Briton makes Mollywood film for less than Rs. 1,800, eyes Guinness record
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
record
By Venkata Vemuri
The Pioneer
Sunday, February 27, 2011
London - A budding British film-maker is hoping to get into the
Guinness book of world records for spending less than UKP 25 in
producing a Bollywood-style film, Indian Pickle, which is making its
premiere on Sunday.
The 40-minute film is directed by Geoff Dixon of Barnard Castle, a
small town in the north-eastern English county of Durham. It also
features staff of a local Indian restaurant, Bengal Merchant.
Dixon says the film cost him UKP 24.14 (Rs. 1,762.90) to create,
which could be the least expensive film ever made.
The Guinness book currently lists a Canadian film, Die Alive, which
was produced in 2001 for 563.62 Canadian Dollars, or UKP 259.91
pounds at that time. Indian Pickle is about an Indian character
called Rajah who comes to the UK after winning a lottery ticket, but
gets mixed up in the underworld of crime when his gambling brother,
Samir, is taken hostage.
Dixon shot the film mostly in Barnard Castle and partly in Goa where
the producer-director had gone on a brief holiday. He filmed much of
the action with a green screen back-drop to allow for special
effects, including a helicopter flying down a street, a car careering
off the end of a bridge and a plane crash.
The green screen was the film's biggest expense, costing UKP 13.50 --
that was nearly half of the total cost. The second biggest expense
was Blu Tack -- a holding glue -- that cost UKP 4.27.
Dixon told a local newspaper, The Advertiser: "Actually I've got 20p
to spare because one of the things I put in there, a pint for Kev at
UKP 2.50 I was told was actually UKP 2.30."
Dixon and his team are all amateurs from Barnard Castle who spend six
months in all to make the film. He said: "I am friends with the lads
at the Bengal Merchant and I'm always doing little films like this so
I thought it would just be a bit of fun really. It's all about faith
and luck. (the small budget) makes it more fun and nobody can act
either which is brilliant."
He said he was happy to have got the entire community of his town
involved in the making of the film.
Indian Pickle will make its debut at a screening in Durham on Sunday,
with tickets costing UKP 2.50.
[I refer to Bollywood as Mollywood because Bombay is Mumbai. - JM]
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed
by forgery by one or more net terrorists,
this post may be reposted several times.