INTERVIEW with Rohit B Srivastava
Can you explain to the audience your career?
I manage an AI Based Hedge Fund currently I am from a Technology and Finance background. I love writing stories and screenplays and about a year ago, I joined an acting and movie making course and decided to kick off my movie making career with my film.
How many years have you been making movies?
I have helped friends who have made short films, but “Devil Wears Prada” is my first film.
Why did you start making movies?
Entertaining people with my stories has always been a childhood dream. For me, Storytelling and acting is a very spiritual experience. I want to go through this spiritual experience by this moving making and entertaining the audience.
Tell us a little about your project. What will the audience be able to see in your film?
My film “Devil Wears Prada” is a drama/suspense film. It’s a film that is made from popular movie quotes. The uniqueness of the film is -> 90% of the movie dialogs of my film are movie quotes of popular movies. In most movies, movie quotes have been used in a humorous scenario. But, my vision for this film was to re-use movie quotes in a drama setup and still re-create the magic.
Why did you do this project?
As I mentioned, it was my childhood dream to be part of the movie making industry. This project gives a good start to what I have understood about movie making. I believe everyone is connected to these iconic movie quotes. Connecting them to a story line that will recreate the magic in them is what I visualized as a purpose of the film.
One of the problems some directors encounter is directing actors and dealing with some actors, especially in the amateur world. How do you see this topic? What kind of work do you do with them?
I think dealing with people and getting the best out of them is one of the hardest jobs as a director. The main thing I believe needs to be done with actors is -> Having them believe in your vision and the soul of the film. I wouldn’t work with an actor if they don’t believe in the soul of the film. For my film, we did many pre-production rehearsals. We had 8-10 rehearsals. The vision became clearer for the actors. And of course, during the rehearsals actors gave input on characters. I was lucky that I got very cooperative actors who believed in the soul of the film.
A good movie takes care of all departments. But normally we cannot allocate all the resources to have a good photography or spend a lot of money on sound postproduction or budget to hire actors. In your project what % have you allocated to. I don't just mean money but time as well. Of 100% of the time/money, what % did you dedicate to each department?
-Direction: 35%
-Photography: 5%
-Sound: 1%
-Postproduction: 25%
-Work with actors: 20%
-Art direction/locations: 19%
I think one section to be added is “Pre-Production”. I spent 25% of the time in preproduction. I visualized the film in my mind 20-25 times while reading the finalized screenplay. Almost played the film in my mind while reading the script before doing story board. I added that in “direction” above.
If you could go back, what would you change about this project? (1 thing only)
I would spend some more time on sound and lights.
What are you happiest about this project?
Given the restrictions of budget, location and technical aspects, the movie turned out to be 60% of what I had visualized. I am very happy about it.
Make a wish to the movie gods. What do you ask?
Make a unique film with Shahrukh Khan that adds a new concept to the movie making industry.
What movie would you have liked to direct?
The “Kill Bill” Series.
What kind of cinema do you like? Genre, directors, actors?
My favorite genre is Drama/Suspense, and I love Comedy as well. Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock & Yash Chopra are some of my favorite directors. Amy Adams, Bhumi Pednekar(Bollywood), Christian Bale, Leonardo Dicaprio & Manoj Bajpayee(Bollywood) are some of my favorite actors.
Imagine that all the movies are going to be lost. If you could save 3 movies, what would they be?
Kill Bill
School of Rocks
Andaz Apna Apna (Bollywood movie)
If you have more projects underway, can you give us a bit of information?
I am working on a short film named “Mars is Missing”. It’s a film about the consequences of what is happening on earth since we realized Mars doesn’t exist in this galaxy anymore.