Techie film on the IT-Mafia link
By Suneetha

Bangalore bred techie Nagendra, who moved to USA in 2000, literally lives for his passion, films. He has already been involved with two films; one in Kannada and the next titled Mumbhai Connection (note the spelling) which narrates an IT-Mafia nexus and is going places. Techgoss caught up with award winning ‘Atlanta Nagendra’, his name is his tribute to the city he lives in. 

Techgoss (TG): Tell us about your techie background
Atlanta Nagendra (AN): I was born and brought up in Bangalore. I completed engineering degree in Computer Science from Bangalore Institute of Technology. After my graduation, I started my career developing software applications (developed compilers and debuggers for Zilog processors. I moved to US in early 2000 and continued to design and develop software (BIOS, Security software for Intrusion detection and prevention systems, Server BIOS for x86 systems) for Fortune 100 companies.

TG: How and when did you become interested in films, who were your first inspirations?
AN: I used to watch a lot of movies during my childhood, especially watching the award winning movies broadcasted on Sundays on Doordarshan (the most popular channel back then).

The interest only increased during my engineering days. I started watching more and more movies. I was so interested that  when my parents gave  me money to buy lunch or snacks, I would use it to buy movie tickets, watch movies and would then come back to college to attend classes, mostly sit in the last row and discuss about movie’s presentation, screenplay, cinematography, camera angles and so on. Most of my friends used to make fun of me and told me that I need to get serious about real things and that would be focusing on Computer Science vs. Movie making science. Gradually, I stopped discussing about movies with my friends although from inside I had the same level of interest and graduated engineering with distinction.

My earliest inspirations were from well-known Kannada Directors Puttanna Kanagal, Upendra and Tamil director Shankar. 

TG: Which aspect of the film was your first love? Screen writing or Directing? What are the challenges / advantages in doing these aspects together?
AN: I have to be honest here. My first love was always directing a film with innovative shots. Over a period of time, I realized that "You need to tell a story". Then my focus shifted towards writing stories and screenplays. Getting a blue print (story/screenplay) is a bigger task and much time consuming because of the iterations involved. The main challenge is "how to tell your story visually so that audience will get connected?”.

I have seen movies where you have great script but weak direction and vice versa. The biggest advantage of excelling in both is that you are the creator of the scene and if you had missed something during writing, you still have chance to enhance and correct while you are directing.

Additionally, if you are the writer and director, you know the feel of the scene and that you can visually transform it to make it even better and give it a good shape.

TG: How did you manage to keep up your interest in films even after taking on a full time job in techie world? How did you cope with the pressures of the job against those of creativity?
AN: It’s a difficult question to answer. I will try my best to answer it. The whole techie world is entirely different from the creative world. It's really very hard to balance between both. When I sit in front of my computer at the office, my mind always thinks about writing new story ideas, scripts etc. Initially, it was very difficult but eventually made up mind that I had to balance between both. So the plan I have going is that weekdays, I work for 8-10 hrs, during weekends, I watch movies and work on my concepts.

Pressure of the job is always there because of the deadline and periodic product releases. Thanks to my family for their continued support. Many times, I sacrifice my sleep to balance both worlds but even today it’s difficult but has to sustain with it. The good thing against all these odds is that my mind is always fresh in a way that I forget about films while at work and while working on films, I seldom remember that I am an Engineer. 

TG: Which was your first film? Tell us more about it?
AN: My first film was a full length Kannada comedy film titled "Joke Falls" released in December of 2004. I was the co-writer and producer of this film.  It had actor Ramesh Aravind in the lead. I always wanted to get into films but none of my family members had any connection with films. How can you convince someone from the industry that "you have it all in you but need a chance". It was not an easy path to get into films. Until then, "whatever I had learnt was all theory and all of those need to be practically implemented".
 
Film industry doesn't work like a corporate world. I had both good and bad experiences and its part of any venture. Joke falls was a super hit movie. The movie ran for 100 days in many centers, it was the first film to complete 25 weeks in leading PVR multiplex in Bangalore.

After Joke falls, I honestly felt that I could have done things better and I did see a lot of areas to improve up on. I just left everything aside, attended plenty of film making workshops (editing, screenwriting, directing, cinematography) to get more technical knowledge. I started attending film festivals to see different kind of independent films being made. I started networking with more film making buddies and also took acting classes for a while.   

TG: How did Mumbai Connection happen? Tell us more about the movie
AN: It's actually Mumbhai Connection. The title itself sets the connection with the underworld. After Jokefalls, Most of my friends in Atlanta knew that I was actually serious about making films. The executive producer of Mumbhai Connection got in touch with me and we had an initial discussion about making a Bollywood movie to be set and shot in Atlanta. That's how Mumbhai Connection happened. I always wanted to tell a story that is unique. “Lot of movies has been done with Information Technology (IT) as a back drop. Lot more movies have been made with Underworld or Mafia as an Integral part. Nobody tried to connect between these two. This conflict was not explored by anyone, based on this thought, Mumbhai Connection story was created.

Mumbhai Connection is unique. As one of the characters in our movie says about the mafia "They too are running a business. Why won't they need IT support?" I believe this is something viewers have not seen before.

Mumbhai Connection is very personal. It addresses issues that have affected me directly (recession, unemployment, visa issues, IT) and one thing that I don’t have a personal experience with is the Mafia!

Mumbhai Connection is not a culture clash story about Indians in the US. I hope you will enjoy watching Mumbhai Connection as much as our entire team enjoyed making it. And remember – Don’t sell IT to the mafia.

TG: Tell us about your experience in making Mumbai Connection and how you managed to do this while holding a full time job?
AN: It was a very beautiful and amazing journey making Mumbhai Connection. Most of the cast and crew were also having full time jobs. That leaves us practically shooting the movie in weekends. To plan next weekend shooting, we used to meet every day in the evening for preparation of the weekend's shot, rehearsals with actors, location hunting etc. We did one schedule for 15 days working almost every day for 12-14 hours. The remaining schedule was done every weekend over a period of 5-6 months. You need a full time job to get your bread and butter. I sacrificed my personal time and concentrated only on movie making and full-time job. All this was possible because of the great support I received from my family.

TG: What accolades and recognition have come the Mumbai Connection way till date?
AN: Mumbhai Connection has been selected for five film festivals (7th Atlanta Asian Film Festival, Third World Indie Film Festival, 8th Dixie Film Festival Atlanta, 10th Urban Media makers Film Festival, 2nd Bronze Lens Film Festival) across US and many more in pipeline.

Mumbhai Connection has been awarded, best comedy at Third World Indie Film Festival. Mumbhai Connection has won the 3rd Best film in feature film category at 10th urban mediamakers film festival.

Most recently,  won the Best comedy award at 7th Atlanta Asian film festival 2011.

TG: What next? Any project in mind yet?
AN: As of now, just writing few story ideas and pitching it to my friends. I do have new thoughts that will take some time to give a good shape. I will announce it to you all when it's ready. I promise that it will definitely be a good entertainer.

TG: Anything else you would like to tell us?
AN: The path from concept to screen is long and winding. But don’t give up. There are no time limits for achieving success, no defined routes to success. Create a project you believe in. Work hard and consistently, ignore the naysayers and you will eventually succeed.