I spoke with the man behind the film of that name, it was intriguing to find he was a doc moonlighting as a film maker (or was it the other way around?)!

Dr Ravi Godse is quite an interesting guy. An internal medicine specialist in real life with a quirky sense of humor and a penchant for word play, a prolific history buff, a novelist (his first fun novel is called Two Guys, Three Girls and a Mad Professor) Ravi decided to go where many docs have not gone before-write, direct and act in his own movie. “I used to be friends with a very famous Bollywood actress who is Marathi like me. Her parents were very conservative and when she went for film shoots I was her chaperone. I ended up learning camera angles and even Urdu when she took lessons while escorting her around,” says Ravi Godse.

After writing his novel, Ravi decided to make a film. He joined film school for 2 years and says that gave him the necessary discipline and the capability to take an idea and write a script. “I also learnt the technicalities of using equipment while making two student films, and even designed the DVD cover.”

He shared some very funny stories in an article he has written for the August issue of my e-magazine. He recalls one instance when they were shooting a scene at the house of a local sports legend in Pittsburgh. “We left many a mark of our presence on his drive-way. As we left I promised the Sports star that one of my Productions Assistants would be there that night to clean the driveway. It was December in Pittsburgh. That night he called me to thank me saying he saw one of my production boys toiling away in the cold, cleaning his driveway. In a way it was good that it was cold and I was too bundled up to give away the identity of the Production Boy. “Talk of working on a shoe string budget!

He said some very interesting things about sound errors. “When you are watching an intense movie on your TV, if somebody flushes a toilet in the next room, or a bird is chirruping outside the window, you will block out the bird and the flush and concentrate on dialogue. But if you hear the flush in the scene itself and birds outside your room, you will be able to isolate the birds, but since the flush is part of the movie audio-track you will listen to it and it will distract you. Hence you have to record clean audio. On any indoor locations, air-conditioners, refrigerators, have to be turned off.” Tricky things, these refrigerators. Suppose you are shooting at a friend’s place. Suppose this friend is in absolute awe of his wife. Suppose you turn the refrigerator off. To restart the refrigerator is a sound director’s job, and he generally delegates it to the Boom Holder, and in view of cutting costs, if you are going without the boom guy for a day, then, uh.. God bless your friend and his irate wife. Vanilla ice-cream does taste better when melted, unless it has leaked onto their expensive carpet.

But no matter what the consequence, you’ve got to be strict with the sound. No door-bells, no one can use the flush, no sound allowed. We were trying to film a critical scene. The setting sun was casting a glow from the snow around the house. We had lit the scene to make it look like daylight so we were desperate to finish it before we lost natural light. So many things have to go right for the scene to be in the can. In the scene the actor receives a phone call. The ringing of phone can be added later but the actor could not perform unless he had the ringing sound to make it realistic. I had a guest in the house from India who was neatly tucked away in an upstairs bedroom. He was expecting a call so whenever the phone rang he was quietly picking it up upstairs. It drove me to distraction. I went up and calmly shouted at him. The next take was picture perfect. The acting was great, light was terrific. It was sublime. Till uncle started the shower upstairs.”

Ad the story? That of a busy, super successful doctor, with an equally successful physician wife, a happy marriage, a kid in tow living the quintessential American dream, yet Dr. Ravi Godse isn’t happy. There is something missing, like an invisible itch that won’t go away and can’t be scratched.

He has already dabbled in other stuff-written a book-yeah the one I mentioned earlier- with an equally quirky name “Two Girls, Three Guys and a Mad Professor”. His agent is ripping into it and ripping him off by publishing thousands of copies that aren’t selling. So what is a doc to do-make a film what else?

And so Dr. Ravi becomes Dr. Hyde-he moonlights as a man with a mad mission- to make a movie! The path to living your dream never runs smooth and the stumbling blocks on his way are an unsupportive wife, an agent who isn’t doing his job, plenty of hare brained schemes that include a trip to South Africa, run in with the law and much more. What do his brethren in medical arms think of his film making obsession? Who knows-they are busy hiding in nooks and cracks of the hospital Ravi works for each time he tries to hit on them for funding.

But now that Dr Ravi and Mr. Hyde, is in stores how does he feel?

“It has been fun and I hope people will come and see it and realize if I can do it anyone can! The movie did go over budget but it has been greatly appreciated at the film festivals we sent it to. The wackiest comment I got was from the Chairman of Sony Asia that the movie reminded him of Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall. I don’t know if that’s true but hey I don’t mind the comparison!’
says Ravi Godse laughing.

Just goes to show the face of Indian entrepreneurship is changing. “A few years ago if I had tried doing this in India-as a super successful doc and said I was attending film school, I would have been the laughing stock. Today in all the parties, the fact I have made my own film, is a show stopper!” Godse who is working on his new script may soon be a full time film maker and moonlight as a doc!

The film is available in most major retail stores. I thought it was a cute film considering he made it under a week’s time, and Dr Ravi may not have done an Annie Hall-yet he has something Woody Allenseque about him in the film! Check it out!

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