MACHACHARI OCTOBER 9
After the now familiar montage, a long shot of people walking in the slum announces that the first scene is in the slum. Madvd, Baha and Govi are talking, the camera is at medium angle and the shots are medium.
That is cut to a shot of Joy and her dad talking. It is inside the car and the dad is seated in the drive’s seat, Joy is seated in the back seat. At that point I think the producer used two cameras, one on the father and the other one on Joy. A third person is introduced to the scene-Sophia, the house girl. We see shots of Sophia standing by the side of the driver’s mirror, the dad in the driver’s seat and joy in the back seat of the car. It think the cameraman and the editor did a fabulous job there to show the conversation between the three.
That scene is cut and we are back to the slum, Govi and Baha are talking about inviting Papa Shirandula to be a guest in their tournament during the weekend.
We are taken back to the previous scene. Joy, Almasi, Sophia and Fatso are seated. A close up shows us how the food on the table looks like. We gather they are taking a meal. A zoom out reveals Joy lying on the table; she doesn’t want to eat. Sophia sooths her to eat and she obliges though reluctantly
Back to the scene in the slum, the boys discuss how the oncoming tournament will be. A variety of shots are taken. A close-up reveals their discouragement as they cannot get papa shirandula to come to their function. That is cut and we go for a commercial break. At this point I think that the scenes take a very short duration and that creates a feeling of a hurry.
In the slum, we see activity at the grocery store. Govi argues with his brother. The camera is at normal angle. We see a cut-away of the tracking shot of a train moving fast. The light is dimmed and we gather it is approaching night. I think that lighting created a good transition of the time. In the house, there is a lantern on the table and the family is seated on the sofa. The lighting is not very good since there is enough light making the light from the lit lantern to be of no significance. The lighting engineer should have reduced the intensity of the light to create a feeling of reality when the only light on-set is the light form the lantern.
It is also at night in the other family. Sophia, the house girl, and joy are clearing the table after supper.
Back to the slum, the family members are asleep. A close up of Govi’s face reveals that he is awake and he is crying. A zoom out shows us that the children are sleeping on the floor and the parents on the bed. There is good sound technique since we can hear snoring sounds- to show that the other members of the family are asleep. His mother speaks to him in a hushed voice since she doesn’t want to wake up the others.
In the other scene, Almasi sleeps on the table. We then see black and white shots of him. They dissolve to a close-up of him and now we realize that he has been dreaming. We then hear the sound of keys cracking and a pan-left to the door announces that the dad has arrived. A wide shot shows us the dad and son talking and the dad finally convinces the boy to go to sleep.
We get a very good transition. The light reveals it is daybreak and a wide shot of the sun rising in the horizon achieves this quite effortlessly. It is the tournament day. We see the actors in sportswear. A mood of anxiety ensues as we see long shots of the crowd shouting and chanting. At the same time in intervals we see a car approaching slowly. The camera angle become narrower as the car nears the crowd to create suspense. The music too is in line with the mood. When the car finally arrives, we see his feet first, the camera is at high angle and the lens is at telephoto angle. A slow tilt up reveals the whole person. That is cut and we now see a full shot at wide angle of the guest of honour. A very wide shot show us the guest of honour in the middle of the crowd and everyone is in a happy mood.