Dictator's final breath

A male dictator, 36 years old, ruling has been ruling the confederacy since he was 28. He took over after his father was assassinated. His elder brothers were in line for power but he successfully managed to compete over them and took over. He had a lot of sympathy and support from people at that time.

A rebellion started 2 years back with people claiming better living conditions. He initially decided to forcefully crush the rebellion and cut off media and internet but that tactic didn’t work. Having used more and more force, 8000 people eventually died. People still continue protesting strong and now he’s being abandoned by even his closest allies. Everyone else is moving on and gearing up for a post – dictator situation.

His family is in exile in a different country, safe. The priest knows his father very well. He used to visit the church often as a child with his father. This is the first time he is seeking confession.

Alternatively, the video can be viewed at a better quality here:

http://vimeo.com/37087091

Cart pullers on Avenue Road

As we headed to Peenya, a major industrial hub in Bangalore we came across an empty plot of land filled with garbage from the nearby slums. Right next to the garbage were children enjoying a game of cricket. The idea of foregrounding labor with a contrasting activity in the same shot seemed as a great opportunity for building up a narrative in a single shot. Upon noticing us, they came running to see what we were doing. Questions like “Are we coming in the newspapers?”, “Will we be on TV?” After a while, they left us alone and we continued shooting people cleaning the garbage. Loading it into a corporation truck, the workers headed off soon. Not too happy with what we filmed, we decided to go to the bustling market at Avenue road.

We were looking for an old printing press, where they constantly print newspapers. Accidently we came across cart pullers, laborers pulling the load manually in small carts until the end of the street where it was soon unloaded into trucks and other small places. A fine aspect was how they navigated bare feet through narrow streets in the afternoon heat and in spite of traffic, pedestrians and obstacles.

We took some time experimenting and decided that the best way to take this shot was by tracking him from the front and closely so that one could feel his effort intensively .This was nowhere close to an easy task on a 220cc cruiser bike and maintaining pace with the cart puller was even harder.

It took a little practice to establish coordination between the biker and the cameraman and within a day we got used to it. Now as emphasized in the workshop, we needed to establish a narrative with specific beginning and end to the shot. To our luck, we saw an old man with a huge load heading in the direction of a large wedding procession. The contrasting mood provided us a great opportunity and a strong base to our shot. After a while, the camera turned out to be very intrusive, he got angry having blocked his path and pushed us away.

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