I apologise for the absence from my website, I am now in london in what is called prep for my next film, Golden Age..
Prep means pre-production. It’s what we do so that a film moves smoothly when u are shooting it. Theoretically.
But I am a very organic film maker and believe that I do not direct, as much as create an envioroment in which a film can grow. Organically. Which is only possible if I allow a sense of chaos to enter into the process of film making.
Chaso does not mean not anarchy, but the letting go of all structure. Ensuring that everything becomes seamless. For without chaos, without the letting go of structure, how does creativity emerge ?
So I often get asked if intense preparation and then to allow everything to fall into chaos is not completely contradictory. Not at all. It’s like people that practice meditation for years, only so that they can the allow shunyata or nothingness, or disorder, or lack of structure, or chaos, whatever term you would like to use, to take over completely.
Mere chaos is not enough though, for chaos merely does away with imposed structure. Beyond chaos one needs to find harmony. Like being able to tune in to a chanel.
It’s the years of discipline that musicians need, for example, in their craft, so that when he or she merely lets go, they can find harmony. It’s the way a dancer will train her body for years to become an instrument that tunes her to seek harmony.
And what is this harmony that I look for, and more often than not, do not suceed ? It is where, in a creative endeavour, the self dissoves and another force takes over.
Did I make sense ?
I know it’s all contradiction, but then the Universe is held together only by contradictions. You and I exist only in contradictio between existence and no- existence. Figure that one out.
And may the force be with you !
Shekhar
Thanks for keeping us up to date on what you’re doing, and for sharing this about your approach to creativity. What you write here makes complete sense, and is moreover proven by the quality of the films you direct.
Cheers (and looking forward to your Golden Age),
Heather
Hi Mr Kapur,
i agree with you. infact your chaos theory sounds like my dad before he is on his way to some presentation or during his younger years when he was actively involved in advertising. Structure is a block for creativity, infact a structure is harmful to the flow of life. Everything must go with the flow. And may the force be with you on your new film, always.
unravelling the message of Gita!
…reaching inaction through action.
You r great man!!!
cheers!
Dear Shekhar,
Today, I was wondering about you and how you where doing, so I came to your website to find out.
I am glad that you are doing well and your film is progressing in a good manner.
Hey, please go and visit the intent blog site and say a quick ‘Hi’ to everyone, if you so desire to accommodate a wish.
Take care and don’t be a stranger. 🙂
Love,
Char
Shekharji,
Nice to hear you back.
Your post is perfect!
It was just what I needed to read this moment. You see, for the past months, chaos has been visiting my work place daily, though words, deeds and thoughts. There is a wildfire of negative energy flowing thorugh the school. Sometimes I manage to duck and move to the side not to take a direct hit. It works once in a while. Now, in the past month, the flu and some other mysterious virus has been wide spread throughout the city. The media has been calling it the whooping cough, but with past experience, I know it is more than that. The shots are not preventing this one from hitting certain people. Seems as though my son and I have been targets of this virus and can’t seem to shake it 100% as yet. I view a virus as a form of choas as well, it will eventually pass and make it’s way elsewhere, but for now, they are having a ball entertaining in my centers.
Today, two things happened to make me sit up and take note. While in class, I was reading off the Firedrill list to complete someone’s Valentine’s cards for them. A thought went through my mind “Imagine if the fire bell went off?”, at the time we had a sub teacher, the permanent teacher was on the opposite end of the school in a workshop scession. Minutes later, the teacher walked in and said ‘Here’s the Firedrill list in case you guys need it”…I said I was just using that. Huffing and puffing, she says, we were all running outside a while ago, the Firebell went off, but only in half the school building! Shekhar, I was in the half of the building where the bell malfunctioned and didn’t know it went off!
The next thing that happened?
I was on my way to buy some music and/or videos for my husband. Driving there, I thought he might like the Indiana Jones movie series. When I got to the store, I looked around and decided on two CD’s instead. When I went up to the counter to pay…the guy in front of me was holding one thing in his hand…the Indiana Jones movie series!!!
Anyway, like you, I don’t know if all of what I wrote here made sense from paragraph to paragraph…so I just let it be.
Enjoy your preproduction Shekhar and
may the force be with you,
Cinda 🙂
Dear Shekhar,
I am one of the actresses who got to meet you a few days ago at shepperton studios. I have only come across your website and I feel privelaged to have met a man with such wonderful and inspirational words.I agree with what you are saying and can relate it to my acting.As an actor you train and prepare for your role, but its not until you let go of your self and all the work you have done that you can lose yourself in your work.
Your words remind of the theatre practioner Grotowski whos words are very influential to me.He explains how great things come when you are in that state of just being, by letting go of trying to achieve you can reach this harmony, which Growtowski decribes as ‘holiness’.
It is something I want to work towards in my life because after my drama school training you get very caught up in trying hard to achieve!
Hope Im making sense!
Looking forward to reading your next articles. Thankyou very much for taking the time to meet me. All the best with the Golden Age,
Lily Brown
Yes, it makes sense.
Wish you all the best for finding harmony while making Golden Age.
Dear Shekhar,
Hi. What you said in the above post makes perfect sense. That’s the way everything on this planet works.
And you are lucky to have met Osho in person (read in another post of yours). He really was a Buddha. I was introduced to his words only after he had passed away, so could not meet him in person, even though I’d gone to see his commune in Pune once, more than a decade ago. I liked the place then….it still had his leftover energy at that time. Don’t know what has become of his commune now.
Cheers and good luck for Golden Age
Navin
really thought provoking. i could draw a parallel between this post and Kahlil Gibran’s euphorism ” to understand a woman, listen to not what she says…but to what she doesnt say”. Contradiction there u see.
yes, i too believe that there should be some chaos which shapes up into a creativ art. but the chaos shouldnt redeem itself to ruin the creativity. the chaos should flow from raw state to pure form..that slowly it ceases to exist and transforms into a wonderful piece of art.
Anyways, a more better euphemism, which summarises this post of yours, was given by some famous sculptor. i dont know the exact saying..but the essence is–“You dont carve out required portions..you just remove the unwanted pieces of a stone and there you have your imagination taking up”.
Wishing you the best for Buddha. and do make more films, needless to say…Quality Ones.
Dear Mr Shekar,
my name is eliyas qureshi, I am n actor/producer who resides in nyc.It would be an honor to have you and your avid readers/fan to join our Yahoo group at
QEntertainment-Films-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
for more information on my self please visit http://www.eliyas.com I look forward for your participation and to open up a dialogue with you and would love to work with you some day in the ner future.
Eliyas Qureshi, President/CEO of qEntertainment & Films, invites you to join our Yahoo group. This group will announce new projects, casting notices and events sponsored by qEntertainment & Films and other group members,a Southeast Asian film production company based in the New York area. It also provides a forum for discussion of the worldwide film industry, for those who are interested in networking within the industry and those who are simply movie fans.
Chaos..Hmm..it’s an intriguing idea for someone like me who believes in the idea of control and the deep human psychological need for order – after all, we try to find recogniseable shapes within ink blots and a random collection of objects become subject to “associations” – this is how “story” develops…
But there is another side which you have to allow for, perhaps as a creative person, which is kind of like “brownian motion” which we learned about at school in chemistry, where things just sort of collide and cause secondary reactive effects…
…re-visiting your point about allowing the conscious self to let go – I agree – I’ve had occasion to teach life drawing to animators recently and one of the exercises I set is to try and draw while staring intensely at the tip of the pencil and where it is going – it’s an impossible task to draw anything, until you let go and allow a certain “zen” like state to take over – when you reach this point of total unconscious absorption in the act there is great sense of tranquility which sets in – up to that point however there can be an intense nervous reaction of anticipation which you need to get past before anything can be done at all….
Dear Mr. Kapur,
Great job with this website, really helps one see another side of you and also helps understand alot about oneself, almost reinforcing the idea that you are not alone with this pattern of thinking.
Anyways, about this post, I like your point of view, its almost like letting ideas grow as wild as they can with in a contolled enviornment. Hope you talk more about your filmmaking style in the future. As far as contradiction is concerned, hows this for an analogy, what created everything on this earth, MATTER and ANTI-MATTER.
Regards,
Asim
Hello Mr.Kapur,
Ever since I heard that this great book by Gregory David Roberts – Shantaram – is going to be made into a movie, I thought you should be directing that movie – to give the real feel of India. I hear that Peter Weir, the director has now backed out and search is on….why not market yourselves to Warner bros ( or Johnny depp) a bit?…and get hold of that movie to direct it…
Regards,
Murali
P.S. Not sure if this is the right category? sorry about that…..
if u don’t mind – can u give me a slight hint as to what exactly are u going to show in Golden age?
Open Society
free sex
free booze
ample young available girls for a quicky session
no bonds whatsoever – no marriages – just live together till you’ve had enough – then kick and go searching for another sex partner…..Freedom unlimited ??..and of course no border road security checks so that anyone and everyone can come and have fun in a foreign land….taste a diff.wine,women…children…
is it what you are going to show!?