[TorryJens]

Vignettes from the workshop - 1

Posted: 07 Jun 2009 09:42 AM PDT


Author’s Note: These are an assimilation of opinions and observations made over the 5 days spent at the workshop. The piece and the ones to follow will be a pastiche, so my apologies to the readers.

The tea nearly escaped my nostrils as I struggled to stifle a chuckle. One of the volunteers had just requested all the participants to leave their cell phones at the registration desk and a passer-by in the corridor on hearing this did a double take, withdrew a Blackberry and an additional phone from his pockets and retraced his steps back to the front of the auditorium. Quite obviously my initial apprehension of Kamal Haasan’s involvement in the workshop being purely titular, was misplaced. So it came as much less of a surprise later to know that the man was involved in even details such as designing the logo of the workshop.

Ravages has already introduced and setup (pardon my newfound screenplay parlance) the major characters, so let me jump headfirst into character development. As the only pure screenwriting professional there, Anjum Rajabali carried the larger load when it came to the instructional material as well as the number bottles of water consumed. On the podium he was all emotion but never digressing from the central plot. The intensity he brought to the lectures was very indicative of where he would find his writing stimuli, in the internal dialectics of his characters. Professor K. Hariharan was far more clinical in his approach with prepared slides and pinpoint scene deconstruction. Over the course of the workshop I had the opportunity to discuss various topics with the man and every one left me at least a little more curious than when the conversation began (always the hallmark of a good conversation for me).

Source : www.allthingskamal.info