By Iman Mani
For the independent local Filmmaker, Deepesh Shapriya, film is something organic, which brings many different art-forms together.
Added to this, he maintains that each of these art-forms have their own strength. For him, everything starts with the blueprint, which is the script. To support this statement he referred to the frequent occurrence whereby a page of script can be without a single dialogue on it.
“This is because it’s not everything that’s necessarily spoken in a film. For example, words are not needed to show a state of loneliness, confusion or anxiety.
This goes in line with the rule of filmmaking, which states films are supposed to show and not to tell an audience,” the enthusiastic filmmaker told the ‘Daily News’ during the week.
Shapriya was responding to a question put to him concerning the standard of locally-made films, to which he agreed there being improvement, but mainly because many of the films being made, are benefiting from the availability of modern technology on a relatively wider scale. However, he maintains there is one thing technology can never do, which is the story – script.
A person can write a story that is “very visual” and can connect to people locally. When a film does this successfully, it will also automatically connect universally.
This falls in line with the law that states, “The more you focus on being local and in one area, is the more universal you become.” Doing the opposite, with the intention that everyone will like it, usually ends up doing something that’s found as strange.
In a country where one is bombarded with foreign products, as in local filmmaking, it’s difficult not falling into this trap. He believes it is normal in any culture that the people would want to see their own people and hear their own language.
This is what Bongo Movies does, quite satisfactorily, according to him. It is in reference that the discussion turned to what actually is seen on screen.
There is someone on a film-set specifically responsible for this, which had the older phrase of “Cinematography” that has been replaced these days with the phrase “Director of Photography” (DOP).
This person can look at a script,with the director, then break it down into shots and come up with style and a visual look that will contribute to the story and not just create beautiful shots.
It is this person, who lights the scene and controls the light, within the context of the genre of the film being made. Shapriyahas seen aspect of this in local films but thinks there is a lot of room for improvement. The current accessibility to making films now has not necessarily brought the desired level of improvement in locally-made films.
The biggest challenge he personally has here is to find the right crew. “When a filmmaker just shoots, without taking stock of the right concerns or intentions, that person is in-effect missing-out on an ocean of possibilities that they could be doing, as a filmmaker,” he suggested.
“You can learn a lot about theory, but at the end of the day filmmaking is about doing it. Every time you make a film, whatever it is, you’ll learn from whatever mistakes there are within it.
One year of intensive filmmaking is worth five years of studying,” he said. If there was one advice he wanted to give to people is would be to read more because it is by so doing that one gets a better understanding of stories and the associations words can have.
Lastly, the habit of working to a daily schedule is missing here. The fact that filmmaking is very much about time, makes this more of a problem. The filmmaker maintains that there are qualified and hardworking people here but the biggest challenge, he sees is a lack of “soft skills”, such as good time keeping, which cannot be taught. From his observation, local people tend to have a general disregard for this.
When the ‘Daily News’ put the question of what is actually shown in a film to another independent local Filmmaker, Amil Shivji, from the Upanga, Dar es Salaam-based Kijiweni Productions, he took it to another dimension. He started by questioning that there is not only one standard or style of cinematography that has been classified as the one to follow.
Instead, it has always been changing and transforming. Shivji strongly questions that good cinematography can be said to follow Bollywood, Nollywood or even Hollywood, for that matter.
He’s not saying there’s anything wrong with that but wonders, as to why local filmmakers would be doing this. “Why do we need to look somewhere else for a norm that we need to abide by?
Especially when we do have movements to refer to. Cinematography has to go hand-in-hand with the story and not a department on its own. There are different styles and genre of filmmaking that would cater for different styles of cinematography,” he said.
It’s only after this has been taken into consideration that a decision has to be made, as to how the film is going to be shot. This is a conversation that usually takes place between the DOP and the Director of the film.
Therefore, when talking about local films it would not be fair to judge them on the basis as to whether or not they fit conventional filmmaking methods.
The filmmaker should just tell their story how they want to tell it.They have to innovate their own form, which means they can take a little from wherever they want, to form what they want.
This is what he thinks is the most important thing.According to him, “It’s a very complicated marriage between form and content, but it’s a marriage none-the-less. He disapproves putting emphasize on one style over the other and reminded the ‘Daily News’ that a story cannot be told without focusing on the form.
The reverse is also true: that you cannot focus on the form without understanding what the story is. After-all, when restricted by a budget, he maintains, a filmmaker has to think of creative ways of doing things. That helps them to appreciate their Art, Shivji suggested.
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