Kathputli Colony Loss and Hope

I feel at a loss. Yesterday, I read the news that residents of Kathputli Colony in Delhi, India were bulldozed out of their homes. This is a colony of artists that migrated to this unwanted space about 50 years ago. Traditional puppeteers, magicians, acrobats, fire breathers and other performers and artists have made their home, in difficult conditions, without the benefits of government services and utilities.Hesitantly, I just called Puran Bhatt. I hesitated, because I don't know what I can offer and can only imagine how many people he has spoken to already. So I called him, and his response was suprising. He spoke to me, his voice hoarse and the connection unstable over the phone. He told me that what was, was as it had to be. They did not need any funds. He has moved into the transit colony. His hopes and the hopes of his community are just that their children will be given ownership of their own homes as promised. Any support in ensuring that happens is all that he asks. Besides that, he hopes that his children and those of his community can receive modern skills training in computers, so that they can both build upon their traditions and survive in the future.These artists have weathered the changing economies that have erased much of their already modest incomes. Yet they have continued to perform, and even innovate in the art forms handed down through generations in their families. Though these same artists are paraded out to showcase Indian culture at large events and for visiting dignitaries, they have not seen the financial rewards that should accompany the rich representation of culture that is readily being foresaken for short term financial gain.So, before speaking to Puran, I was at a loss for what to do. As usual, it is the artists themselves who have provided those answers. They inspire me with their resiliance in the face of challenges that I can't fully imagine. They inspire me to continue the uphill battle of raising funds for 'Risalo', my puppetry film in collaboration with Puran Bhatt and his team.Despite not being able to get a visa to India, I worked with Puran Bhatt, from the Kathputli to create the puppets for the film over phone and email while working directly with musicians and other artists in Pakistan. My wife was in India, and she visited him and picked up the custom puppets he created along with premade puppets from Rajesh Gurjargour in Udaipur.I worked with scores of artists to put together the music, puppets and backgrounds for the film. I brought these back to Los Angeles, pieced together work, built more skills, struggled to find full time work to replenish or at least stay afloat, while writing proposals, applying for grants and seeking support to bring a small group of puppeteers from Delhi to Los Angeles to shoot the film despite political, geographical and financial barriers that keep us apart.So how can you help? Hire these traditional artists and create new opportunities. Support projects that include these artists. Share skills that could be relevant to their future. For my part, I am working to raise funds to complete 'Risalo'. In addition, I have been creating youtube videos with lessons on animation techniques in Urdu/Hindi and English.Here is a documentary on the Kathputli Colony called Tomorrow We Disappear.

SANA Conference 2016

In order to raise awareness and try to garner support for my puppetry film; "Risalo", I went to the annual SANA conference for the first time. This year, it was held in Detroit. So after work on friday, I came home, grabbed my bag, got a ride to the airport from my wife. I flew out over night. I must have managed about 3 hours of sleep by the time I got to Detroit. From there, I made my way past the long line of hotel and rental car buses, before I came to a lonely spot where the public bus arrived hourly. Eventually the bus came and I was on my way. Then I was at the stop for the next bus and well, you get the idea. It took a while to get to the convention center, but that's how you do it low budget, grass roots artist style.

I had created some t-shirts, inviting people to ask me about "Risalo" with some information about the poet as that was particularly relevant to this conference. I purchased a ticket and told them about my project. They introduced me to the president of the organization (SANA) Jamil sahib, who graciously agreed to give me a spot to speak on a panel on sunday. Throughout the day, I attended panels, learned about efforts by Sindhis abroad, doing work to help Sindhis in Sindh. I spoke to a few people, briefly about my project. People were surprised that such a project was being worked on.The next day I was given some time on a panel to share a brief introduction and a 3 minute video on my efforts to create a film based on the poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, the great Sindhi poet. The audience was gracious and throughout the night, a few people came up to me to encourage and connect regarding the film. There is a big divide, between those who grew up in Sindh who are still deeply attached versus the younger generation that was raised in the US. The younger generation is bright and caring, but through no fault of their own, is not connected to Sindh. What does that mean for the future of an organization that was started in the face of persecution of Sindhis and threats to the people and culture's future? Based on my own experiences teaching in Sindh, I know how important education funding and quality is to a young population, eager to learn, despite the corruption and lack of resources. There are serious environmental and political issues.All of these are issues that different people are trying to work on and still there is plenty of room for more efforts. At the same time, that very thing that guides a group of people, to strive for better things, the intelligence and beauty of their culture is in danger of disappearing. This is where I feel "Risalo" can be of benefit in not only supporting traditional artists, but in bringing that wisdom and pride in something truly positive in the culture to those in Sindh, as well as all people around the world.I have already done so much work on this project, recording music in Sindh for more than just this 1hr and 15min film. So much of the work has been completed on that initial shoe string budget, raised via Kickstarter and my own meager funds. Now I need help to raise the funds needed to shoot the film. I know of no other project that is working with this culture in this way. I work day and night before and after going to my job daily to piece this film together, but I can't do it without financial help. I hope that the conference will lead to some funding support from the Sindhi community, though nothing has materialized as of yet.Each night, at the conference, I enjoyed delicious food and live music at night after a day of panels. Some friends of my mother's from college were in attendance, so it was sweet to spend some time with them as well. I really appreciated that there were real Sindhi folk musicians like Allan Faqir Jr, Deba Sahar. On the final day, I met one of my backers on Kickstarter. I did not know him, but his name was on a panel, so I made a point to meet him and express my thanks. I was really glad to know that he is following the updates I send out and appreciates my efforts in bringing this film to life.After the panel, I spent some time with Mohammad Punhal, who is a photographer and aspiring filmmaker from Hyderabad, studying in Green Bay on a state department scholarship, learning filmmaking. We were joined by Soh Suzuki, my new friend and host in Detroit thanks to a connection from my friend Preeti Sharma. Soh was incredibly kind to give a traveling artist like myself a comfortable place to sleep while in the Detroit/Dearborn area. I was so glad to meet this fellow artist and activist. He was working an early morning shift at a bakery, yet despite that he made time to help me.I can't thank him enough. It's hard to convey to people how challenging it is to be an artist, working freelance, constantly looking for work, trying to support a growing family and struggling to do meaningful cultural work on the side. A few thousand dollars may not be much to some, but for people like myself and so many others, we just don't have the extra funds. So when people like Soh open their doors, it makes a huge difference in my ability to do this work. I met a fellow Adnan as I was walking out the convention to catch a bus home when it was still daylight. Detroit is in a horrible situation, and waiting for buses at night is just a terrible idea. During the day it is a bit sketch, but I wasn't going to risk it at night. That's why I was leaving to go back to Soh's place that evening. Adnan Siddiqui had heard me share my project and gave me some appreciation and encouragement. Then he offered to drop me back later so I could stay for dinner that night and talk to more people about my project. For me that was a huge help. My point is that I feel humbled and grateful for every bit of help on this journey. The need is very real.After the conference, Soh took Mohammad Punhal and I out around Detroit for the day. It was nice to just talk and walk around. I am so glad that I got to meet these new friends on this trip. I also met a lawyer named Charles, based out of Chicago, who invited me to lunch with him when I got there, as I was flying out from his city. He was very interested in folk music and the efforts I am making to support it.

Risalo Photo Updates August

I've continued to take photos to test out and plan scenes for my puppet film "Risalo". Here, you can see lighting for a burning village, regular village, early morning in the desert and one small glimpse of a sandstorm.

Risalo tests - Beginning with lights

These are photos of some tests from last month for my puppet film "Risalo". It is fun experimenting with lenses, cameras, lights and these beautiful puppets. Thanks to my friends Peyton Skelton, Michael Levine and Raja Gopal Bhattar for the light kits. I had a couple of soft boxes some arri frenels, small leds and some photo lights. Coupled with stands, my own and borrowed, I have a little setup going. I've been researching and picking up some vintage camera lenses off of ebay. If you are good with manual aperture and focus lenses, you can get some fantastic lenses for a pretty good price. I do some quick web searches to read up on lenses to see sample photos and get some thoughts on them from other photographers before purchasing.This way, I've been able to pick up some f2.8 lenses for Pentax, Nikon and an M42 mount which I could use on my little Canon t4i with simple adapters. I tried my old Minolta lens, which worked great on my friend Gagan's Sony A mount, on my Canon with an adapter with some glass in it to make it work. It looked terrible. Wide open, I got a lot of glowing, which defeated the whole purpose for me. I also tried out a little macro tube, but did not find it particularly useful for video. Thanks to Amazon, I was able to get a refund on those.Besides a few kinds of lenses that don't work so well adapted to Canon, there are many varieties to choose from that use simple metal adapter rings with no glass. This is what I want. The idea is that if a a type of lens has a distance greater than that of Canon lenses to the sensor, then an adapter can be made for it. Minolta, Sony, Canon FD, MFT and some others do not work at all or require adapters with glass to compensate for the distance to the sensor and I don't think that works well at all.I've started reading a nice book on lighting called Painting with Light, by Anton. Getting the tools is only a part of the process. The real work is in shaping the light and creating with it. I'm mostly very busy with my job, and it takes time to test, study, order a few selective items and test some more. It takes time to make progress, as I also alternate between working on animated portions of the film, applying for funding and a whole host of other tasks.I've started separating the lights, using angle and barndoors. I have one light illuminating the backdrop, and a key on the character, with other lights added as a rim to pull the puppet off the background and some fill, whether from lights or reflectors. I found that I needed to create more contrast and interest. I took an orange dupatta cloth, which I plan to use for set dressing and held it at a safe distance from the light on the backdrop. That created a really nice bit of contrast and added a great deal of richness to the scene. I put in an order for some simple gels to start working with color.For the lights, one important task, was to create sandbags so they don't fall over. Again, I approached this in the usual DIY, frugal, independent filmmaker way. I picked up 150 lbs of sandbox sand from a hardware store for $15 total, some gallon ziplock backs and some empty sandbags for film off of Amazon. A few tedious hours for each batch and I had put together 12 12-15 lbs sandbags to keep all the lights and people/puppets safe on set.

Cameras and Lenses

An assortment of lenses and cameras.

Simple daylight test. 50mm 1.8. T4i (650)

I'm working on funding, and various other aspects of "Risalo" before I can put together the puppetry shoot, so I have a lengthened schedule. To take advantage of this, I want to refine the storyboards or animatic for the film with another draft. This time I want to incorporate lighting and the actual sets. This is another important step in the process of testing out all the set pieces and polishing them. To this end, I've been borrowing camera gear and some lights from generous friends.Creating space for the camera and stage setup is not too difficult in my studio space. Once I get lights added to the mix, it will be much more difficult to fit everything. I shot tests with a Canon Markii (full frame camera), a Sony A33 and my own little Canon Rebel T4i. I worked with several lenses, a Canon 50mm 1.8, Canon 16-35mm 2.8, Canon 70-200mm 2.8, Rokinon 16mm 2 and a Minolta 50mm 1.7.

Mark II 16-35mm F2.8

T4i (650) 16-35mm

I found that wider lenses like 16mm to 35mm tend to create too large a field of view. Everything looks tiny and your shot choices are quite limited as the edges of the set quickly become visible. Those same lenses give fantastic depth when shooting out on a trail or in other larger spaces. They also work great when you are in a crowd and can't get far enough away to frame things that are relatively close at human scale. When you get to puppet scale, with the size of my backdrops, it makes the world appear too small.Working with the 50mm lenses was a lot of fun. They have wide apertures, so they let in lots of light. The depth of field looks beautiful too. You get really nice bokeh and sharp in focus areas. The camera has to be closer to the puppets to get it all, but I can be a foot or three away and compose some nice shots. I can't get extreme closeups of the hands and parts of the face, but I can see these lenses being used a lot.

Minolta 50mm 1.7 on the Sony a33. Love the sharpness and the look of the bokeh.

Minolta 50mm 1.7 on Sony a33.

50mm 1.4 on t4i (650) with some glass for blurring effects on lower portion.

test with some lights.

The 70-200mm was great to test with. It is a large and heavy lens, but it let me get an idea of what kind of framing I could create up to 200mm. You can't focus if you are too close, but if you go back a couple of meters, you can frame some nice shots closeup. It is heavy and can be difficult for moving shots, but a lighter lens around 135mm or so may be perfect for some of these kinds of shots.

more lighting. Got to see what I can do to knock down that shine.

All the lenses were really good quality. Thanks to my friends, I got to try out a good range of focal lengths. That was the main purpose of these tests. I also started to play with imperfections. I started reading about vintage lenses, which are much cheaper in general and can be of really nice quality. Some tend to flare more or have other imperfections that can be utilized to artistic effect. I ordered a few lenses, which I will experiment with further. I want to try a macro extender to try and focus at a closer distance to the puppets with the lenses that I have. I felt like I could create really sharp images with the 50mm lenses, and perhaps with some lighting, I can get sharper images out of the other lenses as well. It can be difficult to manual focus in the viewfinder. It is also challenging to arrange the shot, and not really be able to see it clearly through the camera as you move things, being a one man crew. So, I think I will get a mini hdmi cable so I can see what I am doing on a monitor, especially as I am beginning to work with lights.

experimenting with lights and space.

I also tested with some amazing Zeiss CP2 (Cinema) lenses. One was an 85mm and the other 28mm. They are far more expensive than all the gear I am testing combined, but it was a treat to try them. The focus and aperture rings on them are great for shooting films. I don't think I will need to change aperture mid shot for this project, but for a live action scene moving from one light setup to a drastically different one, it would be essential. Some of the older lenses have aperture rings that can be declicked to get a smooth rotation as well. The other thing with the lenses I am testing versus cinema lenses, is that regular lenses come in all variety of sizes and lengths. This is not ideal for putting them into a rig to shoot a film, while the cinema lenses of a given line are all one size, built specifically to be put in those rigs.

sunset, light filtered through the window.

more experiments with glass in front of the camera lens for distortion.

 

firing away mark ii and t4i (650).

I picked up several light kits from friends as well, so I've spent the last few days arranging and rearranging and re-positioning the stage setup to keep the apartment livable and get enough space to set things up. It is challenging to work a few hours before and after work when I get time on this. Being able to keep things setup or more or less setup in one safe spot will help save a lot of breakdown and setup time and let me focus on trying to create the lighting setups I have chosen in reference images with the puppet sets. After coming back from Pakistan, it has taken time and effort to keep things going, but I've already received all kinds of generous support from friends who have entrusted me with their fantastic gear, to make this film. That was a point where I was really stuck in Pakistan. I knew friends of friends who were in the thick of the production world, but it was out of my reach to afford to rent gear and get any real help in the shoot. So many friends helped with places to stay, moral support, introducing me to people and providing access to whatever they had at their disposal. I think of all of this support as I continue to chip away at this beautiful project.Thanks to Gagan Malik for the Sony camera and lenses. Thanks to Arturo Aguilar for the fantastic Canon lenses and Mark ii camera. Thanks to Snehal Patel for the CP2 (Zeiss Cinema Lenses). Thanks to Peyton Skelton and Raja Gopal Bhattar for some lights, which I will talk more about in upcoming posts. Thanks to my father for the beautiful Minolta 50mm lens, which worked beautifully on Gagan's Sony a33. Thanks to Melisa Acoba for lending me her Holga. While I did not shoot any film, I've researched each piece of gear and there are lots of "imperfections" that could be really interesting, whether using the Holga or other means.

Studio

It has taken almost 3 months of crashing at friends places since returning to Los Angeles with suitcases full of puppets, backgrounds and all the other material to make "Risalo". I finally setup my studio in the apartment we moved into last week. This journey has taken lots of twists and turns, but now I have a space to regroup and rebuild. It feels good.

Background character from “Risalo”

Background character from “Risalo”

Background characters from “Risalo”

Day in Gujrat

I woke up in the comfortable Gujrat University guest room. The view outside was beautiful. The sun was still low across the fields, and a thick fog lay over everything. I took my time getting ready, and by about 10 am, went to meet my friend Anwar for breakfast at the canteen.Afterwards, we walked over to the fine arts department, where I got to visit with a few more staff members and check out some of the various majors. There is an FM radio station, as well as pottery, ceramics, printmaking, industrial design (complete with 3D printers), multimedia and much more. It was fun to see some of the work these students are doing.By then it was time for my presentations, so I went to the multimedia lab and shared some of my professional work and then my short film “Gul” and the design process behind it. The part I enjoy most in this presentation, is sharing the process of taking a vague concept and developing it through clear visuals into a finished piece. It is a lot of fun to have a conversation with the students to learn about their own interests and to see what aspects of what I am sharing interest them most. I had a lot of fun sharing with them.Speaking to some of the faculty, I heard a lot more about the usual administration issues. The problems are very real and quite serious with all of the institutions I have come across. I have faced a number of challenges in my work that really made it hit home for me, how corrupt the system here is. So in that sense, it is understandable why people vent and certainly have legitimate things to complain about. However, it does not make sense to do that with someone who just arrived. Almost everyone I met, after a brief introduction, went into what a mess things were and how impossible it was to get what they would like to do done in this environment. That’s great, but not really appropriate to dump on a guest. This happens a ton wherever I have been. When it is a friend sharing something with me, that is different, but so many places that seems to be the very first and only thing people share, is all the horrible crap they are dealing with and how things are so awful and hopeless.It is not that what they are complaining about is untrue. I think a lot of it is very accurate, however, when I look around and see all of these young students here to learn and quite clearly being taught well by these same professors, I feel like they should share more of that with me instead. After lunch, Anwar showed me some beautiful displays by the industrial design and ceramics departments. The work looked beautiful, and it was quite clear that the staff really do care about their students. From there, I got a high speed ride into town to the local bus stand. I hopped on a little wagon (van) for Rawalpindi as there was no direct bus to Peshawar from there.We had only gone a few miles, when the wagon stopped by the side of the road. There was some kind of issue, so another one was called and eventually we all piled into it and were on our way. I kept dosing off and being jolted awake by the sudden starts and stops. There was an older man next to me who kept mumbling things that were hard to understand. At one point hey yelled out to the driver to let him off at Mundra. Eventually we got there, and the driver pulled over. This guy starts asking everyone whoever wanted to get off at Mundra should get off. He kept asking who it was over and over. Finally someone said, you are the one who asked to stop here. He seemed to have forgotten but since so many insisted that it was him, he relented. He was kind of entertaining like that, announcing stops from there on and giving advice to people on where to get off and which route to take the rest of the way. It was all pretty funny.Eventually, I hopped off in Islamabad and got on a van for Peshawar. It took a while for passengers to fill up, but after an hour we were on our way. It was dark and my suitcase was wedged on top of my lap. I stared out the window at blobs in the shadows, between dosing off for a few moments and looking for signs to see how close we were to Peshawar. Once at the station, I called my friend who came and picked me from the Daewood stand down the street. We drove past a ton of secured areas that had been attacked by suicide bombers in the past, including the school bombing last year. This city has been through a lot.We met up with some more friends of Abdur Rahman’s at a studio, then went out for some food. The restaurant was closing, but we were in luck, they had one prepared chicken left. It was seasoned more or less with just salt, green peppers and lemon. It was really delicious and much more subtle on flavors than spicier food in Lahore.From there we head back and I went to sleep.

Gujrat University

I got a call early in the morning that my ride to Gujrat University had arrived. I finished getting ready and head out to meet Fayaz in an empty lot off the main road, since the place I am staying is in a narrow lane and there are no street names or house numbers to speak of.We had been driving for a bit when a breaking sound came from the engine and we pulled over. Luckily, there was a motorcycle repair shop by the side of the road. After a bit of back and forth, they patched up the car. Like most cars on the road, it was just barely held together enough to run, so we were on our way again. I watched the landscape change and a few small towns and farm land lead us to the outskirts of the city of Gujrat (in Punjab, Pakistan). The campus had beautiful buildings and wide open spaces with lots of greenery.I met up with Anwar, a lecturer there and had been a student when I met him at CEAD in Jamshoro, Sindh years ago. I got to meet some of the staff and walk around a bit. We grabbed some breakfast at the canteen before I gave a lecture on my work. It was fun to share. We scheduled another lecture for the next day, then went out for lunch.In the evening we visited the tomb of the man who bequeathed this land for education. It was overrun by grass. After that, we visited some old buildings in the city.

Books

I spent the morning at the Landa Bazar, looking for some cloth for a river bank for “Risalo”. I have been here so many times over the course of this project. It is great to see the finished backgrounds, neatly framed in cloth. Umar has done a beautiful job of helping to design these backgrounds and hand stitching and figuring out the many challenges to bringing the designs to fruition.I took one of the finished backgrounds to the bazar to match some colors. Most of the people selling cloth in large heaps could not be bothered to talk to their customers, but as I looked through the stacks at one stall, I chatted a bit with the owner as Umar and I have come there quite a bit. I opened up the background and showed him what we had been up to with all these pieces of cloth that we had purchased here. He was really happy to see it and told the neighboring shopkeeper all about it and called him over to have a look. They really appreciated the hard work that went into piecing it together. It was fun to share.I spent the rest of the day hanging out with my friend Kabir, sifting through stacks of old books at the Sunday book fair and then heading over to Ferozsons book store. They have opened the whole back area of the store again, having rebuilt it after an electrical fire years ago. I grabbed some ice cream at Chaman, then sat down with some book collectors and sellers. Over tea, it was interesting to learn about big estates in Lahore that housed huge libraries that ended up being sold for their weight in paper, rather than the true value of all these antique books that had made their way into the hands of a private collector from all over the world.

Azam Gardens

I caught a wagon to Azam Gardens. From where I am, it is fortunate that I can get a Qing Qi to the main road and then walk a ways and hop on a van to some far off places. Vans are pretty cramped and it takes a while, but once I was in, we were on our way.We made it about a couple of kilometers, before a bunch of scrawny M.A.O. College snots came by and insisted that everyone get off the van and go to another one so these pieces of shit could go on a joy ride at the driver’s expense. They don’t want to deal with these kids damaging their vehicles and this is their route, so we piled into the next van and were on our way. The conductor on the second van told us about how these college students do this stuff.After that we were on our way once again. Eventually I got to the neighborhood I was headed to. I spent some time at a couple of houses. People were a bit busy or sleepy, so I ate, made small talk, slept a bit and then no one was really around when I woke up, so I left.It was dark by then. I walked out the neighborhood, to the main road and crossed the many lanes of traffic. There were no wagons stopping there so I just kept walking for several miles until I got to some crazy intersection, crossed it and hopped on a wagon. That took me to the Qing Qi which took me home. Good times. I am ready to be done with this trip.

Not buying

I woke up and made some tea. My friend Imran’s home is rather quiet most of the day. Umar works at night, and Imran heads out for work in the morning, so for most of my time, it is just me and my thoughts. When I was preparing to shoot “Risalo”, things were quite busy, struggling against constant load shedding and piecing together storyboards and resources. Since I decided to take this production home, I have put all of that on hold.My mind still swims around ideas of how I will make use of this extended time and the potential resources I can piece together in Los Angeles to make this film what it truly should be. There is also that lingering self doubt as to whether I can pull together all of these beautiful elements into a worthy whole that expresses the ideas and experience that I am working so hard to create.Other than that, I made the rounds visiting more relatives before I leave. This time I visited a few families that live near where the Prime Minister lives. This makes for challenges when you are coming by bus and walking around, looking for an address. Eventually, my aunt and uncle drove up and got me from a market in the area.I found it interesting that with the older generation, conversation went to religious stuff and eternal damnation if one does not choose the right path. None of my generation had that to say. Other than that, there was the usual asking about the rest of my family which is sweet, eating lots of food and many, many long and awkward silences. I don’t understand this obsession with eternal damnation and fire and brimstone, so I would try and ask about grandkids or other more lovable family members. I was surprised that they had nothing to say about that and the conversation would go back to the necessity to follow the exact correct belief. Seriously, that is some headache inducing stuff. How can you enjoy good food, and have such nice little grandkids and still be obsessed with just hellfire and earning brownie points for the afterlife? I mean, I get if you have a pyramid scheme, you just have to blurt it out once, maybe twice, but then I would figure the mention of grandkids would bring a little joy to your face and a harmless silly story or two.As religion obsessed as people are, I wonder where that appreciation for their quality of life and love went and why people feel that this is the best way to “sell” their beliefs to others? I try to respond less to these things as I am older now and not under anyone else’s thumb, but I do find myself pouncing on certain remarks with some rebuttal, and in that way refrain from the four letter responses that are running through my head.Interestingly, I feel that the adult children of those same relatives are quite different. They too love their religion and practice to varying degrees, but I have not seen that same obsession with punishment, damnation and salvation. Perhaps in that there is some hope.

Phool Patti and Faiz Festival

Haider Ali and Ali Salman of Phool Patti dropped by in the morning. I went out to pick up some halwa poori, while Umar fixed up the place and made some tea. I must say, he is really good at uncluttering the place when he needs to. I can't say that about myself.Haider and Ali Salman are as usual up to great things with Phool Patti. As a truck artist, Haider has pushed his way past so many barriers to develop his skills and then rise on the merit of his hard work. Painting trucks has been in his family for several generations, but from his teen years, he made a point to seek out training in all areas related to his work. He went to cinema board painters to work on portraiture and landscapes, and studied with sign board painters to push his calligraphy skills. He wished to insure that he could cover all aspects of his art, and never be at the mercy of someone else. I feel very connected to that. In working on my own projects, I try to pick up as many skills as I can, and while I may not become an expert at everything, I want to at least be able to put things together. This helps a lot in directing and collaborating with other artists as well.In hearing Haider talk about his own journey thus far, I see a lot of the same obstacles that I hear from other artists or experience myself. Yet despite all of that, here he is, pushing and creating connections and opportunities for himself as well as the team he has created, traveling the world, breaking all of those barriers that others have tried to set, particularly on artists who don’t have recognized academic training or the benefits of other bars to admission in this very hierarchical and incestuous system. On the other hand, I have a lot of those benefits, but I recoil in disgust at a lot of that whole scene, while leveraging it in a way that better suits my temperament. He is an internationally recognized artist, yet if he had more of a snooty attitude about his art, and some inflated degrees; an acknowledgement to the academic gate keepers of art, then he would be Haider Ali sahib and not referred to as Haider bhai. What a bunch of crap. Despite all the nonsense, it brings me a lot of joy to see him and his team traveling the world on the merit of their work.After some food and sharing some music and artwork from “Risalo”, I head over to visit some relatives. I returned later towards evening, and took a series of buses and qing qis to get to the hotel Haider was staying at. We sat down for some green tea, then Umar and I saw them off at the railway station. That one sentence sounds so simple, but what it actually entails is so much more. We crossed several lanes of insane traffic from all directions, navigating potholes and open sewers (covers are often stolen), the public latrine (any wall or corner), misdirection on the train platform (running around with heavy luggage up and down stairs to every which platform we were directed to in a huge mass of people), then squeezing aboard the train and ignoring incorrect and official sounding pronouncements of being in the wrong berth, then walking all the way back through all of that to move on.Umar and I head to the bus stand and waited for a bus to Alhamra. Our friend Imran was there at the Faiz Festival, in honor of poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz. We sat for a while, watching a beautiful solo dance performance to Faiz’s poetry, intermixed with other songs and pieces that pulled together readings of letters between Faiz and his wife during his imprisonment. There was a lot of humor in their exchanges through what must have been such a heart wrenching experience. I felt a bit sad, thinking about all the struggles, apathy and lack of a genuine desire to do your part to make things better that I see here and certainly back in the US as well. There are so many people who do care and are doing incredible things to make the world a little better, but overwhelmingly as was before and as is today, our goals and purpose in life are to accumulate wealth for tomorrow or brownie points for the afterlife.We took a walk through the beautiful Lawrence Gardens at night, before heading home to enjoy some delicious food courtesy of Umar’s sister.

visiting

Umar and I visited my friends Haider Ali and Ali Salman Anchan of Phool Patti. They had just returned from a trip to the Pakistani High Commission in India, where they had painted some walls in their truck art style.We caught up, then head to the train station to book their return tickets to Karachi. From there we grabbed some lunch at a little dhaba, before heading to Olomopolo, an interesting open arts space where they had a meeting scheduled.I walked over to visit Sohail sahib at Checkpost and the rest of the group went their separate ways. It was a bit of a walk to get to Checkpost, but I felt like just walking. After my experiences with production people here, I really wanted to just get back home and move on with the next stage of things. After all I have been through to accomplish whatever I have for “Risalo” so far, I just wanted to get back home. I had gone over some more details for the last river background with Umar that morning. I planned to be out of town for the next week. That is a bit risky as the work may not get done, but so be it, I don’t want to sit around here waiting another week, just trying to bide my time.It was good to catch up with Sohail sahib. I shared the reasons for my decision to go home and not shoot “Risalo” in Pakistan. The director of “Manto” dropped by to see some progress on a project he was working on. I felt very fortunate to get a chance to sit in on the session and see some previews of a very lavish production that he has been working on. It makes me feel good to see projects that are raising production standards here.We had some coffee cake, courtesy of Hamza Imam who recently became a father. Hopefully I can stop in again before I leave, but I certainly appreciate all the friends at Checkpost, who let me use their resources for weeks on end to digitize DV tapes for the music portion of “Risalo”. Sohail introduced me as being someone of some significance in relation to my work, but I feel quite the opposite. I look at the work around me and see funded projects with entire crews, and on one side I see myself, quite battered by the experience of trying to make this film. What I am trying to make is certainly an oddity. I don’t see something like “Risalo” being made at any point if I don’t do it. That does not necessarily mean anything of any significance, it just is. Sometimes you just make stuff, because that’s the stuff you want to watch, and whatever with all other considerations.I took the usual long walk to the metro, followed by a bumpy ride home via bus and qing qi. I have a few lectures lined up in different cities for next week. I might as well do something useful before I leave. That should pretty much take me through to the date of my flight. I am tired of waiting and thinking, so hopefully this will help.

Trip to Ichra

I had picked up some clay pots in Multan for one of the stories for my puppet film “Risalo”, but felt that the larger ones were a bit roughly finished and I could use some more. The size I needed was not available at a number of shops I searched around Lahore, and a friend had suggested I go to Shama chowk.The chowk itself is around Ichra Bazaar, which is apparently the oldest part of Lahore. I had passed it many times while riding the metro across town and figured that I would go there at some point, but it had yet to happen. So it was, that I made plans to go. My friends Ifthikhar and Mohsin agreed to join me, and though that made us start about 3 hours late (it is seriously difficult to get people to stick to a schedule here), I was very thankful for the company.The metro was insanely packed. It is always packed, so when I say that it was even more packed than usual, that means I spent the duration of the trip pressed up against a lot of people rather intensely. Getting out was that much more of a challenge, but I made it out, like ripping free from the clutches of some hungry beast.Mohsin and Ifthikhar got there about 7 or 8 buses later. We walked down to the main road. An old man asked me how to get to the bus in the opposite direction. This is a huge problem with traffic and metro here. There is almost never a safe way to cross the street. I manage, but just barely, so you can imagine that elderly people or anyone disabled, or just any regular human being is going to find it difficult to impossible to cross through traffic that comes from all directions and never lets up. It is a cruel and dangerous setup. The metro does not have a way for pedestrians to cross from one side to the other. You have to walk down a long flight of stairs, cross anywhere from 6 to 9 lanes of traffic, and find an unobstructed crossing point in the middle, then run across the other side.I looked at the old man asking for directions to the other side. I glanced up and down the street. There were stairs that crossed over the street a good distance from where we were. I told him to cross there. We had to go the same way, so we saw him and four women hobble painfully down the street to the stairs, then up and down the other side, only to have to keep going to get back to the metro stairs, then up again.We continued on our way and found a shop that sold clay decorations. They had some pots that could work, but I wanted to explore more options before deciding. We would come back this way when taking the metro back home anyway, so I I figured we would go explore the bazaar for other options if there were any.Through backstreets we came across an old gateway with beautiful fine brick work. It turned out that the gateway lead to an old mandir, or Hindu temple. When Pakistan and India split in 1947 and the bloodshed of partition caused mass migration on both sides, the Hindus and Sikhs of Lahore left as many Muslims from across the border made their way here in one of the largest mass migrations and massacres.Refugee families came to Lahore, while many who had lived here for countless generations left. Those families that came here were allotted homes, including spaces within this mandir. So the numerous rooms that lined the perimeter of this large mandir had been converted into small single room residences where families had been living for at least three generations. They had treated the spaces with respect, though their former religious functions had ceased long ago. Then when the Babri Masjid was destroyed in India, by fanatical Hindus, the fanatical Muslim groups in Lahore decided that they needed to destroy mandirs. The Muslim residents told us how they were extremely afraid, running to save their families as crowds of politically motivated groups descended upon these long abandoned places of worship and caused damage that is still visible today.It always makes me sad to see these remains. The dead buildings seem to echo the anguish of all those displaced and murdered to make way for what exactly, I do not know. We explored for a bit, before continuing to Ichra. There were a ton of cloth and clothing shops. I picked up some sewing supplies that Umar had asked for as we explored. We did see some pottery shops, but none with anything useful for me. In the end, after much walking with friends, we went to the first shop near the metro to pick up the clay pots we had seen there. This time, the first man I had spoken to was nowhere to be seen and his assistant was running the shop. I asked for a dozen of the clay pots I needed. He mumbled something about six times and all I could figure was that he was quoting a higher price than the owner had earlier, but I could not make out exactly how much. I did not care. I just kept telling him the pots were rs. 30 each as had been stated earlier and that I would take 12.I got a ladder and brought them down. He filled all twelve in a single plastic bag. I had to insist, several times for two bags. He refused several times. Finally he said for me to pay him the money first, since he thought I would run away otherwise. This guy was quite the character. So, I paid him, he brought the change and we put the pots in two bags before Mohsin, Ifthikhar and I squeezed back onto the metro and head back home.Umar spent the night working meticulously on adding backing and borders to the backgrounds he had completed. I must say, they look quite incredible all finished and ready to hang.

Looking at clay pots

I had stayed the night. In the morning I spent time with my cousins and aunt. Faiza baaji, who has been instrumental in many of my Punjabi language efforts on other projects, took me to her collection of clay decorations, to see if there was anything I could find useful for my film, “Risalo”. I did find a few pieces to finish off the unfinished hookah prop I picked up from Multan.Besides that, it was just nice to take a break from sitting in isolation waiting for time to pass. I left in the late afternoon to head back to the other side of town. This is part of the process of wrapping things up before I leave for home. I had picked up the other suitcase I had and spent a few hours trying to figure out how to get all the film related props, puppets, backgrounds and production gear into my suitcases while still keeping it at some estimate of the airline baggage weight limits.

Keep going

In the morning, Umar and I picked up some more cloth from the Landa bazaar. Though we have often picked up cloth from the second hand sellers outside, on this day, we head inside the shops, deeper within the market where they sell all kinds of new cloth. The shopkeeper we had called before coming was still not there so we searched the neighboring shops for some other cloth needs.I looked at more cloth that could make for an interesting river background. I had figured out the mechanics for the design that I thought would work. It takes a lot of time to find the right material and certainly, new cloth is more expensive, but very necessary for certain tasks.After hours of hunting and bargaining, I handed the bags of cloth to Umar and sent him home, then walked down the street to grab a rickshaw to my relatives. The rickshaw driver was interesting. He quoted me the right price, so I did not need to bargain. I hopped in and we were on our way. He discussed all kinds of life philosophies with me along the way. Luckily, he did not need a response from me beyond an occasional “mm hmmm”. It is very loud in a rickshaw, with the sound of the vehicle and all the traffic around it. Add to that the fact that the driver is thankfully facing the road and all of his sound is being projected away from where I was sitting in the back and it makes it very tough to understand much of a conversation.I picked up that he was grateful for all that he had despite hardships and that love for all was all that mattered. People love to compliment themselves and share how virtuous they might be. Who knows what is true and what not. I was just along for the ride. I thanked him for getting me there safely, then spent the rest of the day and night catching up with my relatives over some nice food and a break from the world of puppets.

Reflection

Imran and Umar provide a breakfast feast.

I sent some money to the puppeteers for their time, waiting to be called to Lahore for “Risalo”. It is interesting. I look back at how I had planned to shoot the film on my little Canon Rebel T4i with it’s minimal 720p resolution for raw recording with Magic Lantern. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to shoot on a nice professional grade camera, with a proper crew. I really did want that, but there was no way for me to afford it.I understood the limitations of my budget and tried to make a plan within that. Yet when I came to Lahore, I was told by so many well meaning production related friends that I was foolish to do that. Surely they would help me to gain the resources I needed to shoot the film with a cinema quality camera and crew. This is not a huge project and my planning is quite meticulous as far as what we need to shoot, so it was well within the realm of possibility. However, for that to happen depended on a few variables beyond my control.Contacts who knew the people that could provide crew and equipment. I had that.People to state what they wished to help with honesty.People who actually felt connected to the purpose and the film to work with me rather than getting people just trying to size you up and see what they can take you for.Two and three were my downfall. It took so much energy to set things up properly and get the key people and equipment in place that when the promises and reassurances all turned out to be lies, I had neither funds nor energy to continue with a shoot. Certainly I tried, but that endless sizing you up to squeeze you as hard as possible is what forced me to stop the production right here. This is not how I can make this film.The biggest casualties here are the puppeteers, who will go back to their menial labor jobs. Thankfully there are opportunities for them to begin making puppets again which can lead to performances and a more sustainable life for them. This depends now on them putting in the effort to do this, with the support that friends and I can provide. We’ll see how this goes. Being open and looking out for the puppeteers was appreciated by them, when it came to production people I met, that same attitude was seen as weakness and they sharpened their knives that much more. So the far more educated and wealthy people were the dirtiest and nastiest of the bunch. The puppeteers called me as Khurshid visited them to distribute the funds I sent. Jamil thanked me for not forgetting them and for treating them with respect and care. It is so necessary to work with people with whom you can create a bond like that, rather than these production people that I came across.I texted the DP that dropped out and told him, that I wished he had told me he had no interest in doing this film before I went to Multan. I had visited him and shown him the animatics for both stories, reconfirmed that he was on board, gave him the option of splitting the production into a week in November and a week or less in December according to his schedule. Yet here he was intent on telling me he would do the work, only to begrudgingly say he was out, once I had raised the hopes of the puppeteers and trained with them. Even his admission followed another attempt to delay telling me for another ten days?!So what does this tell me? It does not matter how good their friends are and how good they are to their friends in a non professional space. As I have made my decision to rearrange the schedule for the film, by going home to my family and hopefully a job, while working on the animation and audio portions of the film, I find myself having to explain to so many people. People tell me that I should have planned better to get an Indian Visa and go there to work, or I should have magically had more money, or I should have hired more production people at the beginning to help record the music, or I should have been better, smarter and more capable at everything. Sure, I wish I was, and that more things came easily, but no. This has been my struggle and my effort. Having seen the video folks that same friend recommended, I don’t see how I would have fared better with his audio friends. People have all the answers when they are not actually doing the work. It all sounds great as an idea, but once you try those resources, you realize the painful process of bringing each piece to life.There is a lot of learning from this process, but unfortunately, it consists largely of making more money and staying away from Pakistani production specialists. I had this lesson regarding music folks when I came to record music for “Gul", then actors when I came to record voices for another project and now video production people and arts institutions on “Risalo”. These are not just my experiences, for along the way I have heard so many horror stories regarding other friends’ dealings with arts institutions run by corrupt appointees. Now I must leave, to create this work and survive these challenges, but in an entirely different place and with a different set of circumstances to be determined.I would leave tomorrow if Umar was not still working on backgrounds. I might as well finish that so I do not have to return in case I end up shooting the film elsewhere. The suitcases are heavy and I will likely pay a great deal to take it all back. That does not make it seem likely that I will return to shoot in Pakistan.

pound of flesh

I woke up feeling a little less crummy than the past few days. I no longer felt as strong a desire to protect and promote people who might be potentially involved in the project. Certainly, there is a level of paranoia and truth to seeing these production people around me as being calculating and trying to see how much skin they can slice off your bones.This has recurred during the process of trying to make “Risalo”. Musicians applied pressure to squeeze out more money, as did puppeteers. Based on the level of income they usually received, people reached out for money. The less well off would try to squeeze out a few more thousand rupees. Production people who work in an industry where they see the potential to make thousands of dollars a day on high profile commercials want to squeeze that out of everyone that walks past. This is despite the fact that fewer can command anywhere near that as far as fees for their work. So some jerk of a producer cuts them down to size and gets them to work for what they are willing to give. Things are not different at other jobs and industries around the world, but it is a bit more extreme here than in some places.I thought about all of this garbage in the morning. I opened up some recordings I had made of the puppeteers practicing in Multan. The work was not particularly polished. It would take a lot to get decent performances from them, but it might be possible. It made me wonder whether I could effectively shoot this film while fighting with production folks and pulling out performances from the puppeteers. That’s not who I am and it is not how I want to work.There was much to learn here. Certainly, I could become a bit more producer like in my dealings, but I kept wondering whether what I was risking all of this for was going to be worth it with this bunch of people. It is a tough decision to switch paths, but you can’t just run down a road because you are on it.I spent the morning pacing around the living room, thinking about what I could and should do. It is time to leave. Yes I can play the game to some extent and get some work done, but I don’t want to work with these people who so blatantly just want to see how big a piece they can gouge out of you. I will do my part and pay the puppeteers a bit more for their time and see if they can take the initiative of puppet making, leveraging the connections I have given them.Beyond that, I have things to pack, some finishing work to do with my friend Umar, and perhaps the first step to a better way of seeing this film through. I don’t want to give up on my optimism or the desire to do some interesting work that helps to support fellow artists, but I think I have run far enough down this particular path.I feel a sense of loss, but I realize that I can’t shoot this film with so much madness. So it was that I had to break the news to the puppeteers. With friends, I am also trying to get their puppet making going again so that they can sell pieces to the public. That is a big way that puppetry has survived in Rajasthan, just across the border in India, and with all the handicrafts events in cities around Pakistan, I think people would really love them. They just need some help getting started, some exposure to different quality and price tiers that they can create and some funding to start. So, I’m trying to help facilitate creation of one puppet as a starting point. Let’s see where we can go from there.It was really painful telling the puppeteers that we won’t be able to shoot the film. Instead of making promises to them about shooting in the future, I will keep working to connect them to opportunities now. I think there is a lot of potential here, but I feel sick in my stomach that this did not go through, after all the reassurances and checking in with our DP/producer. There’s only so much I can do, but I feel like a piece of me died. That’s not the project, but what we hoped to create together right now, does not seem possible. This is just the beginning of where we go next.

To become that which you hate

A few friends of Imran’s came over and cooked a delicious meal of eggplant and rice while I added lighting references to my spreadsheet for Sorath. I continued to put the word out to try and work out the many logistical issues that have been thrust back on my shoulders since the loss of the person who had agreed to DP and line produce the film. He came in with a lot of promises, and I made sure to keep him in the loop as I moved forward and checked in with him to make sure he was still interested, but after much chasing around to get a hold of him, he dropped the project, just as I had secured puppeteers.That puts into question how I can manage this production. Getting the performances for the film out of these puppeteers who are not quite so finely trained is going to take everything I have and more, but now I have to wrangle camera, light, location, funding and so much more on top of all of that. So I put out calls to friends to see what we could come up with.I’m not gonna pretend this is easy. I feel a tremendous amount of pressure, and on top of the work, there is a realization that financially, I could get back and be all right until I can find a job at the present, but if I sink more into this production, I will be in a much more difficult position. So I tried to enjoy some time with friends, but my mind is of course fixated on these many challenges.Imran’s friend Hisham offered some good advice later that night. He reassured me that regardless of how things went, things would get done. It might not be shot with the skill I want, but one way or another it will get done. My friend Imran had also talked to me about trying to be okay with just letting go, while still doing his best to contact people who may be able to help with resources. It is tough to let go, but important to reassess the overall situation. Is it best to continue down this road, or put a stop to things and regroup?We walked down the street for some late night jalaibis in hot milk. I came back and felt a little lighter. Then I spoke to a potential DP on the phone. He was interested, but wanted to know what I could offer in terms of a budget. That is a fair enough question. I talked to him about the production and where we were at the moment. I discussed what I could pay and other options. I talked to him as someone looking out not just for my interests but for his as well. He is a student, and one thing I have tried to do during this process is to make sure that the people I work with have a good environment to work in. It does leave me open to being labeled naive or easy to take advantage of, but there is a balance in my opinion, between creating a nurturing environment where you can build relationships based on mutual trust and a desire to see each other succeed. The problem arises when both parties are not on the same wavelength regarding that.Afterwards, I talked to another production friend, who is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He tells me about how cut throat everyone is and how he too is the same. It turns out the other DP had dropped out because he decided that he saw no financial gain to be had. Why he wanted me to wait another 10 days, I don’t know. He did know, and said so himself that this was an art film with no commercial value when we first met. He agreed to take on a producer and DP role all the same, making all kinds of lavish promises. I checked with other production friends who know him well and they all vouched for him.Yet in the end, he strung me along, like a vulture, waiting to see if he could get any bits, until he felt there was nothing to get from me and dropped the project. Talking to my rougher around the edges production friend, he made a strong point that my way was not the way to deal with this sea of rabid dogs. It was a very bitter pill to swallow. Once again, I looked back at a lot of my experience working with different artists on this project and the conversation just made me revisit every person who pushed to get a little more of a bite out of me. If I was going to do this project with these people, I needed to push back and get just as cut throat. He is right. Though I resisted the idea in the conversation, and was pretty mad about it all, he was right and by the end of the conversation, I agreed. So this is what needed to be done, but the question for me remained, is this what I should do?I talked a lot to Umar, who was nice enough to listen and share his experiences. He was starting his night shift of working on backgrounds for the film. Each person has their challenges and certainly financial needs to deal with. The question is, how ugly do you get in this system and when you become no different than anyone else, will you still be able to create something beautiful out of all that ugly maneuvering. There seemed to be a lot of maneuvering going on with production people and that’s not my way. Yet if you find yourself working within a system, do you become it or set it on fire. I think you can guess which option I lean towards.

Reconfigure

As things are being shifted around and refigured, there are a lot of little positive things going in during the production of “Risalo”. As I have been working on this project, I’ve been traveling around the country in the course of my work and in doing so, I end up at a grass roots level, revitalizing the idea of traditional puppetry. Many people have expressed interest in hiring a group to perform, or bringing them to different institutions.While that may or may not happen, there is some ground work being laid for future plans. Now that I have finally met Abdul Hakim sahib, who can make puppets, we have a starting point. Several people who saw the puppeteers when we went to the design school expressed an interest in having puppets made. This is a way that puppeteers in India have been earning for many years, but that has never happened in Pakistan. I am trying to facilitate this, by explaining some of the opportunities that can come out of this process to the puppeteers. They suggested I buy some premade ones. They do not sell their own, but some may have puppets that they are willing to sell. These are family heirlooms, and I really have no interest in separating these artists from the treasures of their elders. So, I have explained that we want them to earn from this and start puppet making once again. At first it will be the master puppet maker creating a puppet head and perhaps other family members can make clothes and paint it.If a few people in Multan get puppets made, then a process will begin. Then it can spread from there. Eventually, I would love to see these puppeteers with a booth of their own at an event like Daatchi, selling puppets and booking performances directly with the general public. I think it will take some time, but if we can get things started now, it could even happen within a year’s time. The beauty of it is that no one need stand between the puppeteers and the general public or their earnings. I really want to see this happen.Other than that, it has been a roller coaster ride today. I have to pull this production together somehow. My funds are low. I of course have the puppeteers properly covered, but I don’t have much left for any additional expenses, such as equipment rental or hiring a DP. So I have my beggar’s bowl out so to speak to see if I can get the help that I need. I also have to keep in mind that if I need to pull the plug on this and try again another day, then that is my last resort. It would be very painful and I am doing everything in my power to prevent that, but there is that.It is tough to keep on task when there are so many things to figure out and a lot of uncertainty, but with any production, you have to keep moving forward. I continued to fill in the shot spreadsheet and then took a walk to pick up some materials for props. I bought a clean jharroo (kind of broom) and created little puppet sized jharroos from it. One more prop crossed off the list.I met with a few DPs today. I am thankful for their time. One dropped by and watched the Sohni animatic. He felt that the piece could use animation to bring it to life. His thought was that the things that these puppets can’t do, such as changing facial expressions or creating detail in the backgrounds, could be done with 3D animation. He is a very talented photographer, so it was good to hear his thoughts. They differ with what I am attempting to do, but he was very straight forward about his feedback and offered to at least visit the set and offer some technical advice once he is back in Lahore. I appreciated that.Afterwards, another pair of DPs came by. They had just finished a shoot for the day. I can imagine they were quite tired, but here they were, willing to take a look at “Risalo” and give it some consideration. I’m not much of a salesmen in terms of pushing people into making decisions they may regret later. I would much rather lay out what we have and certainly tell a person why I feel this is a great project to be a part of, but in the end, I want people to do what they feel best about. I want to create a great environment for people to work together and flourish.They agreed to discuss the project and get back to me. I feel like there are three scenarios for this project. Ideally, I would love to have a fully committed DP who can dive into the project and bring their love and creativity to it. Barring that, perhaps a few people can commit time to different scenes or stories, which they can put their personal stamp on, building on the framework I have laid out. If that is not possible, then I have a contingency plan. I have a group of friends who are talented artists and photographers, but not necessarily DPs. We’re all on this project one way or another, and we’ll get some initial guidance and go for it if other options don’t come through. I felt a bit better after deciding on that. My friends Imran, Shoal and Yaser are also trying to connect me to resources and people. So I need to get camera and lighting gear, explore places we can shoot and stay, finish up spreadsheets, get a DP, finish up props, guide backgrounds to the finish and figure out any and all other logistics to make this thing happen while still making sure I have just enough money left to get back home and put together a life again.No pressure, consider your work done…