Indulge me for a moment, will you?
Well, not for just a moment actually. I would prefer if you would sit right through this whole post, as I try to capture in words, the double life that was lived out in the past. Events that happened more than six years ago are always had to recollect, but not so hard if they were special.
And "THE LATEST PIRATES" is always special to us. We have been described on the Facebook page as "The Latest Pirates are passionate filmmakers devoted to creating short films/videos/remixes for viewing pleasure.".
In short, when we thought we had a perfect combination of a song, a story and a character, we went ahead and made a video out of it. Amateur-ish is the best way to describe it. All we had was a drive to do something. There were no guidelines, no rules, no signboards, but most importantly no precedents. There was nothing for people to compare this work with.
The one thing which made those videos unique was also sadly its biggest drawback. There was no audible dialogues, no commentary, no background score - just a song from a movie/album, which was played almost always in its entirety. This was mainly because we didn't have the resources, or the knowledge to work with sounds. So, we felt it will be easier to just let go of it completely.
But this factor of no original audio has ensured that such a brand of videos remain unique to us. The short film boom in this part of the world came as soon as we decided to hang up our metaphorical director hats. And it has been properly utilized by many a capable soul.
These days, the number of short films being released has reached a huge number. It bodes well for the overall film industry, as more people are given a chance to showcase their talents. But, talking to people who are active in this mini industry, I get the feeling that it has gone beyond the realms of mostly having fun. The same tensions that we find in the main industry like deadlines, clients, sponsorship etc have begun affecting this field also. Luckily, that was not the case when we were doing what we did.
Just take deadlines for example. The first video to come out under the banner of The Latest Pirates took almost two years to make. That is for an effectively four minute video, we took 24 full months. That is about 10 seconds of the video was done every month. That was not actual rate though. The story behind has already been recollected under the title, "The Pirates are coming".
When it was mentioned to someone recently that we took these videos more than five years back, that too with the video being captured in its glory by a 2 megapixel camera, the editing being done with home-use editing softwares, with the actors and the technicians coming from a fixed pool of unpolished enthusiasts, I was proud to see their eyes widen in wonder. With next to nil marketing through social networking in that era, we managed to gather a humble following through our sheer determination to "make something for the viewer's pleasure."
That is my request/advice to anyone who is thinking of making anything for the public to devour. Always make sure that you don't drive the customer away. And that advice applies none the better at this moment, as I should probably stop singing praises about our group. What this post was actually intended for was to capture the flow of events from that era and the epilogue. Let's get down to it now.
And "THE LATEST PIRATES" is always special to us. We have been described on the Facebook page as "The Latest Pirates are passionate filmmakers devoted to creating short films/videos/remixes for viewing pleasure.".
In short, when we thought we had a perfect combination of a song, a story and a character, we went ahead and made a video out of it. Amateur-ish is the best way to describe it. All we had was a drive to do something. There were no guidelines, no rules, no signboards, but most importantly no precedents. There was nothing for people to compare this work with.
The one thing which made those videos unique was also sadly its biggest drawback. There was no audible dialogues, no commentary, no background score - just a song from a movie/album, which was played almost always in its entirety. This was mainly because we didn't have the resources, or the knowledge to work with sounds. So, we felt it will be easier to just let go of it completely.
But this factor of no original audio has ensured that such a brand of videos remain unique to us. The short film boom in this part of the world came as soon as we decided to hang up our metaphorical director hats. And it has been properly utilized by many a capable soul.
These days, the number of short films being released has reached a huge number. It bodes well for the overall film industry, as more people are given a chance to showcase their talents. But, talking to people who are active in this mini industry, I get the feeling that it has gone beyond the realms of mostly having fun. The same tensions that we find in the main industry like deadlines, clients, sponsorship etc have begun affecting this field also. Luckily, that was not the case when we were doing what we did.
Just take deadlines for example. The first video to come out under the banner of The Latest Pirates took almost two years to make. That is for an effectively four minute video, we took 24 full months. That is about 10 seconds of the video was done every month. That was not actual rate though. The story behind has already been recollected under the title, "The Pirates are coming".
When it was mentioned to someone recently that we took these videos more than five years back, that too with the video being captured in its glory by a 2 megapixel camera, the editing being done with home-use editing softwares, with the actors and the technicians coming from a fixed pool of unpolished enthusiasts, I was proud to see their eyes widen in wonder. With next to nil marketing through social networking in that era, we managed to gather a humble following through our sheer determination to "make something for the viewer's pleasure."
That is my request/advice to anyone who is thinking of making anything for the public to devour. Always make sure that you don't drive the customer away. And that advice applies none the better at this moment, as I should probably stop singing praises about our group. What this post was actually intended for was to capture the flow of events from that era and the epilogue. Let's get down to it now.
***
1. Neela Bucket
Officially, not a video under the The Latest Pirates banner.
Officially, only the second video to be conceptualized.
But officially, this was the first video to be released, and it still remains the most watched among our videos at over 32000+ views.
"Neela bucket" was actually a parody of a rap song by some of our seniors at college about a missing blue bucket. And that song forms the background score for this video, making this the only original video from us.
Officially, not a video under the The Latest Pirates banner.
Officially, only the second video to be conceptualized.
But officially, this was the first video to be released, and it still remains the most watched among our videos at over 32000+ views.
"Neela bucket" was actually a parody of a rap song by some of our seniors at college about a missing blue bucket. And that song forms the background score for this video, making this the only original video from us.
Cast : Dileep, Jineesh, Nidhin
Camera : Nidhin, Dileep
Direction : Dileep
Camera : Nidhin, Dileep
Direction : Dileep
2. Pinneyum Palavattom
"You would be good replica for Salim Kumar in this video". When a friend of ours made this casual remark about the original video, he had no idea we would take it seriously. That provided the spark to get us going, and it kept us going until we hit the first bump in the process. We took our sweet time in finishing this video, which has yours truly playing the lead role as a heart broken lover. I still don't know how I was convinced to do the role.
Actors :- cAk, deepz, harisa, sid, shiv
Choreo :- cAk
Editing :- harisa, dileep
Camera, Direction :- dileep
3. In Engg Clg
Unarguably, the best thing we made, especially considering the fact that it had no story, but only a script. What makes it more special to us is that the script was made by our in house genius, Dileep in under two days. Set to the tune of a popular 90s song, we played out on screen most of the stuff that we did at college. It was great fun filming it, and we have heard wonderful reviews saying it was a joy to watch too.
Actors :- cAk, deepz, harisa, sid, shiv, ponni
Editing :- harisa, dileep
Script, Camera, Direction :- dileep
4. Sagar Aliyan's Suppli
When Shivan lost his only paper in his entire Btech degree, I made a promise to him that we would make a video about it if he got through it. With our main director, Dileep waiting to get in front of the camera, I was provided with a chance to wield the director's sword for this short video. Set to a tune from a movie, which was chosen just cos it had awesome beats, this video reveals how a guy goes through a failed university exam and comes back stronger in the end.
Concept :- hArisa, shiv
Actors :- shiv, dileep, cAk, deepz, ponni, sid
Script, Camera, Editing, Direction :- hArisa
5. His days
They say you should go out with a bang. Even though we knew as much that this was our last video, we decided to do things differently and went our without even a whimper. And it baffles me as to what that happened. This was our more technically brilliant, well thought out work. And it was about football. We made it to release in tandem with the FIFA World Cup 2010. Still under 1k views though.
Actors :- cAk, deepz, harisa, sid, shiv, ponni, dileep
Editing :- dileep
Story :- cAk
Script, Camera, Direction :- dileep
***
EPILOGUE
After an year from "His Days" we thought of doing a reunion special. A video with original audio and a solid script. But we fell at the first hurdle. The seven of us were spread across the length and breadth of the country, we still are (with one in Malaysia). We have realized that what we did was supposed to be done in that specific time period - in college, with close friends, as a pass time. It's all out of reach now. But the fact that we did it then will make us feel proud till the end of time.
PIRATES FOR EVER
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| (From L-R) Chaithin aka cAk, Deepak aka deepz, Shivan aka shiv, Harisankar aka hArisa, Siddharth aka sidd, Dileep aka dileep, Arun aka Ponni |
Well, that's all for this week.
Hope you have a great weekend. Meet you in the comment sections, if you are interested.
'til next week.
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