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Written by Kamran Usman and Sarfaraz Soomro
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Thursday, 25 August 2005 |
 Ali Kapadia holds the honour of directing and producing Pakistan's
first ever stop-motion music video. In this CG Expanse feature, we take
a look at how the video was produced and also ask Mr. Kapadia for his
opinions on the state of the music video industry in Pakistan
First of all, many congratulations for completing a wonderful project. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Thanks. I graduated this year in BCS from The City APIIT Karachi,
also recently did a Filmmaking workshop from Indus Valley School of
Arts. I am 23-years-old. I am a double national multimedia champion,
for 2003 & 2004. An obsessive workaholic by nature. Most of my
achievements are produts of my aggression towards certain areas. By
profession it won’t be appropriate to just call me a multimedia
developer, software engineer or a director. I am simply an artist, who
can adapt any technical or labor intensive expertise what so ever, to
get my idea executed perfectly. What drives me is my passion to abuse
limits. My greatest assets are my humility to accept my mistakes, and
my energy to fix them.
The idea of Evolution man looks damn innovative! how did you manage
to realize your vision? Is it possible for you to provide a
behind-the-scenes look at how it was accomplished?
 I knew I had to do a lot to get a song like 'maujo mein' noticed on
TV. It was my first chance so I had to put aside my opinions about the
song, and prove that I can prevail no matter what. A friend of mine,
Shaheryar Shoukat, had already experimented with lego stop motion
earlier. I found great potential in it and started figuring more
possibilities to exploit this medium in different ways. I knew that a
good action experience can be extracted from this if directed just the
right way. After the storyboard, the idea looked absolutely different
from ground zero, I needed such a thing to make my entrance into the
video business felt. It's more of an experiment than a video. It was
also about proving something in response to the extreme frustration,
due to alleged incapability of my concepts by certain people. Sadly
most of the people in the media business are not growing because they
simply don’t choose to, they have a theory that our audience is
incapable of absorbing anything innovative, instead it's their excuse
for not working harder. I kept strong faith in my own concepts and
never considered compromising the diversity even if it eliminates all
my chances. I thank God this band decided to go ahead with this concept.
How did the idea for the video evolve? What message were you trying to convey with it?
My aim was to create an example that proves there are a million
other ways to produce an entertainment artwork than the traditionally
sickening "munda-te-kuri" system. I proudly consider my video as a
living everyday insult to all those directors out there who
deliberately choose not to improve. The damage is caused when they
forward their work into broadcast TV, insulting the audience by having
their work repeatedly displayed, creating an assumption that this is
the best Pakistan can do! is this the best Pakistan can do? a video
containing a carelessly executed story about a village chick falling in
love with a dude from Paris, why? cos the dude broke her mutka. I am
sick! sick! sick! of the way our audience is being treated. We are not
idiots, stop treating us like idiots. And so with this emotion, I
embarked on a storyboard containing a frenzy conducted by a
character named Evolution Man. A typical 80's Hollywood action style
approach was kept in mind where our spy hero is absolutely untouchable.
Evolution is something that follows after a revolution, like the big
bang theory, which is a single bang that gets everything in high gear,
I wanted to symbolize Evolution Man as that bang.
Was it easy to convince the band to go with your vision?
Unlike the case with big directors, no artists really gave any
attention to what concepts I had for them. By the time I sat down with
the
Evolution band, one other concept of mine had already been rejected by
another band for their song, they called me too risky to go ahead with
and said the Pakistani awam wont get my concepts, they also doubted my
execution capabilities. So when I talked to this band I really stayed
clear with them that I am not compromising on the quality of my
concepts, so you may just tell me to take a hike right now or trust me
with what I have to offer. As they agreed to trust me, I pulled out the
six page storyboard and showed them what I wanted to do, I also had a
sample animation with me at the time to show them what the final
product will look like. They really liked the look n feel and were very
excited about it. Though they didn’t get the story or the concept I was
trying to deliver at that time, they couldn’t refuse the idea. I know
how the song is, I wont comment on it but the credit still goes to the
band for taking such a risk with me when they had other options. Things
did turn bad in the middle of the production, one of the members really
freaked out being a 100% sure that the video is gonna take them down,
while the other one was uncertain. They had never seen such a video,
and were confused, how the audience will take it. I still remember the
day when they got one of their MBA friends to look at the video and he
totally said that its a waste, and that the band will get a kiddy band
label, and will be criticized for being stupid etc. Bottom line, it was
declared not worthy, and I found myself surrounded by people who didn’t
appreciate what I had for them, however I had loads of argument and
convinced them by force on every meeting that it will be well accepted.
The band was uncertain till the day the head of IM complimented the
video at the time of submission.
What were your sources of inspiration?
Recent videos by directors such as Jami and Saqib Malik have been
quite encouraging about innovation. Western media has had some major
influences over my creativity, to be very honest, I must admit, I
didn’t have that much 'Inspiration' around me. My working energy is
directly proportional to the everyday boring stuff I see here on Pakistani TV.
It's my own twisted way of getting inspired or fired up. Nothing drives me more insane than a badly done
music video. The day I decided to get into music video direction was
the day I saw 'papichulo', I call it the p-bomb. 'Laanat' to any
industry associated with such a.... thing, either the director was
extremely stupid, or extremely intelligent. I consider it my
responsibility as an educated person relating to the same domain, to
respond and take charge in such a situation, and try my best to
compensate for such horrendous damage caused to our image. I am still a
student and I have a million things left to learn. Yes their have been
some astronomically great videos recently, but it's just not enough, we
need loads and loads more, to have other potential directors get
inspired from it and come forward with their ideas.
Any nightmare stories regarding the production of the video that you
would like to share? What was the most challenging shot in the video
and how did you go about it?
The hardest thing in a stop motion animation is not what to move
but what not to move. You can accidentally move a prop and it will get
impossible to give it its original position back, resulting in the
whole shot going to waste. Another difficulty is to keep track of the
movement of each and every animated object in every frame, u can miss
certain objects to move in certain frames and wont even know until the
final play. The production in this video became a nightmare just after
a few shots, I did get used to it, I had to. The most difficult shot
was probably the lift shoot which I deliberately added in the
storyboard knowing I had no clue how I’ll do it. In a lift, I planned
my character moving within it, with the engine of the lift running on
top and the animated wall as a background of the lift. It was executed
with the interior of the lift containing the actors being shot
separately, the exterior of the lift overlapped as an animated loop of
the running engine, and the background wall as a picture animated in
loop. The spaceship was animated in AE as a single picture. Things got
additionally difficult around these times of shooting. I had slowly
developed several different physical problems including a terrible pain
in my ankle due to the constant on floor sitting and a chronic head +
ear ache that really troubled me in continuing the production all the
way until I wrapped and totally shifted to post. Long before this
video, last year, when I was developing my 20k line game, I developed a
vocabulary disorder instead :) I am still dealing with it today.
Which shot are you most proud of?
I really like the one in the start where the robot production batch
is shown in a line with banging going on in the background, I wonder
who made it :)
Here's a general question. Why did you choose to go into video
direction? Do you have any past professional experience in this field,
or are you completely self-taught?
 My aim in life is to become a film director. All my previous
project technical/non-technical have been done by me deliberately to
affect my creativity and thought process, and it has worked for me
better than I ever expected. I have had these arguments before, how can
building a game engine possibly affect your ability as a director. It's
a very long argument, and is hard to explain because of the vastly
different preferences we have over creativity. The bottom line is that
everything in your life is related to everything in your life. The
self-building process that I believed in has worked for me, and It's
all part of a big plan. The music video direction was my step to get
accepted as a director first. I have very little production experience.
I try to learn from movies as much as I can. The filmmaking I studied
at Indus Valley has been quite useful. Some people may also argue that
'Film' is not the highest form of art, but it is a known fact that it's
the most powerful form of art. Like you are asking me why choose to
become a director, I can never understand how can a person not want to
become a director. I am made for this, and I have to improve in several
areas to get to where I want to be. All my early projects have affected
my creativity deeply, after which I always find my ideas significantly
different from others. But getting accepted is the hardest part around
here. First opportunities are almost impossible in this country (or
anywhere else). U cant just make ur way with a magic wand, u cant just
turn up to Strings and say give me your new song, U have to build your
way with ur own hands to walk on it, its difficult, but u don’t have a
choice.
Can you talk about some of the equipment that you have used?
Stop-motion video requires some very specialised equipment. Was it
locally available or did you build it yourself?
I used a Sony Cybershot 3.3 Megapixels digital photography camera,
which is a very good camera but has a few limitations when it comes to
looking at the previous frame. It could show u the last frame in its
monitor but if u watch it for more than 4 seconds, it would set your
zoom and focus at ur current frame to default, meaning loss of the
whole shot. It could hold approximately 115 pictures at a time, which
were transferred on to PC via USB. There were a total of 4 Halogen
Bulbs (50 watts each), plugged in table lamps. These are quite harsh
lights with very high temperature, and need to be dealt with carefully,
I had to wear sunglasses at certain times. All shooting was done in
dark room to have full control over character appearance. Light gloves
were used to control the hot lights. A lime green chart paper was used
for minor chroma shots.
In your opinion, what can be done to raise the standard of music videos in Pakistan?
Reality check. Our biggest enemy is our denial. Most of our fellow
directors need to understand that there's a huge capacity for
improvement, we need a shift from quantity production to quality
production, this is achieved through experimentation and education,
both of these usually require the director to invest. A problem cannot
be fixed until it's identified and accepted without hesitation. I heard
this story about Two guys who once started a small company in a wooden
garage, with the aim of inventing new appliances for people. They made
a strict rule: 'nothing gets out of this garage if it's not useful and
quality efficient'. Today this company is a giant global empire named
Hewlett Packard - HP. The same scenario applies for us as TV channels
need to be a lot more strict about their quality check while receiving
these videos, they cannot allow stupid videos that makes us look bad to
go on air. This will force the creators of these videos to either go
back to school or consider alternate professions. Throw it in the bin
if it's not worth airing, but don’t torture the standard of your
industry. Yes it is the standard that's on stake here. I may sound like
an over reacting maniac from all of my answers, but seriously I am
being realistic cos right now, our media industry is in the most
ridiculous crisis ever. Yes, ridiculous! why? cos we have tons and tons
of talented people, but all sitting at home, or wasting time in an
office doing something they are not meant to do, thinking that 'oh I
could be a somebody' but not actually doing something about it. There
is no channeling procedure to help the right person get to the right
job. Its almost like as if we have the golden cup in front of us but
we'd rather look here n there expecting it to fall in our hands. This
is not a situation to be taken lightly. It's not always necessary to
have a road to walk on, we have to take charge. Make a radical decision
in our lives, channel ourselves to the right place ourselves, whatever
that place is, no matter how much struggle this stupid country throws
at us, stop expecting the opportunities to fall in our hands and create
a situation that can function like an opportunity. We need beginner
filmmaking workshops for young kids to get them thinking about it.
Thanks a lot to our film industry, no parent wants their kid to be
anywhere near such a thing. Tulsi Chaliya bring further progress to the
situation by presenting Mujras to damage any further chance of young
people getting any elder encouragement in this area. Additionally a
phone number is given during the video to request the song.... as if.
Did you finance the production of the video yourself, or was it done by a third party?
The development cost of the video is Rs.5000 only, paid by the
band. My personal direction/animating cost was separate. Since the
pre-production was all miniature, with the whole set ranging up to 3x3
ft approximately, I took all the tasks over my head, as they were all
within reach of my arms. I became an unlimited hours labor, who would
do any task that would add to the video. I also did the post and
special effects. My colleague Shaheryar Shoukat who is also the
animation consultant of this video borrowed all the lego sets from his
friends. They all had them in their childhood toys collection. He
instructed me how to go about stop motion and did a scene in the video.
What can be done to reduce the level of 'branding' that we see in
some of the corporate-funded music videos? Do you think that the record
companies need to be more actively involved than corporations to fund
upcoming artists?
The recording companies have a major role, you can’t just release
the artist's album and forget about his image. If a recording company
cant fund an artist enough, an alternative can be additional producers.
You must see that these Pakistani artists really don’t make the kind of
money we think they make, and huge videos need huge money, that's why
they seek brands, and its wrong. Recently the concept of Artist
Management Firms has been introduced here, where these companies fund
the new artists and manage them as well, for their percentage of the
income the artist produces. Most of these companies are also production
houses. An increase in the power of such companies can result in the
slow elimination of branding. It's all about running them the right way
and getting a few outstanding upcoming artists and the branding system
will get its decline. I really believe that the Artist Management Firm
concept will take away the branding in our videos for good, however
branding organizations would laugh at this prediction as they have been
untouchable from a long time and are now in the state of denial. The
current brand sponsors proudly shelter themselves from the criticism
saying these artists are nothing without their funds, so its fair for
the brand to stick the chaliya in every frame. Trust me, lots of
re-quotes will come into observation in the future. They may be able to
save the whole branding system now if they make it a habit to respect
the aesthetics in a project and allow their product logo to go in the
far background. Else branding in music videos can suffer from a
permanent black labeling, as it won’t be needed anymore. Almost all the
brands would deny any threat from any such companies being over
optimistic, but the increase in the strength of Artist Management Firms
will prove them wrong.
Any plans for the future? an episode 2 maybe? :)
Nah, wts been done is done, what kept evolution man going was the
thrill of breaking through a limit, honestly now, I don’t find that
thrill in it anymore. I may probably work on it if a significant demand
for it hypes up, else i really wont bother and would prefer working on
something else.
Do you like coffee or tea?
No coffee or tea, coke would be fine thank u.
CGX would like to thank Mr. Kapadia for taking the time to answer our
questions. To find out more about the Maujon Mein music video, please
see the following links.
Download the 'Making-of' video (size: 19MB)
Download the Song's video (size: 61MB)
Discuss this Feature at our forums
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 13 February 2008 )
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