A Kannada film made by a few techies

Nan Lifealli (In my life), directed by newcomer Ramdeep opens in theatres in Karnataka on Friday, February 21.

The film is the result of hard work put in by a group of like-minded techies who spent their weekends scripting and discussing the subject that they wanted to bring to the big screen.

Ramdeep was assistant director to film-maker Nagathihalli Chandrashekar and production in-charge for many of the director’s television daily soaps.  

In this interview, Ramdeep talks about the film and the difficulties that his team faced post-production when the hard disk crashed.

How did the idea of making a film germinate?

I am a software engineer by profession. I worked as production in-charge for Nagathihalli Chandrashekar’s serials and then got a job outside.

I moved to the UK for about two years following a corporate merger. In 2008, I came back to India to make a film. But, I didn’t leave my job.

I sounded out my friends about this idea and they encouraged me to start scripting the film.

We hit the shooting floor in early 2011. Everything went smoothly till we had our audio release.

Why was the film delayed when it was almost ready for release?

 e lost the film’s footage as the hard disk crashed.

We had a backup so people who were involved in the post-production of the film took the back-up and started work on it.

Then, we lost even our backup! Though we are software engineers, we didn’t know what to do to retrieve the files.

We had given up hope and I had begun to think that it was all over because we had lost all the footage.

So how did you retrieve the film?

We had to spend astronomical sums of money to recover the lost data.

We sent our hard disk to the US to a company that specialises in disaster recovery. With great difficulty and after spending a lot of money, we could retrieve a major part of the film.

There were a lot of mismatches. We had to re-shoot almost 40 per cent of the movie. We were determined to retrieve the first version of the film that was shot and that is why we spent the huge sum of money.

Who was responsible for this disaster?

We don’t know why the system crashed. It is difficult to find any particular reason. Once the system crashes, you cannot work on it.

We were using the services of two other software engineers who were running a company. They had worked in big software companies. I don’t know how they could manipulate or mar the whole thing.

They kept buying time without informing us that the hard disk had crashed. I am not sure of their intent but they fled the scene and are now in hiding.

Why didn’t you take this company to task?

As I said, we couldn’t do much. They ran away with our money. We could have gone to the cyber police and used other methods. But we could not stoop so low - that could be termed indecent.

We worked with the people in the USA. We burnt the midnight oil as we had to stay awake in the night for this. Had we gone to the police, we couldn’t have made the film.

We wanted to do our best to retrieve the film. Our artistes and technicians helped us to re-shoot and match whatever could be done.

Why didn’t you take this matter to the media?

 I am not sure if that would have helped. One doesn’t know whether the media will take this positively or negatively. We didn’t want any publicity.

What is the film about?

The film is about two brothers and the theme is that we can achieve whatever we aim for in India itself. That is the kind of message that we wanted to get across.

People who settle overseas lose out on a lot of small pleasures, like spending time with parents, even though they may end up making more money.

The film is about life – everything that we encounter in our lives. There is nothing new, but the film promises to be an entertainer.

Anish and Dilip Raj play the brothers while Sindhu Loknath is the love interest.

How effectively are you using the social media to promote the film?

Definitely social networking sites have generated some interest in the movie. These people do not come to the theatres in the first week. They expect good reviews before watching the film.

Some social media sites are charging a fee to promote films. The reach is limited to cities like Bangalore.

What are your expectations from the film?

I am not expecting anything. We met as a team and discussed the pros and cons of releasing the film. We decided to go ahead with the release without bothering about the result.

If audiences see it and like it, then that is good for us. If they don’t, we can’t do much. We are not in a position to go for a promotional kill.

I am hopeful that people will like the movie, but there are certain things that are beyond our control. Let us try our best to reach out to people.

What can audiences expect from Nan Lifealli?

It is a neat entertainer that doesn’t leave room for audiences to get bored.