Pune to Seattle

The settings to this song video are all local. Featured in it are the gardens on Law College road; the quiet roads near the airport; and the hustle-bustle of Koregaon Park. A discarded old red scooter acts as the symbol of love here. The inspiration may have come from closer home,but the music video has made it to the finals of the ‘Cinemetropolis Short Film Contest’,initiated by Seattle-based hip hop duo Blue Scholars,for their song Cinemetropolis.

Pune-based independent film maker,Anurag Ram Gopal,spearheaded the making of the video. He came across the contest “on a lazy summer afternoon,when there was nothing much to do”. He immediately decided to enter it. “I heard the song once and was hooked. Incidentally,I got to know of the contest on April 1,and the last date for submission was April 6. Even then I knew I had to shoot the video,” Gopal laughs.

With his motley crew of five,including one actor,Gopal began scouting the city for locations. “My friend,Aditi Dharmadhikari,who has acted in the video,gave some really nice suggestions about the locations. The song has a very nice tune to it,and we wanted to showcase the best parts of Pune to ensure that the video was in sync with it,” says he.

The video was shot in three days and submitted on the last day of the contest. “The organisers sent us an email of acceptance and told us that if we are shortlisted in the finals we would be informed over the next ten days. On April 14 we got a call saying that our video had been selected in the top three,” says Gopal. The video premiered at the Capitol Theater in Olympia,Washington,on April 14,and was also hosted on the web channel of Blue Scholars.

Shot in stop motion style,Gopal says that the video aimed to bring together random elements that bought out the feeling of love. The indoor shots were all pre-planned,but ended up getting improvised on the spot. “We shot for three days. There were 3,000 photographs taken for the video; that means a total of 12 photos per second for the video that is three minutes,14 seconds long,” Gopal explains.

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The other two finalist videos are from the USA and Singapore. The video that receives the most number of hits will be chosen as the video for the song,and the winner will also receive a cash prize of $1000. “That is the best part about understanding artistes. Everything just works. Like even with the Blue Scholars,they have said that the video rights will stay with us. They will use the video to just promote their song,” Gopal says.