...was the bible that 11 Silicon Valley engineers with no filming experience referred, to make "Bugaboo," a movie about breaking free as a "model minority" by introducing "random senseless non-productive disturbance" into their lives.

A firm believer of the organized chaos theory, I sat down with the crew of Bugaboo to figure out if movie making for them added a randomizing factor in their lives.

WHY?

BAI: Why a movie?
B: Well, it was a natural progression. We had become very efficient with our theatre productions, so we decided to do something different. It was spontaneous and grew from there. Many of us always wanted to do a film but never thought we would actually do it.

BAI: So, you decided to just do it? (Talk about taking the Nike slogan literally!)
B: We actually ran a pilot of 17 minutes and we sucked, big time! It gave us a reality check and we knew what we didn't want to do. The main reason we have come so far despite the pilot is the resilience of the group.

BAI: How did you come up with the storyline? Obviously, you wanted to do a movie on desis out of desland, but what were the key elements that you wanted to see come through?
B: The story, actually, went through evolutionary phases. We didn't want to do a story about our lives, because, essentially it would be boring (Uhuh...!) We wanted to introduce a spin, a twist in the storyline - we wanted to depict a struggle that gets resolved and so we had to come up with interesting characters.
 
 

HOW?

BAI: Did the characters evolve over time or was it a written piece?
B: Initially they were written pieces and some of the characters evolved as we went along. Well, for e.g., originally the Jeevan Ulhas character was not a big part. He was supposed to walk by in one shot and then return towards the end of the movie and interview one of the characters. Sujit wanted the part to be that of a sutradhaar in a play.

BAI: What was the deal with the character, bapu? And his interaction with Jeevan Ulhas' character, who happened to have Vivekananda's poster pinned to the wall?
B: We wanted to have a storyline with layers and we did not want to spoonfeed the audience. We wanted to incorporate "My Experiments with Truth" in the storyline. (remember the line, "I was born 100 years too late" during the (in)famous garbanzo stacking scene?)

BAI: Why no women character's??!!! (Didn't breaking free on this one, dahlings...)
B: Sujit couldn't write a womans part!!! We also didn't want to have the typical formula of a woman and all the characters being "friends" and having a romantic linkup...and we also didn't want to do the Disney formula of having a token black person or token woman. (Hallelujah!) Most of the women who come here are married; there aren't a lot of single Indian women that would "fit in." (Hellllooooo!)

BAI: Good photography, especially the hike - lot of still shots, not a lot of moving shots, could have better edits, though...
B: Tony was the only one with filming experience - he has done a couple of documentaries so had experience with 16mm. The entire movie was done on one camera and one stand. We were restricted by the equipment because of budget constraints - actually we would rent out equipment from the Film Arts Foundation on weekends because it was cheaper and made the movie in 6 and half weekends!

BAI: How come no songs and people dancing around trees?!!
B: Actually Chris was looking forward to using Indian music but this was a story of Indians in the western world so we decided to go against it. There were two musical themes in the movie - one for breaking free and another for the role of bapu. So, in the end when bapu breaks free, the theme for bapu is no longer heard and the audience only hears the theme for breaking free.

BAI: So, guys, uh, did you actually go to Chinatown (yeah right, like they were going to tell me!)
B: Noooo!! That was filmed in one of our apartments...all the props that you see in the movie are begged/borrowed. One of the cast members' friend gave the voice over for the madams role; scrolls were from friends, bell from Xerox shop at work.

BAI: what about the mug with jutting hooters?
B: Oh, got that from a "store" - but didn't charge it to a credit card (I know, what will amma think!)

BAI: So, suckers coughed up how much moolah?
B: We made the film on 22K; with the shows, its cost us 25K.
 
 

WHAT NOW?

BAI: Are you going to take the movie across the bay (if not on the road?)
B: No, we don't plan to do that because it is a lot of work and we all have day jobs...but we are definitely looking for distributors to take it up and promote it at film festivals. We are talking to Miramax, and the guy who distributed Elizabeth in India.

BAI: Will you guys continue to do films or will you go back to doing plays?
B: We will go back to doing plays because that is how we built our brand name! We may also do a movie...lets see...

Folks, when you want to make a movie on used car sales prices then you either make a Honda or a Porsche. In any case, not a lot of folks can claim to have attempted to break free. In that spirit, Naatak, may your tribe increase...

Honda or Porsche? What do you think? Send your comments to netika

Director/Script - Sujit Saraf
Production - Lalitha Rajagopalan
Bharati Ramavarjula
Cinematographer- Tony Sehgal
Music- Chris Falks
Lights/Script- Sanjay Rajagopalan
Sound- Srikar
Actors- Rajiv Nema
Mahesh Umashankar