Dinesh Kamath is inspired by Ram Gopal Varma

Dinesh Kamath is inspired by Ram Gopal Varma

Ram Gopal Varma made the film ‘Ice Cream’ with just two digital cameras, one costing Rs 25000 and another Rs 15000. He made this film with a budget of just around Rs 2 lakhs. Indian filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma launched the Telugu horror film Ice Cream. While the film in itself was not interesting enough to make much news, it’s interesting how it made profit for the producers in spite of having had such a short lived box office life. “RGV” gives the credit to his new small budget “flow-cam” technology.

The intriguing penny saver model cuts the ‘unit’ size from a couple of hundreds to a handful. Called the ‘Flowcam’ process, a term christened by RGV himself, this method of filmmaking uses natural light and cameras that cost less than a lakh of rupees.

The technology has an obvious appeal to all new young filmmakers who do not have the luxury of a big budget to their advantage. It has been such a success that four young filmmakers have already announced projects using this technique.

Among the Bollywood film makers, I am most inspired by Ram Gopal Varma. He is the man who has daring and guts.

Dongala Mutha (English: Gang of Thieves) is a Telugu-language film directed by Ram Gopal Varma. This film is the first of its kind in Indian cinema as it was shot with just 7 crew members and in a record of 5 days. Prior to filming, Varma announced that this film has no budget and that the cast and crew will not be taking remunerations until the film hits theaters.

Dongala Mutha was released on 18 March 2011, which was exactly 33 days after the shooting ended. The filmmaking process was revolutionized through Canon 5D cameras, a first of its kind. The film remained an instant hit at the box office.

Normally a film takes between 2-6 months to shoot and more than 150 to 200 crew members will be working on it. However, the unique thing about this film is that this 2 hour long feature film was completed in just 5 days from start to finish, with a crew of just 5 people including Ram Gopal Varma. No one in this film was paid. It was made only with those actors and technicians who were excited to be a part of the project. All the people who were working for the film were only to be paid after the release, if and only if the film would make profits and those payments would be in accordance with their individual value additions.

There was no generator, no lights, no equipment of any sort including jibs, trolleys etc., as the entire film was shot hand-held and in natural light. The pilot track for the sound was recorded by the cameras themselves.

The innovative challenge of using Canon cameras as opposed to the traditional movie cameras was first technically proved before shooting commenced by making a test print out of a few scenes shot that came out perfectly. Principal photography then started and the entire shooting of Dongala Mutha was completed ahead of schedule. The entire film was shot hand held and in natural light with 5 Canon cameras which were used to capture every shot in 5 different angles simultaneously. No lights or equipment of any sort including jibs, trolleys etc. were used. There was no D.O.P for the film and all the individual operators chose the angles or compositions without the director or anyone guiding or coordinating them.

Canon 5D cameras were used because they give excellent output with naked-eye quality without using any additional lights. It costs around Rs1.5 lakhs to buy each of these cameras. The film was wrapped up in a record four and a half days, earlier than the announced five days and was released on 18 March. Finally, Ram Gopal Varma revealed in a press conference at the Promo Launch that the production cost of the movie is just Rs. 6,50,000, mostly for renting out a premises and other miscellaneous expenses.