Directors cut:

Ok I see lot of discussion about the flaws of the movie. I would like to clarify where things went wrong.

First of all, let me tell you that this film was shot in very unusual and unconventional circumstances. We had constraints from all corners,

1. Money,
2. Time,
3. Actors and crew availability and
4. Location problem.

And to shoot a feature film with such constraints was highly impossible.

When we started off we had just one forth of the money what we had expected for production. We took loan from the institute and pooled in scholarship and stipend money from friends and batch-mates. The money wasn’t enough to complete the shooting so we had to compromise on few things like lighting and equipments. Sponsorship money came later.

We shot it in the month of May after the end semester examination. Some had summer course, some had projects to submit, some had visa interviews, no dues etc and some had to leave for vacations. It was difficult to coordinate and get every body at the same.

We had permission for just twelve days of shooting in the campus. And in IIT, if you want to remove and relocate even a brick it needs letter from the higher authority. Since it was shot in real locations like hostel rooms, class rooms, and canteen it was tough to place all the lighting and camera equipments in such small room. When we fell behind schedule we had to take permission again for the extra time. Lot of time was wasted getting letters itself.

And about

1. Abrupt ending:

The movie was planned for 100 minutes. Unfortunately we couldn’t shoot the climax scenes which need two days of shooting time in aerospace lab and few extra equipments. In place of two days we were allowed to shoot only for two hours. Money got over by the end of and people had to leave for vacations. We were left without a climax in the movie. So I had to play around with whatever footage I had and have a decent ending. The removal of the actual climax scene made a lot of difference to the actual story line.

2. Other aspects of IIT.

There were scenes of Inter IIT sports meet and Saarang also. We had to remove those scenes because the initial cast which was supposed to be in the film dropped out when the main shooting began.

3. Lingos:

If there weren’t IIT lingos the movie wouldn’t have been an IIT movie. We wanted it to be more natural.

4. Sponsorship Branding:

Corporate people don’t go by subtlety. When money is involved without any backup its better to play a safe game. And we needed money desperately.

5. Editing:

There were too many mistakes in the film. When we tried to cover one, another appeared. Every one in this crew was a first timer except Mihir Mysore.

6. Length of the film:

There is lot of difference between a documentary and a feature film. Any fictional film above 70 minutes is called a feature. This movie had more than 70 scenes and that too without songs, dance and fights. Holding audience for 80 minutes at stretched in good enough.

As a Director I was never happy at the way things went. There were times when I thought of scraping the whole project and burn the footage. But there were things that kept me moving. I didn’t want to waste the hard work and honest effort of so many people that went into it.
More than the technical aspects I think it is the story and a novel message that counts. And that came across.

In spite of all the hurdles, constraints and pain I’m proud that we pulled it off.

Rabi Kisku