How did you transform “Theeye” from an idea into a full-fledged music video?

When Swamy Seetharaman who is the composer of this song discussed the song with me with a premise of a love story, this got me into interesting zones of what love could mean. In that exploration is where I ended up doing a portraiture of self-love where the conflict of your body and mind converges to form the person who you really want to be. I thought that sense of a gender conflict within which breaks out towards the end could be an interesting angle to portray love. The song sung by Harish Sivaramakrishan gave the song a very intriguing texture to the song which provoked me to take this kinda direction.

What would you like audiences to take away from this video?

I would love the audience to see and understand the interaction of the body and the mind which is the yin and yang that’s causing the conflict in him. In the video , the protagonist interacts with only the shadows of the self as a lady , we don’t both characters together in flesh.

How did you get started in filmmaking?

I am a self -taught film-maker still learning and trying to develop a style on my own. I was also deeply interested in the different forms of film-making like animation where I worked for a while. Magical realism is something that’s fascinated me as an audience but in a fine balance.So my attempt has been to merge both and try to tell interesting stories.

How do you decide on the themes and messages in your videos?

These are random jams that happen within me, and also conversation that happens with my friends etc which turn into interesting threads to work with.

Which director’s work do you admire the most, and why?

Andrei Tarkovsky , Wong Kar Wai are some of the biggest influences in my work. The sense of aesthetics in wong kar wai moves me a lot. The story telling through art is something that I fall for Tarkovsky.
Also I admire a lot of DOPs works as that’s something I look at as well, for e.g emmanuel lubeski

What books or movies had the biggest impact on you growing up?

I dont read much books which I am trying to improve , so none there. One movie that impacted me most is The fallen Angels.

How did the casting process unfold, and what were you looking for in your lead actors?

I auditioned a couple of dancers and Ben who is the main cast is a Bboy dancer and not really a contemporary dancer. I thought that’s an interesting way to look at it as he was doing his way of contemporary as he is not trained in it. So we had a few jams where I spoke about an emotion and he would give a few variations of the translation in movement which was pretty amazing. His body language also was perfect fit for the character we were looking at.

 
How did you decide on this particular visual style and cinematography?

Since I am a huge Wong kar Wai fan, that aesthetic is something I had put on table to my DOP Surjith Pai. Surjith is one of the best DOPs in the country and our jam to visualise the entire film was a pleasure when I look back. The sense of clarity holding the aesthetics intact in Surjith is great to experience.

How do you create a positive working environment on set?

The production house was all a bunch of friends who were toiling to make this happen with all the constraints we had and the only way to keep cool in the set was by randomly blurting some PJs through the mic.

What was the most important lesson you learned as a new filmmaker, and how can others benefit from it?

Keep observing and listening, you will see and hear a lot of details which you haven’t discovered and keep creating.