BENGALURU: As an actor and director for over two decades, Padmaja Rao was at a loss after a few days into the lockdown. Admittedly drifting into depression, Rao shook herself up and decided that if she must make a film indoors to stay sane, so be it. The result is Ondu Giftina Kathe, a 30-minute story, which has been made with 11 characters and 10 camerapersons from across the world. All this on the phone in a span of 25 days.
Shot in the USA, Canada and Karnataka, the film features popular actors, including Sudha Belawadi, Praveen D Rao, Sunetra Pandith, Girish Jathi, Dr Sudheendra Kaushik and Indu Shanmugham besides Rao herself. “Once I wrote the storyline, I was clear about the actors I wanted – the one from here needed to be popular. And the others from foreign countries were picked from a bank of actors I had collected during my visit to the US last year.
They needed to be young, good looking and of course, talented,” she says, adding that her nephew, Anirudh Mohan, features in the film. “In my family, I’m the only one in this field. Now, Anirudh has also taken this up and is an aspiring Hollywood actor,” says Rao who rose to fame with Ganesh’s Mungaru Male.
The story revolves around Mr & Mrs Janardhan and Sharath Chandra, who live opposite to each other, and hate each other with same intensity as much as their young children, Anirudh and Shanaya, love each other. Anirudh, who lives in the US sends a gift to his father Sharath Chandra, which accidentally lands up in Janardhan’s house. Mr & Mrs Janardhan flaunt it from their balcony to Sharath Chandra, making him even more jealous and angry but helpless. He decides to fight and notes down their telephone number, but takes down the wrong one.
He reaches Raksha Kaushik with whom he picks up a fight. She swears to lodge a police complaint. Meanwhile, they come to know that their respective children are in love. All hell breaks loose. “In these times where there is so much worry and sadness, I wanted a storyline that is funny and puts a smile on people’s faces,” she says.
Rao had instructed her actors and camerapersons that the film would need to be shot horizontally. However, she missed informing them that no long shots would work considering there’s no mic or dubbing. “So some parts had to be re-shot. If there were outdoor shots, I asked the actors to do it when they went to buy essentials. There was this instance in an outdoor shoot in Canada where it’s cold and windy, it was a long shot and we couldn’t hear anything,” she says.
While each of the actors shot their part and sent it across, the bigger challenge began during editing. Several back and forths later, the film was ready after seven days. “Editing is always a challenge since editors are not on set during the shoot. They are given the rushes and script later and need to bring out the nuances of a character. In this case, I was working with the editor (Uday Hubli) over phone. When the rough cut was sent, I was literally writing out the minutes and seconds that needed to be cut and sending it back,” she says, adding that such a film in normal circumstances would have been out of the question. “So, in a way it’s a historic moment,” she adds.