Workshop on Understanding Cinema

Short films a treat for participants 

Nainital, September 24Some of the best short films that have been made in the past formed a part of the treat that was on offer for the participants at a workshop on Understanding Cinema that is being held in the Lake City.
The two-day event organised by cultural organisation Yugmanch has experts from the world of the visual medium talking about the finer aspect of the art.
On Saturday, it was Sudarshan Juyal and Sanjay Joshi who provided the participants a peep into the world of making of films. The first session was about the definition and the history of cinema. Juyal began with the filming done by Auguste and Louis Lumiere in 1895 and the subsequent screenings. He went on to talk about the grammer of editing that was introduced by Allan Porter.
Juyal then referred to the contribution of Russians in transforming the entire art of cinema making. He said the existing socio-political realities combined with the developments in the other spheres contributed a lot towards the evolution of cinema as a powerful medium.
Side by side he also related how film making moved from the 16 frames per second shots to 24 frames per second shots and how sound was infused into the films that were shot.
Stating that film making involves contributions from all sorts of professionals, Juyal described it as a “complete form of art”. The session involved screening of two of the critically acclaimed masterpieces shot by Dutch master Bert Haanstra, “Glas” and “Zoo”.
Both these films are considered to be landmarks in the art of short film making and have a liberal usage of Jazz music accompanying the visuals.
The second session was concentrated on the topic of the language of cinema. Two well-acclaimed short animated films “Printed Rainbow” by Gitanjali Rao and “A Chairy Tale” by Norman Mc Laren were showed to the participants to help them understand the concept of the importance of sound in the medium.
The first one is about a big city where an old woman and her cat live in solitude, stuck in their daily chores against the hiss of the city. It brings out the dry character of the metros where everyone is lonely in the streaming crowds. The windows of her apartment look out into more windows with more desolate lives.
The old woman, however, has a secret window which is her precious collection of match boxes. Their printed labels open into a myriad of exotic worlds. The cat is the sole companion in her explorations of these magical worlds where beauty, imagination and wonder triumph over the insignificance of her existence.
The film speaks about the desolation of the old in the metros. The second film humorously portrays central character Jutra's attempts to sit on the chair - and it on him - set to the music of Ravi Shankar and Chatur Lal.
Earlier, at the start of the workshop, Zahoor Alam of Yugmanch underlined, ”There are very few viewers of good cinema. Although good cinema is available, yet collective viewing of such films is very rare.”