The Namesake Blog

Back from a Hiatus...

Hey everyone. So i'm back from the hiatus of work on other projects. I'd been shooting a film and television show since the "marketing meeting kickoff" stuff, and ended up going on a promotional tour right afterward, so there went the fall.

I didn't have the chance to attend any of the major foreign film festivals (Toronto, Rome, London, etc) that our film appeared at, but i'm very excited to be attending the Dubai International Film Festival next week. I'll be blogging from there about the festival, reactions to the film, and so on. I believe we're screening 2 shows there, and i'll be doing a Q&A with Irfan after each, so if you happen to be in the area, please come by.

Our film played at the IAAC film festival in New York City last month. It's the first time I'd had a chance to see the film with an audience of both friends and colleagues as well as the general public. If any of you had the chance to see the film, i'd love to hear what you thought.

More to follow on the journey to Dubai...

Marketing Kick-Off Meeting

Entertainment Weekly Fall Preview & Myspace

Hey. Entertainment Weekly will be running a one-page piece on “The Namesake” as part of their fall summer preview edition (I think it hits the stands sometime in August), so look out for it.

Premiere Magazine’s fall issue (on newsstands now) has a small write-up about The Namesake on Page 82. It lists the film as releasing in November, but again – the date has just been moved up to September, which is right around the corner.

For all you myspacers, after a bunch of requests from you guys, there is now an official “Kal Penn Myspace Profile” that a friend of mine runs. I don’t update myself, but I send him videos and links to put up, as well as information & Q&As pertaining to films. It’s the only legitimate kal penn myspace profile, so if you’re on myspace, you can check it out at http://www.myspace.com/kalpenn

Here are a few more of your questions & answers:

Q: Do you think this movie will break some of the fixed ideas people have about Indian (specifically Bengali) culture and people?

A: My aim in playing Gogol was to be true to the character. With that said, if there were wedding scenes or language differences and so on, I we did usually have consultants advising us on authenticity, so as far as I recall, those things are true to life.

Q: Did you have similar struggles about identity like Gogol did? I think that's what will make it so relatable--the finding an identity aspect.

A:  Gogol's identity struggles really aren't set the way many people are assuming. He’s the
American kid of Indian parents, and has a Russian name. Not your everyday identity cliché by any means, and I think that made him a very interesting character to play as opposed to the generic “east vs west” identity struggle.

Q: Was Jumpa Lahiri involved in the making of this film?

A: Yes.

Q&A's and a new release date...

Earlier this week, I found out that the release date of the film has been changed from November 3rd to September 20th, so please start spreading the word about the film! September is right around the corner...now on to a few questions and answers.

Q: will there be a list of theaters that the namesake will be released in?

A: I'm not sure if the official namesake website will have a list of theaters, but you can always go to moviefone.com or any other reliable internet site (moviefone.com, yahoo! movies, and fandango are generally pretty accurate, while imdb and wikipedia type sites are generally not accurate) for theater listings in your area. I'll try to add more information about the cities in which we're playing as the release date draws closer and I find out more info on that.

Q:Do you think the movie will be received as an Indian film, an Indian-American film or just a film? (I guess that's the multi million-dollar question.)

A: I hope that the movie will be recieved as an American film, because that's what I think it is. While the backdrop for the story is an immigrant Indian couple and their American kids, the actual story is about something very human. I think that the book and film even transcend the sort of bipolar immigration debate taking place in this country - regardless of your feelings on issues like that, this film takes you on a journey that in many ways is the shared experience of all Americans.

Q: Do you think this is a hopeful story?

A: Very much so.

Q: (ok this is more of a comment) I saw the preview for this at the Lagoon Theatre in Uptown, Minneapolis and simply HAVE to see it.  I may force myself to wait until it comes out on DVD, however, because watching the friggin' preview was pretty damn emotional.

A: I would strongly urge you to see the film in theaters. Mira, Fred Elmes (our Director of Photography) and virtually every person working behind the camera and behind the scenes have created a very powerful moving image that I think really takes you on the journey through the years and continents in which the story takes place. Visually seeing it on a big screen will accentuate the emotional journey within the story. I think it will be a great DVD to own, don't get me wrong - but I think that there is something to be said for the traditional moviegoing experience of this film and the visual impact that you'll get from seeing it on the big screen.

I'll upload another entry in another few days. Feel free to keep asking questions in the comments section, and I should have some more information on the release very soon...

Welcome Back...

Hey everyone – If you’ve visited the site before, welcome back to the Namesake Web Log.  After a meeting with the heads of Fox Searchlight’s Marketing, Advertising, and Publicity Team yesterday, we’ve decided to start the blog back up to continue updating everyone on the post-production and pre-release stages of the film. So please spread the word, read the book if you haven’t already, and set your calendars for November 3rd, when we’ll be opening in select markets across America.

Over the next few days I’ll be answering some of your questions (you're welcome to ask them in the comments section below), talking about the film a little more, people’s initial reactions to it, and how you can help spread the word.

I’ll also be uploading some video from time to time (the first video was shot at yesterday’s meeting and will be uploaded by the good folks at Searchlight).

Welcome back and stay tuned...

Not the Last Post

I've decided not to 'wrap it up' with a concluding post, since the process of filmmaking itself is ongoing. Mira is taking the summer off to spend time at her home in Uganda (where she's starting a film program), and will be back in New York in September to begin editing and postproduction on "The Namesake". I'm in Sydney, working on my next film (you can check out the "Superman" blog at www.bluetights.net, they've got some great video clips as well), and will be back in the States in August. So I'll be updating this blog again in a few months, when postproduction begins. Until then, keep checking back, and I'll fix some of the broken links, and try to add an itunes/amazon link for all of the music/literature I mentioned. Thanks for reading.

to be continued...

AGRA, our last day

Yesterday we flew from Calcutta to Delhi (about 3 hours), then hopped in a car and drove from Delhi to Agra (roughly 4 hours, had we not stopped for an hour-and-a-half for lunch…so in our case, 5 ½ hours). We got to our hotel in Agra about an hour before sunset, so Sahira and I decided to take an autoriksha to the Taj, to check it out at Sunset (since today, we didn’t have the chance). As the sun started going down, a sand or dust storm kicked in, and we had to run back to the riksha, which brought us back to the hotel, with dust and sand in our eyes, ears, noses, and mouths (it’s crunchy).

Today I was up by about 4:30; our first shot was the family walking into the compound containing the Taj, just after sunrise. I think photos might better describe the rest of the day, so I’m going to upload a few. The magnitude of the beauty of the Taj Mahal isn’t something that can be described, nor felt in photographs, despite attempts. At several points throughout the day, we’d be in between shots, and I would turn around and suddenly see the Taj Mahal, and entirely forget what I was doing.

[The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan as a mausoleum to his wife, Mumtaz, whom he loved…enough to build her the Taj Mahal. It’s a perfectly symmetrical architectural structure made of white marble.]

After an emotional wrap (it was our last day of shooting), Mira, myself, and Sahira took the train back to Delhi, from where I’ll fly to Mumbai tomorrow. I leave for Sydney, Australia the day after that to start work on “Superman Returns”. I’ll wrap all of this up with at least 2 or 3 more entires before going on a little hiatus. I hope to pick the blog up again when we start postproduction, ADR, and all of the pre-release work.

random photos

Here are some photos from the past few days. I'll write more once we get to Agra.

Across the street from Ashima's House in Calcutta, the Communist Party of India has posted the day's newspaper. You can see boards like this all over the city, where people can come to read the news. It's fantastic. Kind of like an outdoor library.

This is a Hindi Film poster for the movie "Dariya Dil" (which I have not seen, but am looking forward to checking out since the poster is so awesome). I have absolutely no idea what that movie could possibly be about, other than that guy dressed like "Superman" and the girl dressed like "Spiderman". Yes, it's for real.

Finally, a photo from the train wreck scene.

Train Wreck

OK So I didn’t die of snakebite. I did get caught in a small dust storm, but we made our way out of Delhi and to the location. The train wreck scene was in the middle of a field; 2 carriages, one ablaze, were reaching into the sky – exactly the way Jhumpa and Mira describe it in the book and script, respectively. I’ll try to upload some photos from it.

I didn’t see any snakes, but a few of the crew guys were telling me that when they loaded all of the equipment in the night before, they saw 4 Cobras. Every thirty minutes or so, they would take a short break from the shoot to beat drums to scare the snakes away (it had also rained that evening, and snakes tend to come out when it rains). While I don’t doubt that they knew what they were doing, I was a little unclear on noisemaking as a means to drive away snakes. Snakes are deaf. But then it was explained that they fear the vibrations that noise makes. So no snake troubles on our end, thankfully.

Tomorrow is a day off, and after that we fly from Kolkata to Delhi, and drive from Delhi to Agra, then shoot our last day at the Taj Mahal. More soon.

2nd Unit

I’ve spent the better portion of the past 2 days with Second Unit (a separate director and crew who shoot some of the scenes, portions of scenes, insert shots, and other sequences while the First Unit shoots scenes as well). Our Second Unit Director is a great guy named JJ. He’s worked with Mira before on Vanity Fair, and has a great energy and awesome eye for detail.

Our second unit on “The Namesake” isn’t as staffed as First Unit, so JJ has to serve as his own DP (Director of Photography), Camera person, Assistant Director, scheduler, script supervisor, lighting technician, and I’m sure several other titles that I’m not trained to pick up on. Through all of that, JJ has maintained a pretty humorous outlook on everything, including capturing the beautiful chaos that often entails shooting in India (or anywhere, for that matter).

I took a bunch of video from 2 particular sequences that I’ve uploaded. The first is a scene in which Gogol decides to go jogging in the streets of Kolkata. The second is a taxi sequence, that takes Gogol and Sonia from the airport to our Dadi (Grandmother)’s house. Details on the scene are below, with each specific clip.

[I’m going to grab some Chinese food, and then check out the train wreck scene, which opens the film & which is being shot tonight about an hour outside of the city. It’s just started raining, which brings out snakes (which contrary to the obnoxiously racist depiction found in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, Indians do not eat); for some reason, wearing socks, shoes, and jeans puts my mind at ease a bit – even though snakes can bite through all of that. I hope this isn’t my last entry…]

CLIPS

Click Here for Clip 1 JJ Introduces the setup.
Click Here for Clip 3 JJ explain the cab
Click Here for Clip 2 Nitya (our 2nd AD) sets up background for one of the shot.

More clips coming very soon; the aforementioned aren't in order.