After a shopping spree of three books from the airport and two movies and a light breakfast of dosa and vada on the flight, I finally reached Mumbai, in a rather super duper excited state of mind. The editor came to pick me up and after a brief stop at the hotel for me to check in and drop my luggage, we set off straight to Qlab.
Qlab was on the same street as other bigwigs like Yash Raj studios, Ram Gopal Varma's Company studio, Balaji studio and I couldnt believe that I was about to work there! I felt like I was really in Bollywood! Qlab themselves have worked on about 6000 films so far, from Hollyood to Bollywood and it is one of the frontrunners in the field. So yes, I was clearly in a state of hyper-excitment.
I first met Sinoy, the national award winning Sound Mix expert (he won the award for Gangs of Wasseypur) and was so pleasantly surprised by how humble and down to earth he was! His assistant was on leave and he himself placed all the soundtrack files and a few such set up work and was so patient when, despite our best efforts, there were mistakes at our end in some of the files. His main mix would only start once he receives the full sound design from Jyoti, the new sound designer, so for today we focused on the needs of each of the scenes and the basic set up with BGM stems and dubs.
Then I met Biju, the colourist and he took us through how he would be approaching various scenes in the film and I was amazed by quickly and creatively he enhanced many of the frames! I felt like I can say anything I wanted to enhance the visual and he would be able to achieve it. Incredible stuff!
After spending some time at Qlab, we stepped out to a nearby mall for lunch (which was an awesome thali at Maharaja Bhog), and then proceeded to Jyoti's house, which was his base for the initial part of sound design.
He took us through his work, which I thought was downright amazing, especially since he had done it within three days flat! His attention to detail was incredible. He would have added in sounds like that of a small fountain somewhere in the background which I may not have even noticed. I was truly wowed.
By the time we got done at Jyoti's place, it was already 6pm and it took us close to two hours to get back to the hotel through the infamous Mumbai traffic.
I was tired after the long day, but managed to do some light yoga, ordered in a grilled fish and masala milk (which was awesome!), started to read one of the books I had bought and hit the bed.
By the end of day one, I was no longer nervous. These were clearly not just genius people but genuinely nice folks. My little film is in the best hands and am a very happy person!
391 more to go.
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