ASHWAMEDH KALAMANCH

Ashok Saraf to be conferred with Maharashtra Bhushan award

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 14:48:00 +0000

Ashok Saraf: The Maharashtra Bhushan 2024

"Dhananjay Mane ithech raahtaat ka?"

Dhananjay Mane ithech raahtat kaa? Every Maharashtrian laughs at this diaglogue histerically because this impromptu improvisation by actor Laxmikant Berde in the movie 'Ashi hi BanvaBanvi' reminds them their childhood. In the 80s Ashok Saraf and Laxmikant Berde worked together in several Marathi Comedy movies and most of them were box-office hits bringing the wave of Comedy films in Marathi Cinema. Both the actors started their careers from theatre, worked in Marathi and Hindi Films and Television in their careers. Their contribution to Marathi Cinema is immense. We lost Laxmikant Berde early, but every now and then when we watch 'Zapatlela' and 'Ashi hi Banvabanavi' Movies on TV, we feel that he is still alive and making us laugh. Sachin Pilgaonkar, Mahesh Kothare, Ashok Saraf and Laxmikant Berde rules Marathi Film industry for more than a decade. They got many awards for their work too. But more than that they received tremendous love and respect from their audience. I remember, whenver I used to go in theatre to watch Marathi Drama starring Ashok Saraf in early 2000s, entire audience used to stand up on their feets to clap on his entry on stage. He would receive the standing ovation by remaining in statue position for few minutes and then start his act. I was fortunate to have seen him closely during the shooting of one of the episode of television serial 'Hum Paanch' in IASC Ground (which is not Air India's property) of Santacruz East, Mumbai.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced the name of Ashok Saraf (76) for the highest civilian award of Maharashtra State - Maharashtra Bhushan. He will be conferred with the award on 1st May 2024 i.e on the Maharashtra Day. Every Maharashtrian is really happy for him but also feel that he should have received Padma Shri too. He certainly has more contribution than Saif Ali Khan and Kangana Ranaut etc. Ashok Saraf started his film career in 1969 with the Marathi Movie 'Janaki' but he became famous after his supporting role in the Pandu Havaldar. In his early career, he played villanious roles and character roles. He started getting leading roles in 80s and almost ruled the Marathi industry in 80s. He acted in more than 250 films in his Career (including Hindi). He acted in more than 50+ Hindi films. I personally love his role in Karan Arjun movie. He acted in more than a dozen Marathi plays I liked his Hasat Khelat (2007). He acted in various television series but his role as 'Anand Mathur' a father of five daughters in Hum Paanch series still remain memorable for my generation. Ashok Saraf is a versatile actor. My favorite Ashok Saraf films are - Chaukat Raja (1991), Dhum Dhadaka (1985), Gondhalat Gondhal (1981), Ashi hi BanvaBanvi (1988), Navra Majha Navsacha (2004) and so on.

I am really happy for Ashok Mama and all his well wishers. Thankfully, he is getting this prestigious award when he is still active. Thanks to Mahrashtra Government and the committee who chose his name for the Maharashtra Bhushan award. I'm hopeful that our 'Dhananjay Mane' will get Padma Award soon.

- Ek Marathi Manus

Movies Business: Superplexes the new big concept

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 17:39:00 +0000

Superplexes: The next big concept in Cinema

Before the 21st Century started, there were majorly only single screen talkies in India. In Mumbai Gaiety-Galaxy added two more Screens one for Dubbed Hollywood movies like Jurassic Park and other for Hollywood Movies in English like Tomorrow Never Dies. Now it has total 7 Screens and it is known as G7 Multiplex. Watching movies in small single screen theatres like Arora in Matunga with my college friends was altogether different experience than watching movies in newly formed Multiplexes in the early 2000s. Gone are the days when we could watch movies in tickets below Rs. 100 and have Snacks and tea upto Rs. 50 in the interval times, Now you can't enter a Movie theatre if you don't have at least Rs. 1000 in your pocket. Shah Rukh Khan and NRI culture movies looked better when watched in Multiplexes while Salman Khan's Movies still had large audience in Single Screen theatres in those days. PVR Cinemas revolutionized cinema business with concept of Multiplex.

How many of you know what PVR Cinemas stands for? PVR stands for Priya Village Roadshow. It was private ltd company which ran Priya Cinema in Vasant Vihar, Delhi named after Priya Jaisinghani. Amritsar Transport Co. owner bought it in 1988 and his son Ajay Bijli reshaped it into PVR Cinemas in 1997. Ajay and his brother Sanjeev ensured exponential growth of PVR Cinemas by Mergers and acquisitions. PVR Cinemas started its first Multiplex Cinema in Saket Delhi in 1997. Now they have 846 Screens in 179 locations. They are not only serving India but also have presence in Sri Lanka now. PVR Pictures, Cinemax and SPI Cinemas are subsidiaries of PVR Cinema. In the year 2014, PVR Cinema introduced concept of Superplex format in Noida. By investing whopping Rs 48 Crores they created a 15 Screens Superplex in Noida which houses IMAX, 4DX,Gold Class,a playhouse and mainstream auditoriums. Multiplexes had 4-5 Screens, Superplexes will have minimum 10 Screens. PVR is all set to introduce Suplerplex concept to many more cities in India. They consider that's the future of Cinema.

Bollywood is going through worst phase. OTTs have gained huge popularity during Covid related lockdowns. South Indian movies are earning more than Bollywood Movies. INOX Leisure is showing FIFA World Cup matches in their 22 multiplexes hoping that crowd will come to Theatres atleast due to Football World Cup frenzy. In such negative atmosphere, how can 10+ Screen Superflexes will survive? Surely we all have this question in our Mind now. But the way we accepted Multiplex concept, we will equally accept Superplex concept in coming years because Bijli Brothers know how to make Weekends of Families entertaining.

Release of Prabhas starrer Adipurush delayed

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 03:00:00 +0000

Adipurush's release delayed by makers for the rework on VFX after backlash on Social Media

Adipurush

The Prabhas starrer 'Adipurush' movie is based on holy Hindu book Ramayan. It is directed by 'Tanhaji' fame Om Raut. The trailer of the film was launched on Dussehra of 2022. It got backlash on Social media for the fancy portrayal of Ravan. People said Saif Ali Khan looked more like a Mughal than Ravan. Om Raut clarified that it was his imagination about how Ravan will look like in today's context. Chappals in Ram's legs, Islamic beard of Hanuman and more such hilarious things were noticed by the people. Adipurush was set to hit the Cinema halls on Makar Sankranti of 2023 (Jan 2023) but now makers have decided to delay its release to June-July 2023. For rework on VFX of the film T-Series is ready to spend more 100 Crores as it is Prabhas starrer movie and can recover the investment easily. In India, Bollywood Movies aren't doing great while South Indian movies are doing great business pan India. The trend started from Bahubali and still continuing with the massive success of Rishabh Shetty Film 'Kantara'. Handling films based on Historical events, or mythological characters is anyhow very risky.

We saw how Padmavat Director faced wrath of Karani Sena in past. Sanjay Leela Bhansali changed name of the movie from Padmavati to Padmavat fearing consequences of hurting sentiments of Rajputs. In recent times, Prithviraj Chavan movie flopped as audience decided to Boycott Akshay Kumar for Pan Masala Ad, and using Hidutva and Nationalism for minting money on Box Office. Somehow Ram Setu is doing good as it was released during Diwali season. After spending two Diwali's under Pandemic fear, it was the first Diwali which was celebrated like pre-Covid times. People travelled a lot and went out with families to watch movies in theatres after long time. It helped Ram Setu. New Marathi movie 'Har Har Mahadev' created huge controversy in Thane yesterday when NCP Leader Jitendra Awhad stalled the show of movie in Viviana Mall Thane for distortion of History. Abhijeet Deshpande directed film is based on Pawan Khind battle in which Baaji Prabhu Deshpande and 300 Mavlas killed thousands of enemies in GhodKhind. The film has some inappropriate scenes like Afzhal stabbing Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj when he is sleeping on bench, Baaji Prabhu Deshpande using slang word 'Ghanta', and showing that Baaji Prabhu went to Kills Shivaji Maharaj on Fort before becoming his loyal ally. Not only history is distorted but also some gory-bloody scenes seems to have allowed by Censor board. MNS leader Raj Thackeray has lent his voice to the film, hence MNS is supporting the film.

After seeing the response which VFX of Bramhastra received, it is clear than Adipurush now wants to rework on VFX of film rightly. Let's hope makers will come up with good finished product next year.

Sunset in Virar

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:15:00 +0000

Sunset in Virar

Valentine's Day 2021

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 14:02:00 +0000

Valentine's Day 2021

Santacruz, Mumbai

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 13:58:00 +0000

Clicked some pictures of the Santacruz (E) area from the 15-floor highrise building near Grand Hyatt hotel. Sharing with you to show how suburban areas look from the top.

Rankala Lake, Kolhapur

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 02:40:00 +0000

Rankala Lake, Kolhapur

If you visit Kolhapur for vacation, then you must spend your evening near Rankala Lake. Hundreds of people gather near Rankala Lake in the evenings to witness the beauty of nature, sit in the gardens there and eat tasty snacks with friends. \

For Mumbaikars, Rankala Lake gives you a Chowpaty type of experience. Best place for a romantic hangout with your partner and equally good picnic spot for the family.

Sangli City

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 02:31:00 +0000

Sangli City

Sangli is a city and the district headquarters of Sangli District in the state of Maharashtra, in western India. It is known as the Turmeric City of Maharashtra due to its production and trade of the spice. Sangli is situated on the banks of river Krishna and houses many sugar factories. Sangli is known for its turmeric trade, grapes, and the largest number of sugar factories in India. - Wikipedia

I visited Sangli in the month of November 2020. Clicked some photos on my smartphone. Sharing it with you.

Musical Instruments Makers in Miraj

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 02:20:00 +0000

Miraj is a popular place for artists to perform at Urus. The administrative office of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya is at Miraj. The city is known for its finesse in playing and manufacturing Sitars.

Miraj supplies Indian string instruments such as the Sitar, Sarod, and Tanpura. These are made of wood and specially treated gourds. The art of instrument making was developed by Faridsaheb Sitarmaker in the 18th century, and his descendants follow this tradition.

The small area of Miraj is responsible for creating sitars and are renowned for their craftsmanship. The traditional craft of making these instruments is passed down from generation to generation instilling the vitality of the small markets of Miraj.

- Wikipedia

I visited Miraj Instruments Market in the month of November 2020, Here are some pictures of Instrument Makers I clicked with my smartphone.

Panhala Fort

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 01:57:00 +0000

Panhala Fort

Panhala fort (also known as Panhalgad, Panhalla (literally "the home of serpents")), is located in Panhala, 20 kilometers northwest of Kolhapur in Maharashtra, India. It is strategically located looking over a pass in the Sahyadri mountain range which was a major trade route from Bijapur in the interior of Maharashtra to the coastal areas. Due to its strategic location, it was the center of several skirmishes in the Deccan involving the Marathas, the Mughals, and the British East India Company, the most notable being the Battle of Pavan Khind. Here, the queen regent of Kolhapur, Tarabai, spent her formative years. Several parts of the fort and the structures within are still intact. It is also called as the 'Fort of Snakes' as it is zigzagged in shape - Wikipedia

I visited Panhala fort in the month of November 2020. Here are some of the pictures of the Panhala fort.

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Fri, 19 Jun 2020 05:52:00 +0000

After the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput

The suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput aka SSR has shocked the Bollywood and the film-goers. Sushant Singh Rajput started his career in Television and within few years he got his first break in film 'Kai Po Che' where Sushant played a character of Cricket Coach who is possessed by a dream to make a Child from his Cricket academy ready to play for India. This film has backdrops of Earthquakes and Godhra riots aftermath. Rajkumar Rao and Amit Sadh too played their roles very well but Sushant Singh Rajput's raw energy and superb acting didn't go unnoticed. After the success of 'Kai Po Che,' Sushant Singh Rajput started getting good offers for the lead role and he worked in several films like Shudh Desi Romance, PK, Raabta, Chichore and so on. But the film which made him Popular star is a biopic on Captain cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni: 'M.S.Dhoni - an Untold story'. No one could have played this role better than Sushant. Some scenes from the film showed his acting potential so well that people forgot that they are watching Sushant playing the role of Dhoni and watched the film as if they are watching the journey of actual Dhoni in front of their eyes. The frustration of Mahi during his Job in Railways, his sorrow after the death of his girlfriend, and his splendid innings as a Captain of the Indian team which went to win World Cup for India. Sushant Singh Rajput played the role of his life in this film. Now as Sushant is no more, his work will remain with us forever and after watching Sarfaraz and Dhoni on Screen in these movies we will always wonder, how can an actor who acted so well and made these films hit committed suicide?

After the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput, many news channels covered the story of Journey of Sushant Singh Rajput. Social media got flooded with RIP messages. Twitter started bashing Karan Johar, flagbearer of Nepotism for hypocrisy shown by him after the death of SSR. Twitter handle 'Bollywood Insider' claimed that many big production houses including Dharma Productions, Yash Raj Films, and Salman Khan Films banned Sushant Singh Rajput and also convinced few more to ban him as well. Tweeple said that something happened during the filming of 'Drive' movie which hurt the Ego of that big shot producer which resulted in the outcasting of Sushant Singh Rajput. After which Sushant Singh Rajput went into depression. He was taking treatment on depression from the last 6 months and also documents which police got in his home confirmed the same. Sushant was in a relationship with Rhea Chakravarty which recently went sour which added to his depression. Sushant hanged to his ceiling fan and committed suicide due to all these professionals and personal reasons. Those who know him very well couldn't believe it and demanded a thorough investigation of the same. Sushant was full of life and a very positive person with very big dreams and high ambitions. No one was ready to believe that such a positive person can end his life like a loser.

We all knew Sushant as an actor. But after his death, we realized he was more than that. The acting was just a small part of his magnificent life. He came from a very humble background and achieved so many things in such a short time that there was no reason to believe that he had any financial reasons to end his life. He was academically good and craked AIEEE as a ranker to enter DTU. He dropped from Engineering to pursue his acting career as he wanted recognization. He did theatre, danced behind big stars like Aishwarya, Hritik as a background dancer in Shamak Davar group, learned to fight, acting, and prepared himself for a career in Bollywood. No one remembers his first debut serial. But everyone definitely knows Pavitra Rishta where he played the lead role of Maanav Deshmukh. His chemistry with Ankita Lokhande made that couple one of the most loved couple on television in those days. They also participated in dance reality shows after that where Sushant proposed Ankita. Everything was going good between them but as Sushant Singh Rajput started getting roles in films, their relationship started weakened. SSR's name was linked to actress Pariniti Chopra and then Kriti Sanon during his film-career. Recently people came to know about Rhea and Sushant's live-in relationship. During a lockdown, they fought on some personal issues and Rhea left his house to stay with her friend. It's said that Sushant tried to call her before committing suicide but she didn't pick up the phone. Sushant had good relations with actors with whom he worked during his television days. He tried to call one of his friends too but as it was past 3:00 a.m in the morning he too didn't pick up the phone. When his friend called back, Sushant was already dead. Police is investigating all the call records of Sushant Singh Rajput to find out what are the reasons behind his untimely exit.

Sushant's list of 50 dreams he wanted to achieve, his interest in quantum and astrophysics, his intentions to send children to NASA, educate underprivileged children, the companies he formed, etc. all show that Sushant was a highly intelligent person who interests in diversified sectors. He always carried books on set to read during the breaks. He fulfilled most of his dreams by planning them well in advance and working for them. He always worked really hard to improve himself. Sushant Singh Rajput was a good-hearted man and yet he was treated as an Outsider by some Gangs of Bollywood where he tried to fit when he started his journey in films. His last released film Chichore spoke about fighting in life and never giving up, but he himself committed suicide. Such an Irony! People are waiting for his next release Dil Bechara which well release soon on the OTT platform. We don't know what were the reasons behind Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide, but we all are really angry on people who sent him in depression. R.I.P Sushant.

Gokak

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 04:09:00 +0000

Mountains

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 04:06:00 +0000

The making of Nakoshi - a Short film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 16:00:00 +0000

The making of 'Nakoshi' -

a short film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

14th November 2011, on Children's day (बालदिन), there was this News on many News Channels that 222 girls named Nakoshi/ Nakoshia/ Nakusha/ Nirasha were renamed by local health care department officers of Satara, Maharashtra in one social program. 'Nakoshi' means 'Unwanted' girl. It's really sad that in India thousands of girls are named as Nakoshi/Nakusha by their parents. Let me tell you; not only poor illiterate parents but also rich and well-educated people do this thing. The reason is that they feel 'girls' are a burden on them and a big liability. Poor people feel that girls will not become their support in their old age as they will go to their husband's home after marriage and hence they do not educate these girls. Mostly those who already have 2-3 girl-children name their next girl as Nakoshi/Nakusha.

Based on this News, I decided to make a Marathi short-film 'Nakoshi'. I developed a concept further and wrote the script which will be as long as 30 min. film. But 15 min. is the maximum accepted length of short-films and 7-10 min. is considered an ideal length. I decided to shoot each and everything first and then edit it twice, one full-length film for YouTube and second below 15 min. short-film to submit to short film festivals. When I explained the entire script to my team for the first time; everyone was completely numb and their eyes were filled with tears. I know my concepts are always good, but due to financial constraints, we do a lot of compromise with script and sets which makes our final product very mediocre. But I feel our limitations makes our work more challenging which in turn make us think more creatively.

Ashwamedh Kalamanch's journey is slow but steady. With Nakoshi, we are the first time trying to make some improvement in the 'art direction' area of short-film making. The best part is we don't have any person directly/indirectly associated with film making field, but we dare to learn every aspect of short-film making by watching other's work and using some tutorials available on YouTube.We don't have any Godfather or any guide. We are the modern 'Eklavya' who learn maximum things out of curiosity. May it be Editing or may it be Camera Angles.

Nakoshi's shooting started on 11.11.11. Friday at Abhijeet Sakpal's house in Nalasopara. We reached to Nalasopara in the evening to shoot Nakoshi's birth scene. As per script, we had shown that Nakoshi's father is a construction worker in Mumbai and he lives in one of the under-construction building's terrace where he is working currently. He already has 3 daughters and wants a boy child. So the scene starts in Hospital corridor where he is waiting eagerly for his wife's delivery. He has his 3 daughters with him and one of his relative.

Nakoshi's father is played by Anant Chavan, the only person in our group who had done some commercial Marathi Theater with likes of Nirmiti Sawant, Satish Tare, Bhushan Kadu under the direction of eminent Marathi Director Purushottam Berde. His nephew Ashish Chavan is playing his relative's role. In this hospital scene, we needed to establish that the character Gangaram Mahadik played by Anant already has 3 daughters, that's the only reason we chose to shoot this scene at Abhijeet's house because he has two daughters Priyanka and Arya. It's the only scene where we have shown Gangaram's other daughters.Rest of the short-film revolves around Nakoshi and her father's relationship. Abhijeet's neighbours got excited to see us shooting in their building; so many children came to his house to see Arya and Piyu acting. We chose one more girl from Piyu's friends to show as the eldest daughter of Gangaram. The scene was shot in a lot of noise yet as there was no dialogue involved and only background music, we went ahead to shoot it in the same crowd. We finished the entire scene that day till 10:00 p.m. in the night and fixed our next schedule on 13 th Nov. Sunday.

Short-film making is not a rocket science. Short films are like projects for media students to learn the basics of film making. The process is real fun. Not only students of film line or mass media make short films, many amateur video makers make shorts. In the last few years, It has been seen that in every short-film festivals there are more than 300 entries. That itself shows that there are many such groups involved in short film making just because of the 'filmy kida' inside them. Professional short film maker spend Rs.1 - 1.5 lakhs in making short films while amateur groups do the same thing in 5-10K. College students spend even less than this as they have large groups and generally they get actors, directors, editors among them itself. To shoot with professional camera Rs.6K has to be spend per day as a camera rent; so many amateur short-film makers use digi-cams or handycams to shoot their videos and some even use their mobiles (with good MegaPixel) too. Irrespective of what you are using for shooting ultimately what matters is how your work has been received by audiences. Some professional short film makers spend a lot of their budget in hiring faces from commercials or supporting actors/junior actors from main stream cinema but they end up making a mediocre product. Even though their short-films are well made technically; the concept of the short films itself is not so appealing to the viewers. Hence some short film makers straightaway copy short films of hollywood. Yes, even short-films concepts are stolen nowdays. YouTube is a great platform for creative thieves ;)

Nakoshi's shooting is complete now and promos are released one by one which are circulating on Facebook. Most of the film is shot indoors. The art direction is done by Ashish Chavan and Abhijeet Sakpal. The set of hospital room looks real. The saline bottles, blue plain partition, the iron hospital like cot, the white bedsheet, green cushion and a black blanket gives you the exact feelings of the hospital. We created this set in my bedroom.

And the other set of the 'temporary house' of a construction worker which we created on our terrace itself is equally convincing. Thanks to Mr. Ashish Chavan who not only done Art direction but also played a small role of Nakoshi's Mama (Maternal Uncle) in this short film. But above all, he showed his brilliance in the make-up of Anant Chavan using whatever we had powder, kajal, toothpaste etc. Neha played Anant's wife's role in this short film and had 3-4 scenes; we arranged the second schedule exclusively to complete all her scenes. It's her first ever short film and she did an excellent job. Nakoshi's role has been done by Bhargavi Chavan (Kid Nakoshi) and Rupali More ( Grown-up Nakoshi).

Bhargavi is really a cute little shy girl of Anant Chavan. As a father, she also has symptoms of 'Acting Kida'. She is just in 1st standard but faces the camera with confidence. Rupali's role is crucial in this short film as she is performing the title role. Anant and Rupali have done some wonderful emotional scenes between father and daughter. Apart from these lead actors; Mithun Patekar, Jitendra Patel, Ashish Chavan, Abhijeet Sakpal, Shailesh More and me, we have done some small roles. Ofcourse, I was busy with direction and camera yet wanted to be part of this wonderful story; so I played the role of Nakoshi's kind hearted teacher. Editing part of Nakoshi will start soon. Hopefully, you all will like it.

Keep Visiting 'World of Deepbaazigar' and 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' blogs. Thank You :-)

The Making of Save Birds

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 15:44:00 +0000

The making of 'Save Birds':

a short film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

Ashwamedh Kalamanch team is working on Marathi short-film 'Nakoshi' based on 'Save Girl child' cause. We have almost finished the shooting and the last schedule of short-film shooting is remaining. Earlier I decided to keep the really sad ending of the short-film but after thinking for some days; I have decided to keep 'Happy Ending' to it so as to give some positive message. We do shooting on Sundays as all are working people. As usual last Saturday night I went to Virar so as to wake-up early morning on next day and empty the bedroom to create a set of Hospital there. As I entered the room and opened the door of my terrace I saw a little bird hopping on my terrace.

I have a terrace flat in Virar where we do all the shooting of Ashwamedh Kalamanch's projects (Short films and Web serial Hasya Jatra). The home remains closed for 5 days and so we keep all the windows and doors completely closed before leaving home. This little birdie may have entered the house through a small gap between the roof of the terrace and the sliding glass doors. I could see that the frail birdie was completely exhausted of trying to search out the way out from where it came inside. It could have been there from 2 or 3 days as it was not at all able to fly. It was just hopping and moving slowly on the terrace.

To save it; I opened all the windows of the terrace. But it was too tough for it to reach the window due to weakness in its small body. I didn't want to touch it as it was already completely frightened to see me at home. Even if I could have lifted it and kept on the terrace wall; it would have died by falling down from the 4th floor. So I decided to feed it till it gets the energy to fly away by its own.I kept a bowl of water in front of it and gave some raw rice to eat. When I switched off the light it slowly reached the bowl and drank some water and ate rice. I felt a great relief. Keeping windows open, I went to sleep. Next morning when I woke up I didn't found it at that place. I thought it might have fled away. I was quite happy. But as I turned my eyes towards dustbin I saw it dead. My all prayers and attempts to save it were failed. I felt sorry for that birdie and wished I could have added some sugar/glucon-D to the water. Ahh !! It was too late. I thought I would make it's death a valuable message to save the lives of many other birds, and minimize my guilt feeling to some extent. So I took footage of its dead body on my Handycam and decided to make this short-film to make that little birdie immortal.

As usual; I poured some water in the pot outside my terrace window and spread some rice near it. As usual, birds started coming there; but this time I was ready with my cam. I tried to take some handy shot but the camera was quite shaky so I mounted it on a tripod and kept it at a long distance from water-pot. In a zoomed mode, the videos are generally blurred for my handy-cam but I didn't have another choice. Only pigeons dare to come closer to a human being, but rest birds really afraid of us. I shot crows and Salunkhi/Titavi while eating rice and drinking water. And then waited for my team to come. Our friend and an actress Rupali More who is playing the lead role of 'Nakoshi'; always comes with her husband and son for shooting. Shailesh too has some interest in acting and has worked in some webisodes of Hasya Jatra. That day I was more eagerly waiting for Priyanshu; their son. Without him 'Save Birds' shooting wouldn't have been completed on the same day. I know its really tough to make children act; so I just take their natural expressions from many angles and use them to create/cheat scenes. I did the same here.

Although he loved to fill the glass bowl with water he was least interested in acting. I finished shooting and went to create a hospital at home for 'Nakoshi'. Priyanshu took empty injection from our set and kept filling the bowl at regular intervals. While editing the film, once again sensitive 'deepbaazigar' felt sorry for that little birdie. But a chicken-lover non-vegetarian 'Deepak' forgot it after the video became viral and got so much appreciation. You can watch 'Save Birds' here.

Please do not forget to share it on FACEBOOK. Thank you :)

Save Birds - A short-film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

The Making of Save the Elephants

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 15:30:00 +0000

The making of 'Save the Elephants'

a short-film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

My sister and her son Aditya, both returned from Kolhapur as her Diwali vacation got over on 11-11-11. Aditya's dad had bought him a big long truck toy which he showed me the same day. Girls play with dolls but boys love gadgets and automobiles. My nephews did love speedy cars which run by pulling backward and setting free. But for Aditya more than speed, size of the vehicle matters. So this truck has become his favorite toy now. The sound of the alarm and the lights make it a special toy. Due to its size, I decided to make a video using this toy. I am a big fan of Golmaal series and the car stunts in Golmaal are too good. Children love to make stories using their toys and crashing toy cars thrills them too.

I decided to add an emotional angle to it. Children are sensitive and innocent. They do not have any fear, till we instill some. They find dinosaurs interesting and snakes beautiful. They do care for animals more than adults. I still remember how much we loved street-puppies in our childhood. We friends use to build a home for them and feed them milk and bread pieces. So I decided to add an emotional end and give a social message that, 'save animals'. Wildlife conservation is equally important. India was considered as a country of snakes, elephants, and tigers. Unfortunately, tigers are on the verge of extinction, hardly 1400 Bengal tigers are remaining. Elephants are no less endangered. Hence I decided to do 'Save Elephants' campaign video.

Aditya was suffering from cold, so his mother wanted him to take rest. But he was not ready and came to me with his truck. I told him to bring some more toys and he did so. Then I took out elephant (made of Plaster of Paris) from the showcase and Handycam from my cupboard. No tripod stand was required for shooting this video. I kept a camera on the ground and adjusted a frame in front of the wall, as I needed some background for the video. Then I gave instructions, and he followed them properly. I had earlier made a short film called 'Cartoon' on him, so I knew that he is Director's actor. It's really difficult to direct such a small kid. But Aditya loves to face the Camera. He recognizes 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' logo and knows that all our videos start with our logo. Aditya found it difficult to pick up the heavy Jumbo, so he used to kiss it and keep straight on the ground down, so I was not able to catch his smiling face for a longer time. I wanted to zoom camera on his smiling face with an elephant in his hands, but he was getting impatient. Hence I edited the video as it is, without any retakes. The video can be considered as non-commercial advertisement, as without credits its hardly 30-sec video and with them, it is 0.46 sec long. It's my first attempt to make such a social advertisement. Earlier my students had made 'Wrong Turn' a short film in the interest of the public. It is one of the most watched videos on 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' channel on YouTube. We are in process of making a short film on 'Save the girl child'.

You can watch 'Save Elephants' below. Please don't forget to leave comments. Thank you.

Save Elephants by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

The Making of Vote Kijiye

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 05:35:00 +0000

The Making Story of 'Vote Kijiye',

a Social Ad by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

As the Lokshaba Election 2019, is coming ahead. I decided to share the Making Story of 'Vote Kijiye' - a social advertisement created by Ashwamedh Kalamanch. India is one of the largest democracy in the world. But only 40-45% people of India vote during the election. In the Loksabha of 2014, Narendra Modi became Prime Minister only with 31% votes. India has the second largest population in the world. This vote percentage is really depressing.

Those who vote, are the real citizens of democratic India as they understand the real meaning of Democracy and value the power of right to vote. 'Voting' is not only our right; it's our social responsibility' is the concept of this social advertisement. I needed a ripe mango for the same Ad. Unfortunately, as there is no Mango in the Market in this season I decided to use plastic mango for the shooting. Yet it has been helpful as I didn't have to make any extra arrangement to put Red liquid (Mixture of Ketch-up and Kunkum) in the mango. We bought two syringe and hand gloves to suck blood (the liquid) in it. The Mango represents the 'Aam Aadmi' in this Advertisement. 'Wrong Turn' fame Abdul Hakim Ansari has acted in this Advt. The Ad has been circulating on Facebook with good response. You too can watch this ad below and do give your feedback in the comments

Thank you.

Making of Ashwamedh Kalamanch Hasya Jatra

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 12:33:00 +0000

Making of Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra Episodes

Ashwamedh Kalamanch is an Art and Culture center in Virar, Maharashtra. It created the First Web Series on YouTube in 2011 named Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra. Sharing with you the Making Story of every episode written back in 2011 in my Blog 'World of Deepbaazigar'.

Making of Episode No. 1:

The last week of March 2011 was quite filled with positive energy. All the members of Ashwamedh Kalamanch were charged up after the Muhurat and Shooting of Promo of Hasya Jatra. April month started with a good note. Hasya Jatra was welcomed by viewers of Ashwamedh Kalamanch Blog as well as YouTube and Dekhona.

'Hasya Jatra' name was purposely chosen as I knew that at some point we have to switch to HINDI language, as the Marathi speaking viewers are only area specific and internet users Marathi speaking people are limited. But as there was not a single Marathi web-serial on the internet we decided to keep Hasya Jatra in both languages 'Marathi' as well as 'Hindi'. Writers can express their feelings better in their mother tongue and that was the second reason why we started with Marathi as 'writing script in Marathi' was much easier for all of us.

Shailesh Humbre, one of our team-mate had provided the backdrop and halogen tube to us from one of his decorator friend Nixon. Abhijeet Sakpal provided us the much-needed Butter papers & ring used especially for the light arrangement in the shooting. Rest of the property required for the shoot was arranged by me and pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch.

Pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch (Rajendra, Jitendra, and Hakim) were the key members for Ashwamedh Kalamanch because all the arrangement for the Unit were done by them. They handled the 'food department' and saved our lot of production cost. It's not an easy task to prepare food for 15-20 members on all shooting schedules. Other departments like writing, directing and casting etc.were handled by Anant Chavan. Abhijeet Sakpal assisted Anant in every aspect. Camera and Editing was my duty and anchoring was handled by Rakesh Dudwadkar

The first episode of 'Hasya Jatra' was completely done on improvisation basis. There was no written script. We used RED butter paper in front of halogen to give BAR effect. Dominos disposable tissue papers, a bottle of Bisleri, flower pot etc were used to create Table. Chakna of Gajar and Kakdi was arranged on the table along with a bottle of MIRANDA and Glasses. It was around 4:30 p.m.so we prepared 'tea' for the unit. And decided to use BLACK TEA as Liquor in one of the Glasses (which Abhijeet is drinking). Rakesh never tasted the alcohol in his entire life. But the way he has acted in this episode is really amazing. The chemistry between Abhijeet and Rakesh during this act was good and so the direction by Anant Chavan. There were no scripts so we joined 5-6 jokes/SMS on wives and made this act. Our first episode itself was 'Jugaad' :P

But the end product was quite good.

Making of Episode No.2:

The second episode of 'Hasya Jatra' was just kind of 'Thok Patti' wala act. Due to some reason, actors could not complete their commitment to come on the day of the shoot. But the show must 'Go on'. Anant came sharp at 10:30 at my place in Virar, we waited till 12:00 o'clock for Rakesh. But he could not come due to some personal problem. We had already decided that we have to release two episodes per week, one on Tuesday and another on Friday. I purposely chose Friday, as Saturday and Sunday are our shooting days and I don't have internet facility in Virar. So I upload episode on Friday and others keep sharing it on Saturday and Sunday when maximum people are online on Facebook. So the point is, SHOW MUST GO ON.

Anant had many times performed the Vyanga-act by Shri.Sharad Joshi. He had even seen his guru Soumitra doing such acts in Prithvi theatre. So we decided to go ahead with 'Rashtrabhasha me prem Patra ka mahatva'. He had all script by-heart and the act was One Take OK...But later when we released the episode Anant was himself not happy with his performance because he knew that he could have done it more expressively. I experimented with a VERTICAL camera and LOCKED frame for this episode, so as to keep all the FOCUS on Anant.

Making of Episode No.3:

The third episode of Hasya Jatra was the most viewed episode so far on all three platforms. Deepbaazigar channel on YouTube, Dekhona and of course Ashwamedh Kalamanch Blog. There was nothing great about the third episode. But the TIMING of the episode clicked. We released the episode when the HEAT of the battle against corruption was ON. Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra's third episode was dedicated to Shri. Anna Hazare and India's battle against Corruption. During the period of agitation against corruption, we decided to show our support in our own way. We had a WEAPON of 'Hasya Jatra' which we decided to use. Some of our members criticized me as according to them the subject and script was quite serious and could not become part of Comedy Show.

But after a long discussion, we decided to go ahead with the Script. This was the first episode in which we had already written a script in hand for shooting. The words which I used during the script writing were really hard for Rakesh and Sandesh (Govind) who both have studied in English medium school in their childhood. They took one and a half day to memorize the script but still could not perform the Act in one Take.

Rakesh Dudwadkar helped Govind throughout the act and somehow managed to complete the act before dark. Anant Chavan directed the act. When he saw that actor Govind was struggling a lot with sentences, he told me to shoot the act patch by patch and I agreed. The script was completely sarcastic in nature. We had not left any single corrupt politician and tried to cover all the corrupt departments of the country in 7 min. When I was writing this act,I was completely inspired by Marathi serial 'TICKLE TE POLITICAL' which I used to watch on regular basis (some years back). But I don't want to use 'Raja-pradhan' our 'Gan-gavalan' kind of formats for this act, as I wanted this act to appeal to youth. So we used IPL loving cricket-crazy fan with which youngster can easily relate with. We had to convince Rakesh to shave out his mustache. He didn't want to do so, as his 1st child naming ceremony was coming closer and his family would have scolded him by watching him without Moustache..ha ha ha..I know it's quite illogical. When Rakesh saw his act he realized that he was really looking quite younger in this act and as per the requirement of character. The most catchy part of this act was 'MERA NETA CHOR HAI' campaign. Obviously, I took this idea from a campaign which I saw on FACEBOOK. Originality and Creativity are two different aspects. You need a lot of skills to Creatively present STOLEN IDEAS :P. The comment which this video got on YOUTUBE tells everything about the impact of this act on Youth.

Making of Episode No.4:

Fourth Episode of Hasya Jatra was completely dedicated to Naughty children. Ashish Chavan was just one week old in Ashwamedh Kalamanch team and we gave him chance to perform the lead role in our Hasya Jatra promo which has already instilled confidence in him. The first act of Bandya and Chintya was quite hilarious as the punches in the act need quite mischievous and innocent child characters. We offered Govind the character of Bandya initially, but he could not do it properly as he was feeling quite awkward to do childish behavior. Thankfully Rakesh decided to accept the challenge by himself. Initially, I was hesitant to see 32 yr old Rakesh as 14-15 age child. But then somehow Rakesh gave full justice to the character. The slapstick reactions which was expected from Ashish were not up to mark but as all important punches were given to Rakesh we were quite sure that act will be good. The addition 'Tuz Uttar aikun maza sagla halla' by Ashish was really hilarious :)). The actors may not be good in delivering the original dialogs but are quite good in Adding their own lines during act :P.

The fourth episode has two acts in it. The second act of the episode was of Chintu and his family. Initially, Rakesh and Anant wanted to play the son-dad duo. But I insisted Ashish play the son and accordingly the dad's role was given to Shailesh More. Shailesh had never acted before. Rupali More, wife of Shailesh has an interest in acting and the Mother's role was given to her. Shailesh had just come to watch the shooting along with his kid on that day, and we straightaway gave him Chintu's father's role. Anant Chavan had to work quite hard to make the couple act better. Rupali gave her best and saved her hubby in the act. The family made quite a good impression in their first act itself.

But the best part of the episode was anchoring by Rakesh Dudwadkar. Rakesh had really done a very good and confident anchoring in this episode. The shooting of this act was equally great fun. It was the best work of Anant Chavan as a Director so far.

Making of Episode No.5:

Anant Chavan is a good director when it comes to preparing acts which have lots of energy and body language requirements. He has worked with many eminent Marathi stars like Satish Tare, Bhushan Kadu, Nirmiti Sawant and late Laxmikant Berde. The roles which he performed in his drama career were very small but all were comedy in nature. So the lessons of comedy which he learned from the directors like Purushottam Berde helped us in every aspect of Hasya Jatra.

Anant Chavan has worked with Laxmikant Berde in 'TUR-TUR', Nirmiti Sawant with 'Jau Bai Jorat' and 'Shyamchi Mummy' and with 'Bhushan Kadu' & 'Satish Tare' in 'Shyamchi Mummy'.He has also done a small cameo in 'Paichaan Kaun' drama. He left the drama field after he survived from the accident which occurred with 'Shyamchi Mummy' unit bus several years back. His great escape from death took him away from his drama career. His bent backbone never allowed him to work again in dramas where great energy is expected from actors.

Ashwamedh Kalamanch becomes his Second Inning platform as being senior he took a lot of responsibility on his own shoulder. His experience and passion for drama were the main reason why I went ahead to take the risk of 'HASYA JATRA' production. Due to the low budget and NO EXPERIENCE of the entertainment field, I relied on him entirely for the decisions regarding casting, script selection etc. From the first episode itself, I was getting overwhelmed by his talent and wanted to see him act in some of the Webisodes of Hasya Jatra web series. But he refused, as he was worried about his weakness and ailing body. An actor can leave 'ACTING', but the 'ACTING KIDA' always remains there inside him and when the habitat becomes nutrition for that worm, he himself stands on stage 'TO ACT', Anant was not an exception.

Anant and Abhijeet both were discussing scripts for next episodes. Abhijeet came out with Raja-Pradhan script. I was completely annoyed. I asked them this kind of acts are available everywhere on Television, why people will watch the same thing on the internet with so much buffering problem? Anant liked the script. The act was quite long and had covered many issues in it. So we decided to cut it short and show Raja-Pradhan acts part by part taking the 'Single' issue at a time. The first issue which we chose was 'DISASTER MANAGEMENT' in India. The live example of Japan's great disaster management' was in front of every one of us. So we chose to raise the issue of 'requirement of good disaster management techniques in India'. We kept 10 min. as the maximum limit for Hasya Jatra episode as uploading to the internet is a lengthy process. So the act was cut in 5 min and with anchoring, it reached 7-8 min.

The costume was made by myself using whatever is available at home. The hairs which we used for Anant were troubling him a lot during act yet he pulled act properly. Abhijeet was forgetting his lines so we had to shoot act in 3 patches. Abhijeet really did a good job as a 'Pradhan' in this act, but his voice was not clear at many important punches. Anant's voice quality and throw were perfect as King. The act got appreciated by many viewers as no one could realize how the crown of 'King' was made? When I explained to them that it was cushion cover with 'Maa sherawali' cloth stapled on it, everyone laughed with amazement. I said with gimmick 'Kya kare,itne paise mein itnaich milega'. The crowd laughed again.

Making of Episode No.6:

Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra viewership was increased after the first four episodes. We really had very good viewership from India after the first four episodes of Hasya Jatra, so my next concern was to increase Blog viewers globally. So we decided to shoot some HINDI language episode. I knew there were 2-3 web series already running successfully on the Internet from Indian serial makers. One of them was actually doing really good. So it was quite a difficult task to grab Hindi viewers to web series which was lacking in technical aspects. But I trusted my 'Marathi speaking' viewers. I knew they will definitely share 'Hindi episodes' as well if they liked it. So we went ahead.

The sixth episode of Hasya Jatra was 'Shyamsundar the telecaller'. The making story of Shyamsundar is quite interesting as this episode was only made for filling the gaps and not as a full-fledged main act. In fact, that's the reason we didn't even bother to shoot any anchoring for this webisode. Actually, the abusive language which we have used in this act was another reason why I was anxious about the success of this webisode. Somehow I knew this act will shock all our viewers to whom we were giving typical 'family comedy' kind of webisodes so far.

Shyamsundar act was shot during the shooting of the third webisode of Hasya Jatra (based on corruption). Rakesh and Sandesh (Govind) both took a lot of time to memorize their script for the third episode. So we had to remove them from the stage and give them more time to prepare themselves for the shoot. But I don't want to pack-up, as every single day of shooting was costing us a lot. So I decided to go ahead with Shyamsundar wala concept which Jitu has told me earlier.

Jitendra Patel aka Jeetu is one of the pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. He has done a great job earlier by Editing our first short-film 'DO NOT DISTURB' and secondly he was the Director of Second short film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch ' WRONG TURN' which got great response by viewers in TIMES OF INDIA'S ' a day in life of India' contest. Jeetu is a student in Mumbai University at the same time he is call center employee.Jeetu had this concept in mind about the call center employee and the fun during their training period when they actually learn 'how to attend domestic as well as international customers'. He wanted to show some of the real life jokes of his friends in Hasya Jatra webisode.But somewhere I thought there was humor in the act but the jokes were too specific to a call center profession and were difficult to understand by common public. So we decided to take hardly one-two jokes but work more on the character to add humor.

We arranged Table,phone,laptop and then told Hakim and Rajendra to sit on chairs in front of the table. We started discussing dialogs and sequence on the spot.Abdul Hakim Ansari who has already acted in WRONG TURN short-film as a lead role knew little bit acting,but it was Rajendra's real debut as he didn't had single dialogue in promo of Hasya Jatra where he acted before. Hakim himself developed the character of Shyamsundar.He knew one of his bihari friend who has quite a funny accent.So we decided the sequence of act. But we didn't had any good end in our mind so I thought why not we add something really annoying for his boss so that Shyamsundar will be thrown out of call center. So we decided this abusive conversation between Shyamsundar and one of the client. I decided to do all the voice over by myself as I was handling the camera and so my voice would have been recorded very clearly.

For me the challenge was to use different voice tones and pitch to show different clients, and the worst part was there was one lady client in the act which I had to perform as a voice over artist. I decided 'Jo hoga dekha jayega,let's shoot'. Anant played cameo in this act,he was confused about what was going around.I told him to just concentrate on his part and leave rest upto me and Hakim. We completed this act in one shot. There was some mistakes which I wanted to rectify,but meanwhile Rakesh and Govind has rehearsed their act and were ready to acquire their floor for third episode shoot. So I decided to take care of faults during my editing work. The act was one shot Ok.so there was not much editing required.But the sound-mixing was quite important aspect of this act as we didn't took it into consideration while shooting. Adding Caller tones,phone pick-up voice, engage tone, hold instructions, beep for abusive language,laughter etc. So it was the first act which needed so many sound effects at right place. I tried my best and completed editing work.When I uploaded and shared it on Facebook first time I added warning about the language. But then all told me that this is common language which M TV, V TV generation is using nowadays so share it without any hesitation and I agreed.

Surprisingly this webisode become most watched video amongst the youth of age group 18-24.I asked Rakesh how this happened. Rakesh told me that the innocence of the character Shyamsundar clicked. I congratulated Hakim and Rajendra for the good response which this webisode got. So guys this was the story on making of Hasya Jatra Episode no.6.

Making of Episode No. 7:

"Wo baap, baaphi kya jiski koi beti na ho?

Wo Engineer, Engineerhi kya jise koi KT na ho?"

Engineers can never forget their college life.75% attendance requirement,assignments,drawings,labs,experiments,projects,vivas,tests,group discussion etc apart from that friends,canteen,peer-pressure,dreams,success-failures,sports,festivals and the list goes on.I know you will say that this is STORY of every students and not only engineers.So what makes ENGINEERS different from others? Yes 'PRESSURE'.They learn how to manage pressure in their work.So many subjects per semester,that too quite difficult to understand.So don't you think 'EXAM FEVER' will be different for them? Definitely,it's different.And if you are staying in hostel then exam period seems like 'SEASON' in the academic year.

Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra episode no.7 is dedicated to all such Engineering students.The episode name is 'EXAM FEVER',as the episode is all about the conversations between students during exam period.Many fear Analytical subjects,specially which include lot of calculations.There are many students who even don't know how to use scientific calculators :P,Some students are very serious and sincere.They study regularly and so are under less pressure as compared to students who study at 11th hour.So at the exam time such students becomes 'GOD' for entire hostel.In this webisode of Hasya Jatra Shailesh More is one such scholar student.His room partner Ashish Chavan is like other average students.

Compared to previous webisode this act was different in its treatment.I wanted to show the 'EXAM FEVER' as it is and so there was not much scope for any comic scenes. The only comedy was in the punches which should be matched with the attitudes of characters (students) in this webisode. So we worked more on it. And this webisode was completely made for Students only so that they can relate themselves with it.

The act was shoot in 3-4 patches as per the entries by other hostelite students. So the sequence of 2-3 parts was adjustable except the END which was pre-planned. We just wanted to give message to all the students that 'THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO SUCCESS'. We gave Jitendra Patel the chance to anchor this episode as young student anchor was most suitable for this compared to show host Rakesh Dudwadkar.The beginning scene of Shailesh Humbre and Sumeet Mane was additional scene which was included later just because we have skipped 1-2 good laughter punches on the shooting day which we could not shoot again with Ashish and Shailesh More.

During the shooting Shailesh More was not comfortable with one dialog which had 'PREFER, REFER' combination.He took many retakes to deliver the same dialog.Ashish had done good job as an actor supported by Jitendra,Hakim and myself. It was my debut act.Basically I don't like to ACT but I acted because of shortage of Actors that day.This webisode didn't got good response on our BLOG but become instant hit on YouTube.

Making of Episode No.8:

Ashish Chavan acted in our promo and webisode no.4 and webisode no.7.

Hasya Jatra's episode no 8 was directed by Ashish Chavan. In this webisode we introduced first girl anchor Rupali More who has also acted in this episode.The chemistry between Rupali and Rakesh Dudwadkar was really amazing during this act.

Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra's webisode no.8 is dedicated to the 'POWER OF MONEY'. Rakesh has played the role of 'stylish beggar' in this act.He is quite funny in this act.Rupali gets impressed by this beggar due to his 'income' and that shows 'Aajkal pyar andha hi nahi...lalachi bhi hota hai :P' - the morale of the webisode.

The act was written by Ashish himself,so he had better idea of how to direct this act.He wanted Rakesh to do 'LOUD' acting in this act.In fact Rupali has really pulled out the act properly.Rakesh did good job,but he could have done much better than this.We don't wanted to act him like 'Munnabhai' in entire act,but he had to talk like Munna in this act. Rupali and Rakesh took almost 4 hours to practice the act and we shot this act in the late evening at 7:30 p.m.Again we couldn't complete in single shoot,we took 3 patches for this act.Anchoring was done by Rupali after the shooting was over. So that day Rupali and her husband Shailesh spend entire day on set.

The joke of the weight-machine was quite hilarious.The expressions by Rakesh during that scene is quite funny.Actually he took lot of time to understand what was expected from him.Finally we told him to act 'FILMY'.He understood the word and then gave proper reactions,quite 'filmy' and quite 'loud'. We included 'dance' at the end of the episode to increase the 'Energy level' of act and add more humor and nonsense in it. Rupali did anchoring for the first time in her life.So she was bit nervous during her anchoring.She tried her best.

Editing part was comparatively easy for this webisode.We had to 'CHEAT' entire 'Weight-machine' scene, so I had to Zoom the video during editing work. Sound effect of weight-machine after inserting coin, throwing of coin towards Rakesh etc. were added. This webisode was HINDI and first time it had any love-story,so as expected we got quite a good response to this act.

Making of Episode No.9:

Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra Episode no.9 was dedicated to Teacher-Student friendship.Abhijeet Sakpal and Anant Chavan had played roles of student and teacher respectively.Abhijeet Sakpal's acting as a naughty student and Anant Chavan's performance as his teacher both were equally good and the give-n-take, dialogue delivery,timing etc.all were perfect.The overall act was good and interesting was shot in one-take,no retake.But when I saw this act during editing work,I was very much disappointed by watching the 'wrinkles' on background curtains and overall set.We did shooting of all 9 episodes of 'Hasya-Jatra' in front of same BLUE background.So here I thought we must STOP,re-work again on resources, improve our Quality and Standard,change the format of serial and also the level of acts.

So the 9th episode became the Last episode of Hasya Jatra for first season.'Change' is important and we should accept this fact.Abhijeet Chavan and Anant Chavan, the duo acted together in webisode no 5 of Hasya Jatra as Pradhan and Raja resp. And the 'Chemistry' between them was really good in that act.That's the only reason we replaced Rakesh Dudwadkar by Anant Chavan for the role of teacher and secondly Rakesh is very much younger to Abhijeet so the casting could have been failed. So Anant accepted the role. Rakesh was good as 'Deshastha Brahmin teacher' and he was also good in 'nasal' dialogue delivery.When Anant tried the same,he could manage the accent but his voice throw suffered.So he decided to do that character as a 'normal village teacher' and not 'kokanastha brahmin teacher'

Abhijeet is around 37 yrs old and he does have 'Hair problem'.You can watch original Abhijeet in Webisode no.1 in which he has done a role of 'drunkard' along with Rakesh.So to make him look like student we had to work on his looks. He completely shaved his mustache for this role.We gave him 'School uniform' costume and artificial hairs on his head inside cap to show him school going kid and that worked.But the main requirement was his 'bearing' as a kid,his 'expressions','innocence' on which he worked properly.This episode was in Marathi.The act was written by Ashish Chavan and directed by Anant himself.You can watch the acting skill of Anant Chavan in this webisode.Seriously that's what 'experience' all about.He looks very convincing and very natural as 'teacher'.

Making of Episode no. 10

Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Hasya Jatra webisode no.10 was added recently to Ashwamedh Kalamanch and Hasya Jatra blogs.

Ashwamedh Kalamanch is an art and cultural center (group) in Mumbai founded by me in August 2010. We started it to propagate India's art and culture among children through various Art-related Competitions, Events, Workshops, Seminars. We started with a successful event of AKDC'10 (Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Drawing Competition 2010) in Oct.2010 and then followed Marathi drama 'Lakh Lakh Chanderi', 4 short films, Hasya Jatra web series and several other videos. Although Video-making was just a part of 'Brand Awareness' strategy, it got a very good response. After May 2011, most of the time was utilized in meeting people in the social work sector and understanding how non-profit organizations work. We registered 'Ashwamedh Foundation' as Society and we are in a process to register 'Ashwamedh Foundation Trust' (Waiting for court hearing date).

After our main actor Rakesh Dudwadkar got busy with his new-born child Neel, we stopped Hasya Jatra shooting. We met in Diwali to celebrate the festival with our team. On the spot, we took the decision to shoot Happy Diwali 2011 video, and we did it. After few days when I was watching TV, a mobile Ad of 'Jaane tu ya Jaane Na' fame Jignesh Patel stuck in my mind. The Ad was based on the theme that 'Your mobile represents your status and not your clothes'. Within a few seconds, I decided to make a short film on the theme that 'Appearances can be deceptive', and after thinking for some more time I developed the concept. I discussed this 'Waiting room' concept with Abhijeet and Ashish on phone and told them to meet me at Virar at 3 p.m. sharp (on the same day).

Due to his dark color and appearance, I wanted to cast Ashish Chavan as funky dude and Jitendra as an executive person with sober looks. Abhijeet was apt for the role of Ashish's Maternal uncle. I myself decided to do the role of 'businessman'. As I was acting, I needed someone to handle the camera and so I asked Hakim to reach Virar till 6:00 p.m. I reached Virar at 2:00 p.m. met Abhijeet who got down from same local train. We stopped at a Tea stall, with a sip of tea I explained to him the script and his role. We purchased black insulation tape to make waiting room board using Thermacol, bought two 2-liters Bisleri bottles and started walking towards my home. Virar has developed a lot in the past few years, but water and load-shedding problems are still is status-quo. As I opened the door I was completely pissed off to see dirt all over the home, that's the biggest drawback of terrace flat. As we had limited time in hand we cleaned the only hall where we had to do the shooting. To show bench in the Waiting room, we removed cushions of the Sofa.

That day Daniel D'Silva was visiting my home after almost 6 yrs. In 2005 he and some other students from my coaching classes had come to Jivdani Temple of Virar. That time I invited all of them to my home for tea-snacks. Daniel was a little kid at that time. Now he has grown as a young dashing dude. He is doing a film-editing course in Arena multi-media, so we invited him to use his skills as a film-maker. I liked his first short-film 'Some wounds don't heal' based on child abuse issue. So I was eager to work with him.

Little did I knew about Anant's presence in Mumbai. I was under impression that he might have left to Nashik with her sister after Bhaiyya Duj. When he came for the shoot, we all felt great relief. Anant is a good Director and so I requested him to direct this short too. Abhijeet and I explained to him the concept and we started improvising on it. Hakim arrived at 5:30 p.m. and started helping us. We discussed sequences and shots while having some Diwali Sweets/snacks which I had brought with me. And when we were all set for shooting, all lights went off..'Ohhhhh Fishhhh...Load Shedding?' I shouted. Damn it!

Ashish looked load shedding time table in his mobile inbox, and told us that light will come at 8:30 p.m., Oops...why didn't he informed us earlier about 'load shedding' timing? Ahh...what should we do till 8:30? I don't have a generator at home. If we start shooting at 8:30, it would be at least 10'o clock to complete entire shooting (considering all retakes etc.). Jitendra, Daniel, Hakim had come all the way from Santacruz; so I knew they will reach at midnight to their homes after leaving Virar at 10 p.m. It was hardly 2 min. short-film so they all decided that they will leave Virar only after completing shooting. Abhijeet had Night duty that day, so he left at 7:00 p.m. and Anant took the responsibility to play Uncle, and Ashish had to live for a family gathering so he left with him. Funky dude role of Ashish shifted to Jitendra and Hakim became the Executive person. All of us went down and had tea. It was very humid at home and due to load shedding, it was impossible to stay at home. We did a healthy discussion during that gap and also discussed some scripts.

At 8:30 p.m. sharp we reached home. Power was on now. We started our shooting. Jitendra took a lot of time to get into the bearing of the funky guy as he was practicing executive person's role from last 4 hrs. Hakim has good grasping power, so he managed to learn things faster. Initially, Daniel took some time to understand the functions of Handycam and tripod and once he set his hands on it, he did a good job with a camera. Anant helped Daniel in deciding the frame and angles. And we completed shooting sharp at 9:40 p.m. I gave raw footage to Daniel for editing purpose. We use different software for editing, but Daniel used 'Final Cut Pro' a professional editing software which runs only on Macintosh. He included name HASYA-JATRA at beginning of Video which provoked me to add this short film also as Hasya Jatra webisode in our web-series. Out of a few names suggested by me ( Waiting room, Perceptions, Books & Covers, Impressions, and First Impression), Daniel chose 'First Impression' which was apt for the concept. After watching the final product I still feel that even after 30 videos, we are still amateur video-makers. Hopefully, we will improve our quality in the coming future.

Keep visiting Ashwamedh Kalamanch Blog and don't forget to share our videos on Facebook. Enjoy !!

- DEEPAK DODDAMANI
Founder, Ashwamedh Kalamanch

Diary of Ashwamedh Kalamanch

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 07:25:00 +0000

Journey of Ashwamedh Kalamanch in 2011

Hello Friends,

Happy New Year 2011. As you all know we started Ashwamedh Kalamanch in August 2010 and working in Art and Entertainment field since its inception. Here are some updates of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. When I type 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' in GOOGLE search I get more than 7,000 results.When I try to find 'Art centers in Mumbai' on Google Earth,surprisingly it shows Map of my residential area and a name 'ASHWAMEDH KALAMANCH; it feels great.When I see 119 members in Facebook group of Ashwamedh Kalamanch or 2300 plus clicks on Ashwamedh Kalamanch Blog on Blogger,I start believing that we are really growing. But whatever statistics may show, as a founder of the group, I don't think we are growing in right sense. Last three months were absolutely devastating for us.Thankfully 'pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch' (young members , Rajendra,Hakim and Jitendra) saved us whenever we were in trouble.

JANUARY 2011:

In January month during the celebration of 'DO NOT DISTURB' short-film completion I could sense the up-coming future.My past failures in business ventures has always taught me lesson not to lose equanimity.There are always crest and troughs. अर्ध्या हलकुंडात पिवळे होऊ नका,I kept giving this advice to all my team members,but only few of them understood the real 'meaning' and 'logic' behind this 'Advice'.And I knew generally highly educated people have high 'EGO problems' and so they are the first who become 'scapegoat' easily.Just by doing 1-2 projects successfully they start believing that they have become an entrepreneurs and unfortunately their desire of 'learning' dies. In the last three months I have learned few important things, which I will share blog by blog as cases.But the most important thing I have learned is "Leaders can be created,but entrepreneurs can not be created: as the desire of 'freedom' and 'independence' can not be instilled in others,it should be present WITHIN yourself, you can't develop it, it exists...you have to just recognise it,sense it and act towards fulfilling it"

'Do not disturb' the 'Not so good' short-film became 'landmark' in the Ashwamedh Kalamanch's journey as it was completely made by all 'freshers' to the 'filmmaking' team and thus was considered as 'success' by us.Generally 'learning drivers' are always quite cautious and alert and so they 'drive' very carefully.But when drivers become confident about their driving skills they get relaxed and sometimes becomes prone to accidents due to losing 'focus'. Same thing happened post-DND.Those who were lead the DND project took completely back-sit after 17th Jan and were completely 'out-of-touch' for next two months.I said to myself,'Gosh !!! When will these people stop behaving as 'over-excited' children?'. Once the 'excitement is over,their 'efforts' stops. We call it as 'चार दिन की चांदनी'.I knew this human behavior very well as I have myself behaved in similar manner when it came to my 'fitness' (jogging,gym,meditation etc - irregular 'चार दिन की चांदनी')

In January month for the first time I got a chance to work on 'external project'.S.N.D.T engineering student approached me via their counsel head for Resonance 11 event to be held in March. Sapna knew my 'Event management skills' as she had seen me managing 'annual functions' of Brilliant Tutorials, AKDC-10 event etc.So I decided to help those girls out. It was my first project as 'Marketing Advisor'.I prepared entire strategies for their events and even gave them contacts of some possible sponsors. Student grasped it quickly and the presentations,marketing materials, pamphlets, designs which they made really fantastic.After the SNDT project, some more colleges and societies approached us for 'Event Marketing and Management' but we wanted to focus on 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' so we rejected all...But the 'LIONS CLUB OF KALINAs' in Feb was quite surprising one.

FEBRUARY 2011:

February came with 'Felicitation' of Ashwamedh Kalamanch team by Samarth Vidyalaya.That day was really a memorable one for all of us. It was kind of power-booster for us.Entire 'Santacruz' knew 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' organization by then.I was more happy because i had made my teachers and school proud again after 1996 (when I achieved an 'Acharya Bhise' award for my merit in SSc.)

What a great day for us !!!

On 6th February I got a great surprise by 'Pillars'.They made 'WRONG TURN' short movie which was quick hit in the Times of India's 'A day in life of India' competition.Many people liked it and recommended our video.The 'Editing' work of Video was really mind-blowing.I thought it's the right time for editors to take more difficult projects in hand.We started working on horror film special effects but somehow couldn't find appropriate scripts.

19th Feb (My birthday) 2011 became the worst day of my life, as my personal life started to derail. And I learned second important lesson of the year "Being your Well-wisher and being Committed to you" are altogether different things. Well-wishers only play 'supporting role' and they may leave you when you bank on them the most.So you shouldn't make mistake of considering your well-wishers as committed people to you.", and same holds true for your organization.

New team members were taking charge of projects and senior members were completely unavailable (busy in job & family life.)

I decided to restructure the organization.The format of Ashwamedh Kalamanch is quite flexible as it is not a 'continuous business'. We decide projects,we arrange resources, we decide teams and then we complete the project in decided time.So simple.The only theme is the project should be inline with philosophy and vision of our organization.

MARCH 2011:

First 15 days of March 2011 were really bad for Ashwamedh, as we didn't do any activities in those days. Ashwamedh Knowledge Centre concept development was at peak in those days,but Kalamanch members were completely 'Out-of-touch' again.

I was watching 'Nick TV' with Aaditya...He was so much involved in watching those 'Cartoons' that he started crying when I changed channel and started World-Cup match. I thought in mind how badly children get addicted to 'watching cartoons' and the concept of short-film cartoon clicked.

I decided to shoot this short-film on Aditya himself as the plot was ready and the actor too.

Surprisingly Aditya was equally interested to act for the 'Cartoon'. I gave him instructions and he followed it properly.The small kid faced camera very confidently.His acting was quite natural. I told this not to look at camera when I took side-angled shots and he seriously followed me. Initially I thought shooting of Cartoon will take lot of time,but due to co-operation of Aditya I managed to shoot and Edit on the same day. The message was very clear. 'Watching TV for longer can harm eyes of your children'. So simple !!!

Then came HOLI. I started watching some post related to HOLI on facebook and idea struck in Mind again. I remembered the DIWALI video made by me in Diwali 2010 and the response which that got during Diwali and decided HOLI is again a good chance to do branding of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. So I made 'PLAY SAFE' video message. I used the expired 'tube-light' for this purpose. Interestingly I needed complete dark night to show the effects of TUBE BLINKING properly so I shot this video at around 1 a.m. in the night. I had fallen in love with camera, so I didn't mind to shoot 'PLAY SAFE' at such timings.

As expected 'HOLI message' was the most liked video of the month.

Then came the 'HASYA-JATRA'...I wanted to start a web-serial and didn't had courage to do so as the production cost is really very high for this purpose and Ashwamedh Kalamanch doesn't have any external funding. Luckily in the month our Ashwamedh Kalamanch Blog got monetized by Google AdSense program which boosted our confidence level.Even corporate web-sites doesn't get sponsored links for several years and we had managed to achieve that within six months, which was indeed a great achievement. Again all credit to 'Pillars of Ashwamedh Kalamanch' who kept sharing the blog on Facebook. Our viewer have increased and our blog started getting 130-150 clicks per day. This was the right time to give a regular product to viewer and that's why I decided to take risk.

I discussed this with Ravi, Rakesh and Abhijeet and they liked my idea. But they warned me that the production cost would be very high, and we decided to shoot only 10 episodes first,and if people started liking it we would continue it by hook or crook. If you have strong desire 'money' can be raised, we had experienced this during AKDC'10 event. We decided to do Muhurat Pooja on 26th March. Ashwamedh Kalamanch family has grown now.Around 17 members attended Muhurat Pooja. Some could not attend as it was working day,Saturday. But we wanted to celebrate the Birth-day of Rakesh Dudwadkar, director of Ashwamedh Kalamanch.

Rakesh got promoted from 'Son' to 'Father' in the same month, so the celebration was double. As the positive energy was filled throughout the group, we decided to shoot PROMO of Hasya-Jatra on same day. I wanted to use all the members who attended the Muhurat in this promo,so I came up with a theme. Anant (Ravi) and Ashish developed the theme and we started shooting.It was completely fun as we didn't mind what was going on set.All were directors, all were actors, and all were camera-experts. It was total 'Khichdi'...Quality Wise 'promo' was not as good as our other Videos but the memories behind those promo will be cherished by all the members who attended the Muhurat.

My leadership style is completely 'autocratic' in nature and it has its own advantage and disadvantages. I do feel those who believe in 'smart-work' should first get confirmed by some experts whether they are 'really smart' enough?? So I always insist my team to work 'hard' and don't fall in trap of 'Bol-bachchan giri'. 'काम करो काम,बड़ी बड़ी डींगे मत हाको'

But the second half of March 2011 was really great. It started with 'Cartoon'. We had made 'Wrong Turn' in February and I don't wanted to waste 'March' month,as we have to complete at least 10 short-films in this year under 'DUS KA DUM' program of Ashwamedh Kalamanch.

( Hasya-Jatra can be viewed on www.hasyajatra.blogspot.com)

Thanks for reading my Blog.

The Making of Do Not Disturb shortfilm by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Sat, 23 Feb 2019 07:01:00 +0000

The Making Story of 'DO NOT DISTURB'

- A first Short film by Ashwamedh Kalamanch

Ashwamedh Kalamanch completed its 6 months in the month of January, and within few months it created its positive brand value. The main success of year 2010 was 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch's Drawing Competition 2010' (famously known as AKDC'10). The important aspect of 'AKDC-10' was 630 students participated in the first-ever event of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. Ofcourse the credit goes to Shri.Khilchand Choudhari Sir of my school 'Samarth Vidyalaya, Vidyanagari', and my Marketing team.

After the event become successful in Oct'10, there was positiveness in approach of all the team members.So we decided to produce our first 'Marathi' Ekankika. The professionalism came due to entry of Director Rahul Pingle, who is also a Radio Jockey on 100.7 F.M. gold. The drama 'Lakh lakh chanderi' had around 9 actors from Marathi drama field. We booked 'Vanmali' hall in Dadar for almost 15 days for drama rehearsals. The 'Consolation prize' for Mr. Rakesh Dudwadkar in 'UTTUNG', state level competition in Badlapur was the only 'achievement' from this project. Yet for beginners it was definitely a boosting experience.

After 'Lakh Lakh Chanderi' in December, we celebrated 'New Year' party on 1st Jan. In the 'New year' party of Ashwamedh Kalamanch, we discussed about 'short-film' for the very first time. Even though I had the idea of making a short-film from month of December itself, but the actual work started on the 1st of Jan. I invited all the members at home on 4th Jan to show them some of well-made short-films by Indian Directors on www.shortz.in and of course on www.youtube.com.

People were excited yet not confident that whether we will be able to make a short film at this stage? But I was determined and I had full confidence in my team..I knew their capabilities. On 8th Jan one of the member of Ashwamedh Kalamanch 'Anant' called me and said 'Deepak, Abhijeet has written some wonderful scripts for short-film. He narrated me 2-3 themes on phone itself. I selected 1 theme out of it, not because I liked it, because I felt the 'Cost of production' will be less for it and we can actually shoot it 'Indoors'.

The stage was all set for the short-film. The entry of our friend and freelance 'graphic designer', 'Saket Patil' in the scenario was the plus point for us. Saket Patil was the only person who had little bit knowledge of 'short-films' as he had acted in two short-films 'BOOND' and 'GUZARA' by Manthan Group. Anant and Saket both are good friends and neighbors. We initially decided that we will shoot our film at my place in Virar, but due to the scarcity of 'property' required for the film we changed our mind. Saket played the major role in convincing the parents of 'Chitra' to play the 'lead lady' role in the film. We got our 'heroine' as well as 'location' for the short-film shooting. Mrs.Sandhya Ghadi was kind enough to give permission to use her 'house' for the shooting purpose. On the 10th Jan I purchased photography stand from 'Dadar'. My brother had bought 'Sony Handycam' many years back. But I had never tried it, as I was never tech-savvy kind of guy. During 'Lakh lakh Chanderi' I shot the 'Rehearsal' of the drama to create 'Making of Lakh Lakh Chanderi' video, that was the only experience I had in operating Camera.

I was little bit worried about the video quality also; as the Handycam was of 'Standard Definition' and not 'High definition'. The requirement for 'HD' video is the major criteria of all the short-film festival. We planned to submit our short-film on 14th Jan to Ideal Events ,an event management company for their 'Marathi Short film Festival'. Rajendra Balsara my 'ex-student' and an active member of 'Ashwamedh Kalamanch' told me that he can easily convert 'SD' videos to 'HD' using some softwares. After his promise only I gone ahead with purchasing Memory Sticks, RW- DVD's for handycam etc. The team was excited about their first step in Short-film making. As Indians, we all are 'Filmy'.So my team was not an exception.

The concept was good, but there was no written Script.I did messaged all the artists of 'Lakh Lakh Chanderi' to attend the audition for short-film on 10th Jan.The film-name was not finalized till the last day. Jitesh Bhilare one of my friend suggested me the name 'DO NOT DISTURB'. and I agreed on it. All the cast & crew members loved the 'Title' as it was 'apt' for the theme.

On 11/01/11, in the morning at 7:30 a.m. I caught Virar local from 'Dadar' along with my students 'Rajendra' and 'Jeetendra'. We had lot of luggage with us.In the journey we discussed about next ventures and plans of Ashwamedh Kalamanch. No one talked about the film, yet all were excited about shooting it.

I somehow trusted 'Rajendra' for his capability of 'playing & experimenting' with softwares. I knew the 'Editing' part will be the most difficult and 'Expensive' part of the film. But I was ready to take the challenge by myself and knew that 'Rajendra' will help me out in that.

We reached Virar at 8:30 a.m. When we reached Viva college, we saw all the happy faces waiting eagerly for us. Anant, Abhijeet were waiting at MangalMurti Temple, all excited, fresh and with full of energy. Rakesh had caught the same train from Mira-road, so he was with us only, in Rickshaw. Saket came on his bike and we greeted him. Saket & Abhijeet went to purchase the material for Pooja. Anant guided us to the 'Madhuban Park', the shooting location. As we entered in the building we saw the staircase were nicely washed for us. Mrs. Sandhya knew our story and she knew that we would be shooting some scenes in corridor. We entered her house and saw a well-furnished and neatly kept house, exactly the same we wanted for the film. She prepared 'Tea' for us and till that we finished our 'Muhurat Pooja'. The Muhurat scene of the short-film was actually the first shot taken by 'Saket' and the entire day he took the responsibility of handling camera. Well that was not at all in the planning.

After we finished our 'tea', Mrs. Sandhya introduced her 'daughter' Chitra. That was the first time I met heroine of our film, on shooting day. Amazing. I laughed. 'Chitra' was little bit nervous. and anxious about her first film. She was facing the camera for the first time and so was the Rakesh. The consolation prize in 'Lakh lakh Chanderi' for his acting was the only thing which kept his morale up. He had a great responsibility on his shoulder as 'Chitra' was not compatible as a pair for him. Rakesh in fact did a great job by making her feel comfortable and involved in chemistry,much required for the good finishing product.

Abhijeet started narrating the sequence of the scenes, and we started shooting as per his suggestions. But within first few scenes itself, I became the Director, Anant the Asst. Director, Saket the Camera man and Rajendra & Jitendra Lights-boys. Nothing was pre-planned. We all knew it was our first experience, so it will be total mess-up, but surprisingly we divided our work professionally and took 1-1 department each. At 2:00 p.m.,Rajendra and Jeetu bought 10 plates 'Veg Pulav' from Banjara hotel Virar. We started having lunch.During lunch Saket and I decided that we should change our 'Game-plan'. We were shooting the film as per sequences. Now we started shooting the film as per 'camera frames'. 'Rakesh's scenes in-side the home were on priority list. We had permission for the whole day and we wanted to somehow finish the entire shooting in one day. So after lunch, every other character was out-of-focus and we shot all the scenes of Rakesh. In the film Rakesh had 4 outfits, Night suit (Green T-shirt & track pant), Formal wear, and Blazer suit (for dream sequence) and final jacket blazer for climax. So we decided to finish all the scenes as per his outfits.

There was no script in our hand, but the sequence of activities were very much in our minds. Anant and I was continuously thinking about the scenes and how they can be shot? Saket did very good thing by giving actors the right expressions during the act. The procedure was quite simple. In the evening we were almost tired and the 'tea' came. Thankfully Mrs. Sandhya was there to support us whole day. She gave us all her house to use for shooting and also gave some important inputs during shoot. Obviously all the neighborhood was in her house that day. Yet all kept pin-drop silence during the entire shoot.

We finished almost all the scene of Rakesh till 6 p.m. We developed a 'Grip' till then. The thinking process was much faster than the start and the actors were more in the 'bearing'. We then took-up the remaining scenes of 'Chitra' and 'Rakesh'. Chitra didn't knew much acting, so she was quite natural in all the scenes.The climax scene was completely shot in the dark, as the staircase didn't had enough lights at 8:00 p.m. the work of Rajendra & Jeetu become crucial for that scene.That scene was supposed to be 11:30 in the Morning in the film. And luckily we managed to keep enough lights in the scene.

The last scene which we shot was 'Birthday scene'. We wanted this scene to be the 'highlight' of the movie and so wanted to make it totally filmy. The scene was very important one. The chemistry between Actor and Actress was what we are expecting in it. But our luck was not on our side. It was already too late for retakes. Chitra got quite uncomfortable in-front of her parents during this romantic scene. We had to compromise as we were in their place for almost 12 hrs now. So we didn't re-shoot the scene. Made it OK in the first shoot.

We had almost finished all the important scenes of Rakesh, Rakesh & Chitra, her neighbour Aunty-Uncle and the Indoor ones. We thanked Ghadi family for their support. We all ate the Cake which we used for our Shooting, took all our belongings and left for home. Everyone kept all the luggage at my place and went home. It was late night 11:30 p.m., all the hotels were closed. I went straight to Chinese Wala, had 'Veg Fried rice' as my dinner and then returned home to take a nap as we had to start again on early in the morning next day.....

12th Jan 2011, I was waiting for all my team member. There were some scenes which we had to shoot that day. We had only 13th Jan in hand to complete all the editing work as we wanted to submit it to MSFF on 14th Jan till 10 a.m. Everyone was completely exhausted on the previous day. So all came little late that day. We had to start shooting early, but we actually started shooting at 12 in the noon.

We had to 'cheat' some scenes, as Rakesh the lead actor was not available that day. So all the scenes of visitors like 'Bouquet person, Courier person, salesman' etc were shot till 3 o'clock. Rakesh arrived at 4:30 from his job. We shot the remaining scenes 'Watchman, Cable vendor' etc after that. It was totally genius attempt from our side that we managed to cheat audiences during the film. Not a single person recognised that some scenes were not shot on the same location. All credit to editing team. Everytime Bhushan used to wear Rakesh's Shirt and either we used to take his shoulder or his sleeves in the frame. Many scenes were shot in absence of Rakesh.In Fact in two of the scenes I have played his dummy. Remember the 'Tie knot, and Blazer-wearing and lifting of bouquet scene'. That it what called 'Show must go on' thing.

We almost completed all our important scenes. Everyone left for their home. I didn't went to mine in Wadala and stayed in Virar for next day till 2 p.m.The night I spent in copying all film from Camcorder to Laptop (almost 4-5 hrs) and then Cutting and pasting the videos sequence wise. The editing software was not available on my laptop, so had to rush to Wadala next day.

Rajendra and Jeetendra came at Wadala sharp at 3:00 p.m. on 13th Jan. We had entire evening and full night in our hand. But I was shocked when I heard that Rajendra had to leave that night at 8 p.m. He was going to his home-town with his family. Luckily he had already taught 'Jeetendra' something about 'AVS' video editor software and Rajendra was responsible enough to stay connected with us thorough mobile whole night. He guided Jeetu whole night, and we all helped him to understand the sequence and length of scene to cut. In the late night Hakim slept. Anant, I and Jeetendra didn't even take a nap. All three of us worked almost for 16 hrs in stretch till the submission of the film. Infact, at 3 a.m. in the morning I took second laptop, downloaded the sounds and background music tracks, cut them as per the length in Goldwave software and Jeetu did rest of the mixing. We all were freshers, we grasped things quickly and we mastered in it within night. The most amazing thing was Jeetu added some transitions whenever we required that effect. e.g. to enter dream, to exit dream., scene in scene at climax etc.

Jeetu left in the morning after completely producing the fully edited film in AVS. Now it was my responsibility to add 'Titles & Credits' to film in Windows Movie Maker and submit it within time. But my luck didn't supported me. Earlier night Jeetu had worked on film in two halves and then joined them in the end using Ultra Joiner software. Whenever I used to Import media files to Windows Movie Maker only half of the movie used to get imported. I was very much disappointed on myself. It was now 10 a.m. and still I was not able to do the simple thing of addition of 'Titles & credits'. I spoke to Rajendra and Hakim on phone regarding this.Both gave different advice. Time was running out of my hand. Anant was helplessly looking at me as he didn't had any technical knowledge, and I was just trying my hard to make it happen. Meanwhile I tried one thing I had MS OFFICE 2010 installed in my Laptop. I had already made 'AKDC-10' event strategy presentation on it for submitting it on slideshare. So 'Bulb' lighted in my 'brain'. I decided to add this video in Powerpoint with 'Title and credits' etc. Slide by slide I prepared the movie and burned it on DVD. I sent Anant with DVD to the Organizers of MSFF near Shivaji Park Gymkhana. He went ahead. I kept trying to install newest version of Windows Movie Maker to accomplish my task, that didn't happened till end.

We thought we lost the battle. We wanted to submit our first short-film to Marathi Short Film Festival, that was the only target we had in our minds from last 9th to 13th Jan and we had missed it by small distance. Saturday ended in big disappointment. I sent all the members message by WAY2SMS , i apologized all for not able to submit the film in time. Everyone was disheartened yet satisfied that at least we made a short-film. On Saturday night I called up Jeetu and asked him to reach my home on Sunday morning. I went to sleep. It was quite long sleep after 3-4 days of hard work. I woke-up in the morning only after Jeetu had already reached my place. He straightaway opened my Laptop and started working on the Video. He solved the problem using AVS only. We had completed the Editing work. Final touch-up was given by me. And I decided to take one more chance.

On Monday in morning I went straight to Ideal Event Management company with our completed film. The receptionist told me not to worry,her boss had already accepted our movie 'DO NOT DISTURB' in Powerpoint format. She even told me that your entry to Film festival is Valid, and if your film get selected it will be screened on 22nd Jan in Ravindra Natya Mandir. I could not believe her words. For some time I stood completely frozen in-front of her. It was feeling of completion. I called up all the friends one by one and gave them the GOOD NEWS. Rahul kept looking at me as he didn't understood what was so great about it. But only all the cast and crew who had worked day and night to complete the first ever short-film could understand those feelings.

On 17th Jan we all met in Virar again. We kept little celebration party. We all cheered throughout the film on each and every scene. Pulled legs of every actor in the scene. All the positive energy and happiness was flowing all around the room. But I was very quiet. We all shouted 'Ganapati Bappa Morya' in the beginning and in t
he end of the movie. For me it was the first little step, journey had just began for the Ashwamedh Kalamanch..

It was indeed a happy movement to see our own short film on www.shortz.in after few month.Because, whenever we used to study short-films on that websites we used to dream about screening our own short-film on it and we achieved it.

Note: If you liked the real story of Making of 'Do not Disturb', feel free to leave your comments !!!

Kapil Sharma Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Deepak Doddamani) — Mon, 09 Apr 2018 05:57:00 +0000

Kapil Sharma (Image Source: HT)

Kapil Sharma Controversy:

Kapil Sharma doesn't know how to handle the failure. Kapil Sharma is alcoholic and arrogant. Kapil Sharma is very unprofessional and uses abusive language with Media. Kapil Sharma is in depression and feeling suicidal. These types of News are circulating on Social Media nowadays. This is really sad to see that the Man who is entertaining us from last 12 yrs is going through all these things. He made us laugh everyday and now when he needs support of his fans and audience, he is being targeted for his rants on Twitter.

The bad patch of Kapil Sharma started after his infamous dispute with Sunil Grover in flight. The arrogance which he showed to his team members really affected his show as main characters of his show left him one by one. Kiku Sharda tried his best to keep the show going but it didn't worked. Neither Raju Shrivastav nor Raveen Tandon could add any value to it. The show which started with a Bang ended very miserably. After moderate success of 'Kiss Kisko Pyaar Karu?', Kapil expected a lot from 'Firangi'. Unfortunately this film couldn't appeal to public. Kapil's break-up with Ex-GF, team mates and old show all made news for a year. He started his new life with his Fiance' and New Family Show this year. When viewers started believing that they will get their old Kapil back on TV, they got disappointed again. Controversies doesn't seems to be leaving him alone.

When his shooting with Rani Mukharjee for Hichaki promotion cancelled, Media started bad-mouthing him again. He vented off his all the frustration on one of the Journalist on Twitter and again became soft target of online trolls. In past when Kapil was climbing his success ladder, he never gave any footage to anyone who sought to gain publicity by targeting him. But now after bad-patch of one long year and back to back failures he has become so vulnerable that any Tom-Dick and Harry is targeting him for spotlight. They are becoming famous because Kapil is showing his anger publicly. The abusive language which he has used against the Journalist can not be supported. It is maligning his own image. He should hand-over his Twitter handle to professionals and focus on his work. Else, his sad state of Mind can ruin him further.

Kapil Sharma is very succesful TV Show presenter and loved by viewers for several years. He has earned huge Money and Respect in the Industry due to his work so far. People have very short Memory. They can make you star overnight and forget you completely very next day. So as an Artist, he must focus on his Art. He is best in his work and whatever he is today, it is because of his work. He handled success very well. Let's hope he handles the bad-patch equally well. The more he will sink in these controversies, the more he will lose his peace of mind which will affect quality of his work. Let's hope, he understands this. We as a huge fans of Kapil Sharma expects him to bounce back soon. We want to see him again in great form. All the best Kapil !

Congratulations Ashwamedh Group on 6th Foundation Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 03:06:00 +0000

6th Foundation Day of Ashwamedh Group

Ashwamedh Group completed 6 years on 01/08/2016. Team Ashwamedh celebrated 6th Foundation day in DPs near Ruia College. Thanks to all the stakeholders of Ashwamedh Group

ASHWAMEDH GROUP:

1) Ashwamedh Kalamanch

2) Ashwamedh Foundation

3) Ashwamedh Financial Services

4) Ashwamedh's Knowledge Centre

4th Foundation Day of Ashwamedh Group

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 18:37:00 +0000

Ashwamedh Group completed it's 4 years successfully on 1st. August 2014 today. Ashwamedh Group was founded by Mr.Deepak Doddamani on 1st August 2010. Ashwamedh Group works in Media, Education, Finance and Social sector simultaneously.

Celebration of Third Birthday of ASHWAMEDH GROUP

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 16:32:00 +0000

Deepak Doddamani: Celebration of Third Birthday of ASHWAMEDH GROUP: 3rd BIRTHDAY OF ASHWAMEDH GROUP 'Ashwamedh Group' celebrated it's 3rd Birthday on 1st August 2013 in Primo Mansion Se...

Panchgani, Satara, Maharashtra

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 14:01:00 +0000