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Calling sho(r)ts
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Meet Hyderabadi actor-filmmaker Imaran Khan debut short film `The Salesman' received rave review at the recent screening here
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JUST DOING IT Imran's film was made on a shoestring budget
Making short films as a calling card is the new trend if you are a young and upcoming filmmaker. But here is one from an actor, which incidentally made for an interesting viewing at the Short Cuts screening recently. The 20-minute debut film The Salesman from Hyderabad-based Imran Khan was an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Shot in Melbourne in a nine-hour single stretch, the film was made on a shoestring budget.
"We were a team of four who met on the Internet. My lighting man did not turn up due to a hangover after the F-1 party. Adam Patterson, a globetrotting filmmaker who works wherever there is a good story, was on the camera. Winston Furlong scriptwriter for Australian cinema directed the film while Rachael, a student in Australia, and I played the lead roles. I actually wanted to only act in the film but ended up making it," says Imran, who chuckles and says he made the film in between his partying schedule during his stay in Australia with no prior thoughts of its public screening.
"I went to meet my brother who runs a marketing firm in Melbourne. He has a team of salesmen. Each one has interesting incidents to narrate. The usual story is they end up going on dates. There was one weird story that caught my attention. Vishal, one of the sales boys, is your regular guy who loves to work hard and party hard. He had a harrowing experience with a junkie during a sales call but was saved in time. He freaked out. I had this story in my mind and decided to put it down as a narrative, though with a twist. It took me 20 minutes to write it down," he says.
On returning back to India, he worked on post-production. "We gave the film two shades; grey when the serial killer comes in and yellow for the petty thief. Also, the final frame has a dolly. We used a super market cart to shoot from, for the effect," he says.
Imran Khan has earlier worked with Nagesh Kukunoor and Mani Shankar on production. Inspired by Robert Rodriguez as much as Quentin Tarantino, Khan believes in reading about film-making as much as viewing films - his favourite literature on cinema is Rebel Without A Crew.
But at the end of it all he still believes that he is a performer. "I can best define myself as an actor. I started with the video track for Lucky Ali's Anjani rahon mein. I will be acting in a Hinglish film, an offbeat and interesting film that will be announced next month," he says.
SYEDA FARIDA
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