The story behind the making of - 'SIRIENSTEIN'

SIRIENSTEIN

 

It was the week before last, at MICA (Mudra Institute of Communication Ahmedabad) https://www.facebook.com/MICA.Ahmedabad, when Prof. Pravin Mishra after his lecture told us all (the class of forty execs) to divide ourselves into groups and make a 3 minutes long AV in just one night with absolutely NO budget.  The theme for the story he said had to be around social media/digital innovations. I was quite reluctant in the beginning, obviously for someone like me, who hasn’t ever shot a video other than some bits and pieces of my nephew’s dramebazi—this wasn’t the most interesting task. However, what’s assigned is to be done. At least trying is important —is what I strongly believe in.
So with this thought the work began, thinking of a concept was one of the most important tasks also the one which would trigger conflict of opinions, I soon realized—especially when you were starting the work at 8.00 p.m. and the next morning the movie had to be presented. Just in the very beginning, I had a few creative differences with the group that I was in (a bunch of very good friends), hence I exited to join another group which majorly consisted of people, I hadn’t even spoken much to before this project, and thank God this happened-I’ve found great friends in them. 

In not more than half an hour we decided what was to be done. We had the concept and we were writing the script, backdrops/locations, etc.  We knew that we were running out of time, hence we started shooting (on a digi camera : =D) with the dialogues half written.  The whole shooting experience was a lot of fun and trust me, I have never laughed this much in one night, in my entire life. We wrapped up the shooting at 3.00 a.m. to edit the movie. And then, technology played dirty games with us —none of us had worked on Movie maker hence were not able to upload videos on it.  We tried converting the files to every possible format which was used for movie maker, but no result. We kept on struggling with this and it was 9.00 a.m. the time when we had to present the film. So we decided to show the videos separately, which we did. This was very funny and embarrassing especially when the other groups were showing some fabulously made AVs. But like I said trying is important. And to our surprise, we lapped up a lot of praise from the professor, who apparently was judging this primarily on the concept.

Introducing:

Sushant Lakshmynarayan  

Pallavi Petoo Singh

 

 Directed by:


Mukta Kalwani  

 Aman Arora





 












Camera woman:

Tejal Parab



 










Technical Consultant:

Shravan Namburi



 








Art consultant:

Vaibhav Madhavan


 











Publicist:

Aman Arora

Cast:

Ankush  Bhandarkar as Perfectionist  Boss


 








Vaibhav Madhavan as Vodafone Customer-Service Manager
 
and

Shravan Namburi  and  Aman Arora  as other patients at the psychiatrist's clinic

Plot:

Sushant is a loner and a tech freak. Because of not giving enough attention to his girlfriend-Aisha, she breaks up with him. He gets a an iPhone and is trying to set up  an alarm on it when the app Siri speaks to him, he is taken aback initially but then gradually starts liking Siri and gets obsessed with it/her. He speaks to her day and night, at office and at home. One fine morning when Siri asks him about confirming his meetings he realizes that its/her voice has changed. This sways his world, he goes to the Vodafone centre to check why ‘his Siri,’ would sound different and where has she gone? Apparently, the application has gotten updated and hence the voice has changed but Sushant being in his blind love/obsession for Siri wouldn’t want to believe that Siri is an app. He is devastated, and mourns over Siri’s absence all the time and has to see a psychiatrist. One evening when he is waiting for the bus at the station, a woman with a green umbrella  asks him the way to Bandra, he stands rooted and shocked, looks at her and shouts, “Siri!”

Here is the AV:

Do leave in your comments about how you liked the film.