I hope the film is appreciated when it hits the theatres in January 2008.