Posts (page 2)

Mullings about the sound score. One of things I love is the sound of a the YukTara or Ektara, a one string instrument, which I find typical for Karachi. I recorded this man on the Karachi promenade with some street kids in 1999. The video is called Karachi yuk. 

For a unique Karachi muscial experience, the Karachi Baloch ensemble has a great sound. Also the sounds of Sein Zahoor at the awesome Pakistani music site matteela. The other sound I love is that if Taiko Japanese drums. Take a listen here.

 

 

 

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Went to Zoetrope magazine launch party at Cafe Zoetrope last night. While discussing the Kala Pul film poster, I saw Walter Murch walk past us. I believe he was trying to be incognito, and the copy of movie maker magazine that i was showing to Ali must have freaked him out. Little does he know that he has been on mind lately:)

This morning I read Walter Murch advise on soundscore and communicated it to Ismail in Karachi. Murch says that should have two major element, and then one minor, eveyrthing else, becomes too complicated, especially when overlayed with diaolgue and ambient sounds. "To put it another way, soundtrack should simuntaensouly give the audience a few of both the forest and the trees . . . clarity which comes through the feeling of inddividua elements (notes) and desnity, which comes form the feeling for the whole(the chord). I found this balance to occur most often when there were not quite three layers of something - my quotation law of two and a half"

     KALA PUL - THE BLACK BRIDGE, director Saqib Mausoof’s debut feature film, is an exploration of family, regional politics, revenge, and the conflicts inherent in trying to escape one’s past. It uses the thriller genre as the driving force to provide insight on ; a forgotten megalopolis of fifteen million people in , a front line state in the War Against Terror.

    It unites Mausoof with Salim Iqbal, a veteran Pakistani actor who has been given a newopportunity to probe both the underworld vibes of Karachi and the evolving role of a masculine code of honor called jawanmardi, a set of rules followed by the Muslim gentry; similar to Bushido in Japan.

    Saqib Mausoof:” These days the only time we hear of Muslims is in reference to suicide bombers

and cowardly acts of terrorism, but jawanmardi is a code of honor which forbids violence against civilians and discipline in defending one’s honor. It is based on the principal of futtuwa, or Islamic chivalry, which was in some parts the genesis of the French Chevalier after their encounters with Muslim commanders during the Crusades.”

    KALA PUL is not for the faint hearted. It molds its concerns around universal social factions found in any harsh city and brings together characters operating on the fringes of society, whose obsessions provide fascinating looks into the darker, compulsive side of human nature and its effect on militancy, extremisms and greed. The title derives from a bridge in which connects the affluent parts of the city to the lower income areas. The protagonist grew up under the shadows of the bridge caught between the haves and have-nots – a  world of MTV inspired ‘burgers’ (westernized youth)

and the other of the left behind fodder for the Kalashnikov culture. The story is absorbingly atmospheric, often contain an innovative use of voice-over and flashbacks that are more in line with film noir then the Bollywood song and dance numbers that viewers are accustomed to seeing out of .

    With the success of the adapted stage play in San Francisco, which was reviewed in Dawn, Pakistan’s largest circulating English Daily, as “Mausoof has taken a different route with KALA PUL, producing results not unlike Satyajit Ray’s Distant Thunder, and exposing the impact of 911 in Pakistan”, Saqib founded Black Crow Productions with Muder Kothari, a successful silicon valley based VC and embarked on shooting the movie in Karachi.  

    Mausoof is particularly drawn to a political thriller style. “I have used the basic revenge plot to expose excessively

brutal forces that drive the emotional engine of Karachi. The protagonist, Arsalan Mirza is someone who can’t escape his past and is drawn back to it, when he visits the city of his birth after twelve years as a fugitive. It is a story of a man who knows that if he returns Karachi, he will die or pay for the sins of his past. Still he finds himself compelled and in that way he is driven to commit a violent act of retribution.”

    Also starring Angeline Malik, Ayesha Toor, Ashok Malani and Munawar Saeed, KALA PUL is based on an original screenplay by writer Saqib Mausoof is produced by Muder Kothari. Ali Mumtaz, Nauman Sheikh, Kiran Bukhari, Miraj-ul-Haq are featured in supporting roles.

The last financial obligation owed to Black Crow Productions were paid today. It is good to be debt free and maintain one’s name in the market. Some of the grief we got was rather annoying, we finished shoot on 1/8/07, and they were paid off within 30 days. Like our production partners said, we spoiled them with our American contracts and expectations.  

After nearly thirty days of ending shooting, I finally see the footage after digitizing the Digibeta tapes. The cinematography is good, I pat myself on the back for selecting Markus. The old adage, you get what you pay for  . . .  still it would have been nice to an FX person on board. Still I am pleased overall and starting syncing audio and editing. 

In flight through Dubai and New York, economy class middle seat, muslim meal and Carlsberg. Watched The Departed, love the sound track and admire Leo's maturity as an actor. Later tumbled back and forth in my bad seats and and had nightmares about the film stock getting exposed in Karachi airport. It made me feel powerless.

Last day is spent coordinating to insure that Markus can leave Karachi with the 18 Kodak film cans without going through the X-ray machine. I am worried as I leave 6 hours before his flight. Secured permission letter from Pakistan custom through production partners, and another one from the official Kodak agent, Mr Ataullah Farooqi. He is a seasoned professional, been in the business for over thirty years, and he gave us good advice. He told me to submit an article to Kodak’s InCamera magazine as they would love to hear about this project.

Later I took Markus and Emmanuel shopping and bought myself a Play station II with Tekken 5, From Russia with Love and my personal favorite Gods of War.

       Last day of the shoot was on the other side of the bridge in North Nazimabad. We were planning on shooting three scenes but completed only two as we ran out of time and film stock. In the middle of the shoot we switched from day to tungsten film stock and used the appropriate gels to match the light. The HMI’s worked overtime to keep the day light consistent. We ended up using 2 each of 4k, 2k, 1.2, .6k's as well as kenoflows. Munawar Sahab was good with his delivery, but Salim acted way too cordially towards Munawar Sahab respecting him as a senior artist. I told him that his respect should be off camera, on camera his character is a selfish and arrogant man. The younger brother played by Miraj, was on the spot with the intense look. The scene has some powerful banter and I was happy with it, but there were minor upheavals when the spot boys were lazing around and the PM had to threaten to throw them off set.

        On the ride back, I chatted with our driver, Mr. Yousuf. He told me that he was at one time crowned Mr. Sindh and had trained with Syed Hussein Shah, Pakistan’s only Olympic medal winner in boxing. Both of these gentleman were Sidis or Makranis (Pakistanis off African ancestry). I had always noticed Yousuf smoking his special cigarettes abd asked him why he had given up on boxing and taken up smoking. “I have six children, now my only relief is smoke” He replied with a smile. I told him that he should have been the real hero for Kala Pul.

 

        That night I stopped at my grand father’s house to see him. Nana Abu, is a shell of this former self, suffering from late stage Alzheimer. He was alone in his room, being looked after an attendants who was taking him to toilet and Nana Abu moaned like a wounded animal. In the next room his grandchildren played XBox. I will always remember Ozair Mirza as a handsome stylish man who told wonderful stories of Jinns and fairies while cutting melons for his many grand children. As he failed to recognize me and I watched helplessly, he reminded me of Jan Decleir, the lead in Memory of a Killer, a Belgian movie about a assassin who is suffering from Alzheimer. It was altogether a bit disturbing and unnerving.

           

I woke up feeling better from my bout with food poisoning. The first shoot depicted a religious seminary or a Madarsa. We had selected an abandoned school and the art department set to work to give the crumbling class rooms the rustic look of a militant hideout and four boys kids with skull caps and qaidas were set up on the floor on low benches. My costume and turban were ready as was the black goat, that was supposed to be slaughtered by my character,

We started rolling with the Suzuki entering scene, a mock up of my character slaughtering the goat and then washing his bloody hands, etc. After that, the goat was slaughtered by the butcher, and the meat donated to the Hindu couple that ran the school. Our European crew member were not comfortable with filming it. Later during the scene, my character chides the protagonist for being a hypocrite like the west, “they eat meat but can’t slaughter animals, start wars but cant’ see children die.”

During the 20+ setups for the shoot, I felt weak in the stomach and vowed never to act in my own movie, its is annoying and quite different from stage. This was bolstered by our diminutive sound man who asked me if I had written this scene. When I confirmed he said, “I am very impressed, by your writing . . . .” I wonder if he was not impressed by my acting ;) 

The second shoot that we had postponed from last night was set at the Shah Ghazi. BY favourable chance, we ended up showing the fundamentalist and the spiritual side of Karachi on the same day. As in any public places, crowd control was challenging, the lights were funky halogens. Once we unloaded the equipment, which was impressive, our European crew and beautiful cast attracted attention. One extra asked me about Ayesha, is she Pakistani? is she Muslim? what’s is her name? I told him she was an Indian actress.

We did a walk up to the shrine, a Dutch tilt  and then walked up the stairway to shoot the last scene as we were not allowed inside the actual tomb. This scenes required an ecstatic Qalander -holy man - to grabs Arsalan and challenge him about life. I had asked a female jogan to play the part, but she refused, another faqir told me that he can't let his image be captured on camera. However, our luck took a turn for the better when we saw a group of men accompanying a Qalander who I would call Metal Baba, a living saint wearing over a hundred pounds of metal anklets, locks and chains.

After a brief discussion he agreed to act and I could not believe my luck.  As we took the last shot a businessman based in Los Angeles handed his business card to Muder and told him to give him a call for potential investors. I did not expect Ghazi Baba to bestow his baraka on us so quickly.