Hyderabad: In an exclusive interview with Deccan Chronicle, young film director Rakesh Varma shares his experience of doing his first film, 'Blind Spot', working with actors Naveen Chandra, Rashi Singh and his future aspiration in the cinema world.
Here are the excerpts:
Why did you pick Horror, as it is not an easy genre to go with?
Many people ask the same question but it's not what I chose. I have many genre stories. I have a love story. I have action. I have a thriller. It just depends on the producers what they like. So, I have my stories but you know, I keep pitching all my stories. One of them liked this story. So, I went with this story.The tagline says ‘Everything you see is just a perception.’
What inspired the title Blind spot?
Actually, the point of our story is to say that, for example, we will see many incidents everyday in our day to day life. But everybody has their own perception of the incident. Somebody will support one. Somebody will support the other. So, it's everybody's perception. So, everybody thinks of one incident from their perspective. So, that's what inspired me to make this movie. So, the truth is all in this kind of perception. So, what is the truth is our movie.
How was working with Naveen Chandra and Rashi Singh?
It was a great experience because they all supported me as a young or a debut director. Most people, you know, they don't take the directors as seriously as usually they do. But Naveen Chandra, he is always in the character. He will come and he will not distract himself from any of these things. So, he will come, he will be in the character. Not only while the shoot, even if he has any breaks between the shoots, he will still be in the character. So, it was very smooth working with Naveen Chandra and as well as Rashi Singh also. Even though she doesn't know Telugu that much, she prepares a lot. She will talk, she will note down all the dialogues and she will deliver her dialogues with all her heart. Then she will try to understand the meaning. And she will never know how Telugu affected her acting. So, yeah, it's quite nice working with her also.
How does Blind Spot reflect your growth?
As filmmakers, we have all our imaginations. But while bringing it to reality it's the biggest challenge for every filmmaker. So, Blind spot taught me so many lessons that actually we can't learn from any outside. So, every movie has its own way of teaching. For my movie, I have learned that managing the people is one of the most important things. And shooting in a very tight schedule is another biggest challenge. And coordinating with all the artists and bringing it to the best is one of the lessons I got from this movie.
What kind of stories do you personally enjoy telling through film?
I mean, I can't say any particular thing. But for me, as an audience, as a filmmaker, I can't say any of these kinds which I like. But as an audience, I love science fiction. I love fantasy. I love action movies. But if you want me to answer the question, I love science fiction. But I'm ready to make any kind of stories and I enjoy every kind.
Why did you pick a suspense thriller, as it is not an easy genre to go with?
It's a cop investigation thing because, I think thrillers are easy to make for a debut director because you'll have so many controls over the locations and limited actors. You can shoot it in less days. So that was my idea behind choosing a thriller for my debut.
How do you balance creative freedom with the demands of storytelling? Actually, that's the biggest challenge for every director, especially because there is no limitation to your imagination. You can imagine whatever. And you can write, you can put it on the paper of whatever you want but to make it real, all you have is restrictions. It might be budget, it might be time, it might be the locations or the people, all the crew members, everything. So you have to choose very wisely to compromise on some things which will not affect your movie very much.
Who are the filmmakers that inspire you?
Before coming into the films, I could say many names but after becoming a director, I can't say exactly these are my favourite directors because everybody has their own style. So I can't generalise it. For example, I like Rajamouli sir's action, the drama of his stories. I like Sukumar sir's characterisation and the hero's character growth and I like Puri Jagannath sir's dialogues, the way the character behaves in their movies. So I can't really say but I like everybody's styles.
How was it making the film? Is there an incident that you can tell us that you hold close to your heart while filming Blind Spot?
So basically every incident is a touching incident for me. But if you want me to answer one thing, there was a shoot when we were doing a small fight sequence. We thought of finishing it in 6 hours. But it went on for almost 26 hours continuously because we took the location only for one day. And it's not available for the next one month. So we thought of going and finishing it but it was never ending because of action sequences. But Naveen Chandra and other artists, Ali Reza, didn't even take 5 minutes of break. They continuously shot 26 hours. Even though they didn't sleep, they didn't eat, they didn't have time to do anything. They didn't say anything. They shot with us like how every crew will do for the 26 hours and they supported me. That was one incident that touched me more than anything.
How would you describe your directing style?
Actually, I don't know. The audience should say. Initially, I observed one thing that I realised now only. Naveen Chandra said in one interview that only in this movie he has a lot of close-up shots. Then I went back to all my short films, all my previous works. Then I only observed that 80% of my movies are close-ups only. Now I realise that maybe I like close-ups. I don't like taking long shots. Maybe that is one kind of style.
As both writer and director, how do you keep a balance between your creative vision and practical filmmaking?
Actually, while writing, there were no restrictions. But while shooting, I regretted so many words that I even wrote that. Because obviously you can't bring justice to those words. For example, while I was writing the story, I started my story with a line saying that it was a terrible rain where the world is about to end. But I don't know how to bring that to the shoot. So every filmmaker, I think they should mind while writing whether they can bring justice to their words or not. Even for me, it was a first-time experience. So I think viewers should balance the writing and directing. But I don't think it will affect that much in your movie. Because all these will be very ignorable things.
Any upcoming projects after The Blind Spot?
Yeah, there are few in pipelines but not confirmed anything yet. Depends on the budget, producers or many other things.