• Cinema is putting bums on the seat and selling popcorn: Upendra

By Susitha R. Fernando

Art and cinema are nothing new to Arjun Upendra, a budding filmmaker who is preparing for his debut film, a production for Hollywood.

Son of award winning filmmaker T. Arjun, whose 'Wasanthaye Dawasak', one of the films that won most number of Presidential awards in the history of Sri Lankan cinema, Upendra has started his journey with a big leap becoming the first Sri Lankan filmmaker targeting Hollywood height.

Upendra with Internaionally acclaimed filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbai at the Prasad Lab in India.

A student of Hollywood Film Institute at Santa Monica in California, Upendra is a great follower of the methodical and economical filmmaking adopted by world renowned filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Roberto Rodrigo and Quentin Torrontino who completed a major part of their production at the preproduction stage.
Here are excerpts of Upendra's interview to the TV Times.

TVT: You wanted to start from where your father stopped?

Upendra: No. I wanted to start a new journey. My father had a different journey as a director, producer and film distributor. Sometimes even ideologically we have differences but he encourages me to follow on my own. And may be the background under which I was brought up with films importation and distribution done by my father would have influenced me to take up filmmaking.

TVT: What genre of a film you have selected for your debut?

Upendra: The working title of the film is 'Within the Mindset' and its psychological thrillers. This type of cinema deals with next age in the filmmaking and it is combined with the theory of realities and quantum physics. And they requires a mature and intelligent audience. I don't mean that the audience should be high intellectuals but I am against the filmmakers treating our audience as stupid and taking them for a ride.

TVT: According to you what is lacking in our filmmaking today?

Upendra: It is the lack of proper preparation in advance. The people waste money and time unnecessarily in our films and even most of the South East Asian filmmakers. In films time is equal to money. A good film at least requires four months of preproduction. There we have to break the film into last pin and prepare for the minute details of production.

Then at the end of the preproduction major part of the film is completed. This is why Hitchcock once said ‘My films are over even before the shooting begins’. Specially countries like ours cannot engage in such wastage. For example, most of the filmmakers in the countries in South East Asia do only six lighting changes during an eight hour shooting and Sri Lanka is worst as there are times we do only four light set ups. But in Hollywood filmmakers manage to do 12 light set up in the same time and this is because of the efficiency and the well preparedness. Even we could go up to 15 light setups for eight hours which is a great achievement.

TVT: But you do admit that filmmaking is an expensive art?

Upendra: No. Not anymore. This type of thinking is the biggest barrier that most of the young Sri Lankan filmmakers face today. They are waiting things to happen and wait till the money and the opportunity come to them where as there are many opportunities waiting outside. You don't want standard highly technical cameras to start filmmaking today. One can make a powerful film only with a hand-held DV cam or even a cellular phone and there are a large number of international competitions for these productions. My message is for these youngsters is; stop waiting until you get the money but start with whatever you have, may be even Rs. 1000. And don't wait till Hollywood comes to you; it will never happen but start going there.

TVT: Why did you want to start with Hollywood?

Upendra: Because we can do it. Having studied at the Hollywood Film Academy, I know what it is. Today Hollywood has gone out of stories and what they only have is only technology with special effects. And they are hunting for talented directors with good stories.

Upendra playing the role of director

And we Sri Lankan have brilliant stories and the talent as well, what we lack is proper motivation and exposure. And as my teacher at the Hollywood Institute, Dov Si Simence said "There is no filmmaking.

There is only film marketing". Filmmaking is a business and Hollywood has marketing genius and that is why it has been able to run a such a successful industry. And after all filmmaking is ‘putting bums on the seat and selling popcorn'.

TVT: You don't think that Indian or Bollywood is a barrier to Sri Lanka to go out to the world in cinema?

Upendra: The world knows what Sri Lankan films are and they are completely different from Indian or any other Asian countries. Bollywood has good films but most of them are nothing except for their music and glamour. And if Sri Lanka fight back and go to the world with its real identity, India will be nothing. We have powerful stories and we have talent and we have to go to the world.

TVT: So for you what is or who is more important in a film?

Upendra: It is a powerful story, noting but a powerful story. For me the hero of the film is the story. It is not the actor or actresses. You are not laughing for Kamal Hasan or you are not crying for Malani Fonseka but because of the character they represent in the story. So for me what is most important is a good, powerful story and then the good team of technicians.

Our cinema hardly care about the technicians and that is why they are do lethargic. After all cinema is an intensive team work and it is the technicians who make stars. If we could minimize the wastage with a good economical production techniques and pay an extra sum to the technical crew we would be able to make better films. Then they will be motivated and dedicated for what they do and entire industry would be benefited.