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What is Lila about? The Yogas! (Behind the scenes)

6/20/2015

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"We're all connected", NO, not through our phones, not through emails or social media presences. We're connected on a deep, subtle and underlying level! But our experience of this is distancing away from us by the day.

Why? Our growing reliance upon technology to keep us connected makes many of us forget the heart warming feeling of eye contact and face to face communication.  We live in a stimulated reality... a maya (illusion) within the maya itself!  
Zoe Wood in Lila
Zoe Wood in Lila
Zoe Wood in Lila: The Tale of a Gopi
Zoe Wood in Lila
Who is Lila? (The concept of the Movie)
Lila (played by the talented Zoe Wood), social media likes is her idea of 'true friends'. She is incapable of having a true conversation face to face and even if she does, that person is almost meaningless unless she can add them on Social Media. Because of her lifestyle, she has also become pretty lazy and generally inactive. Basically, she is just (a slightly exaggerated version of) the average person today. 
The story is essentially Lila's journey of coming out of her inactive bubble, thrown out of her comfort zone and following the path of becoming a hero. 

She meets a mysterious, wise and enchanting boy (played by the perfectly cast Ruben Whitter) who goes by the name Govin(d). He unknowingly becomes her guru or spiritual teacher and introduces her to the Yogas. 
Ruben Whitter and Zoe Wood in Lila
Ruben Whitter & Zoe Wood in Lila
Zoe Wood and Tamara Thompson in Lila
Zoe Wood & Tamara Thompson in Lila
Four types of Yoga
Upon mention of 'Yoga,' Most people think of the physical exercises (Hatha Yoga) which is actually body preparation. It's about bringing the bodily senses under control, improving the health and enhancing the energy around you. 

The actual Yogas come in 4 main forms, essentially different ways of connecting and spiritually elevating the self.
There is Bhakti Yoga, the foundation of every religion. Bhakti means devotion. That's praying not for personal needs but love of God with all your heart, mind and soul. For this Yoga, it is important to understand the philosophy of Pluralism, 'there are many paths and names to the same One God.'  Hence, Bhakti isn't exclusive just to it's root in the religions of India. A good analogy that presents this is that God is like an infinite ocean, formless, but freezes into a solid state for the love of a devotee.

Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge. It is like a quest to understand our true Self by asking ourselves "Who am I?" beyond our material body and mind. This Yoga even works for an atheist. Anyone on a journey to understand life and the nature of the universe is pretty much already on this pathway. The deeper we understand the universe, the more we discover our connection to it.  

Raja Yoga, the path of meditation. This Yoga requires a lot of preparation work and hence is known to be the hardest. First one needs to practice many values such as non-violence, truthfulness, celibacy, purity and contentment. Raja Yoga is looking within, and discovering your connection to the universe. 
Karma Yoga, selfless service. (The focus of the full feature-length script of Lila) The idea is simple and straightforward. By serving and helping mankind without expecting any returns of your karma, you discover in through the eyes of fellow life, the divinity that underlies and connects us all. "Do to others what you would like to be done to yourself. Love thy neighbor as thyself." This Yoga also makes one a superhero, because a person on this pathway is essentially answering the prayers of one in need and hence is doing the Lord's work. 
Zoe Wood Tamara Thompson Karma Yoga
Karma Yoga with Tamara and Zoe
Director Saie S Surendra
Director of Lila: Saie S Surendra
Back to the Film
The concept of Lila is to show her journey from being disconnected to becoming connected. Zoe Wood performs the role especially well showing two extremes of Lila's character. A lot of research went into this project, and as a short we could only squeeze a small amount of that research into the film.

The film was on a tight schedule and much of it was improvised because of some of the locations used. Through words I can hardly express the amount of effort that Zoe Wood, Ruben Whitter and Tamara Thompson put in for scenes that they had no prior rehearsal for. The cinematography by me and Tamara Thompson was also handled on a chase. 
The Technology
We didn't film in 4K with a fancy camera, We had a moderate Nikon D5000 filming in 720p. Tamara Thompson who was the main cinematographer of most of the outdoor scenes has done a good job of making every shot look good.
Director Saie S Surendra
Directed by Saie S Surendra, Cinematography by Tamara Thompson
Cinematography by Tamara Thompson
Cinematography by Tamara Thompson
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Cast & Crew
Directed by: Saie S Surendra
Starring: Zoe Wood (as Lila), 
Ruben Whitter (as Govind),
Tamara Thompson (as Radha Rani)

Assistant Director: Jegani Guna
Cinematography: Tamara Thompson, Saie S Surendra
Behind the Scenes Photography: Dilo Guna

Special Effects & Editing: Saie S Surendra
Production Runners: Madhuri Pandit, Jiale Huang

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Lila.. Trailer script

6/10/2015

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PictureLila: The tale of a Gopi
So the film industry has had a trend recently.. trailers for trailers.. promos for trailers of trailers.. posters announcing the promos of trailers for trailers.. it's the social media world, our attention spans are getting smaller by the day.

Though our film is small.. it is an ambitious project this time.. hence we decided to share something, but differently. Here's the official script planned for our trailer:




I was the average girl..
Phone.. Social Media.... My life...
Then I died.. But it wasn't the end.. I was given another chance..
Another life... A loop of lives.

and that's where I met Him...
He had always been there.. but I had to look for him...
because he was never easy to find..

He made me feel that my name meant something..
My name is Leela



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Leela.. a magnum opus on a tiny budget

5/30/2015

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So we had a light-bulb moment, 'how do we make the most of a low budget?' we pondered, pondered again and pondered again. Then it hit us! take a simple story, throw it into a cycle, add deep thought provoking philosophy and we now have the script we have. It's exciting!

We won't give away too much just yet, but this one will be done with a bigger team and a lot more effort and planning. The script itself has gone through 4 rewrites so far. We can give you the titles we brainstormed, because we know that it won't be easy to guess what it's about.
First we called it 'Tara,' (Yes the monkey princess from the Ramayan) then it was 'Ahalya,' then 'Meera', then we called it 'Journey of the Gopi,' and finalised on 'Bhagavad Leela.' Now it's just 'Leela.' 
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Poker? Sin City? Mahabharat?

5/22/2015

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Our current project is another strange one. Again, it was made with 'practice' and 'coming to perfection' in mind. The original concept was a modern day re-telling of the duel between Shakuni and Yuddhistra in the epic Mahabharata.

When the very talented Alexei Liss approached me with his Sin City style short concept, I played with the idea a little bit and eventually we came up with the script for 'The game of the Ego.' Not a glamorous 'Hanuman Productions' worthy script or theme, but something that still holds a deeper meaning within it.

We decided to play with the idea of the Ego, that part of us which causes the ruin of most relationships.

Watch it as we release it this coming week! EgoGame.weebly.com
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A horror movie?

5/22/2015

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Horror films were never really my thing, but for a first project I was pretty nervous about getting my film right. When I thought up the concept for Toutai, my justification was that Horror flicks can be pretty dark, sometimes a black screen. Hence, if I mess up anywhere, I can hope to dark it out in editing. Also, with a low budget and small crew, the creative part of my mind told me if I could bring out a thrill with pretty much no money spent on it at all, I could prove myself worthy of directing a more costly film.

The basic story-line is a girl trying to remember things after being possessed by a spirit.  The idea for Toutai isn't original, a film buff would pick that up almost instantly. I sampled ideas from films all around the world, all for the sake of exploring directing and special effects. Films that inspired me for this script included Identity, Old Boy, A Chinese Odyssey, Kill Bill, Anniyan and Insidious. 

I can't say the film itself was a great success, but the learning curve definitely was. Sound errors, lighting issues, continuity problems, I made them all. As a director, what I found tricky was building a convincing romance plot, not a genre interested in and hence that was the films biggest flaw.

To watch the movie, check out Toutai.weebly.com

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    Saie S Surendra

    Marketing Analyst by weekday, aspiring Film Maker by weekend. 

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