Shyama

Season's Greetings from Shyama

Season's greetings from Santiniketan, home town of Shyama's creator, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. This is where Shyama was filmed and where almost all of its cast and crew are based. It is the third day of the annual 'Poush Mela' [winter fair], for which tens of thousands of people descend on this normally calm university town. The Mela is also an opportunity for former students to be reunited with their contemporaries, many of whom return to Santiniketan for this three-/four-day, outdoor fair.

The Mela stalls offer mainly arts and crafts from the region around Santiniketan, as well as from other Indian States. This year, there are also a few stalls in the field where the original Mela used to be held, a short distance from the crush and bustle of the main Mela. The stalls here include those of book publishers and other arts and crafts more closely associated with Tagore and Santiniketan.

One of the stalls, known as 'Chaander Haat' (literally, 'The market of the moon'), has been providing a forum for Tagore songs and dance. Organised by Santiniketan- & Paris-based musicologist Sharmila Roy Pommot, it has attracted many eminent Tagore performers and scholars. Shyama producer and star Kaberi Chatterjee gave a lecture demonstration yesterday on Tagore dance musicals, of which Shyama was the third and last. Extracts from her presentation will be included in the Shyama podcast, for which we are currently filming background material.

Now that Shyama is complete...

...we finally have a chance to give you an update about our progress. We completed Shyama last week and have moved into the distribution phase. As we've indicated in earlier blog entries and news, our release strategy for Shyama does not follow the traditional distribution model of a territory-by-territory release going from theatrical to home video to Pay TV to Free TV with video download somewhere in between. We just don't think the traditional distribution model is relevant for a fairly specialised film like ours with a widely dispersed, worldwide target audience.

Of course, the internet itself, wider internet access and the popularity of home cinema/theatre systems over the past couple of years presents us with a world of opportunities. For example, if you are registered with an online digital music store, you may already have spotted the 70-minute Shyama soundtrack album - if not, just search for 'Shyama soundtrack album'. Wherever you are in the world, you can listen to extracts from it and, who knows, you might even like to buy it, especially as the ensemble cast have given world class performances. The tracks are all open to personal copying so, if you think a friend or relative would like the album, please feel free to make a copy for them.

Part of the reason for Shyama's long post-production period was to allow time for people to adapt to the new technology and also to watch for developments. One of these was Chris Anderson's next 'big idea' after bringing us the Long Tail theory. The title of his next book is 'Free', due out in June 2009, but sketched out through his blog at www.thelongtail.com . In September, he identified four 'free economics' models: http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/09/revised-the-fou.html  . This was reassuring for us since we realised that various levels of our release strategy for Shyama make use of all four models.

We'll go into more detail in another post. For the time being, here are the acknowledgements from the end credits. The first two lines mention those who have helped or influenced the production of Shyama and the remaining lines mention those who have helped or influenced its distribution.

I should also mention that Kaberi and I are about to start presenting 10 episodes of the Shyama podcast soon. Each episode will include an update on the release, some background about Tagore and Shyama, and a 30-second extract from the film.

Special Thanks to: Somendranath Bandhopadhyay, Mritunjoy Chakroborty, Sujit Chatterjee, Subhasis Das, Nani Gopal Ghosh, Steve Jobs, Binod Mahato, Graeme Nattress, Ranajit & Shipra Roy, Chris Anderson, Peter Broderick, Peter Buckingham, Susan Buice, Arin Crumley, Geraldine de Paepe, Norbert Eber, Graham Fortin, Carlos Moreno, Adriana Opromolla, Irina Orssich, Stephen Streater, David Tosics, www.bravenewtheaters.com and www.movieset.com

-Obhi Chatterjee

Shyama Launch Weekend: December 12-14

Since our news release a couple of weeks ago, several people have asked us how they could get to see Shyama and how people would find out about it. Well, let's take those one at a time.

- How can you get to see Shyama?

There will be at least three possibilities, though we're also in discussions about a possible release in some countries with digital cinema networks:

1) if you are one of the 230 million people who understand Bengali, you'll be able to watch the entire film without subtitles online and for free - we'll announce the details here nearer the launch weekend.

2) from about a week before the launch weekend, the all-region DVD will be available in the US via https://www.createspace.com/224249 or from amazon.com . It will also be available with free shipping within Europe from the e-store on our website: www.innereye.eu . If you live outside the US or Europe, you can order the DVD from whichever of these options costs the least. If you have or can recommend a DVD web store in your country which you think would like to list the DVD, please send me their contact details and we will see if we can arrange something with them. With the help of various friends, the first version of the DVD should include subtitles not only in English but also in French, Spanish, German, Italian and Hungarian.

3) from about a week before the launch weekend, the film will be available as a download in each of the above languages in a number of different formats ranging from mobile device to digital cinema - we'll announce the details here nearer the time.

- How will people find out about Shyama?

Basically, we need the help of everyone interested in seeing the film:

1) you can help by circulating the link to this page (or www.shyamathemovie.com) to people you think would be interested

2) if you're on Facebook, please join the group 'I want to see Shyama' and invite friends who would also be interested in Shyama to join it too

3) please host a private screening of Shyama - feel free to combine it with an Indian-themed house party. You would just need to buy the DVD/download, have a large screen and space for people to sit. www.bravenewtheaters.com will handle all the admin. You can invite just your friends, open the screening to people in your area who would like to see the film, divide the cost of the DVD/download between those who watch the film or even rent a cinema and charge for tickets.

4) we'll be promoting a 'Shyama launch weekend' at the end of November via the Facebook group and other social networks

5) if you have any other ideas, please comment on this post or drop us a line and share them with us.

-Kaberi Chaterjee (Producer)

Director Obhi Chatterjee's First Blog Post

The making of Shyama has been a voyage of discovery for me. Not only have I had to immerse myself in the deeply philosophical world of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (who has had a major influence on my life thanks to my parents) but I have also had to push the boundaries of digital film-making techniques. Indeed, without the technological developments which took place even as the film was in post-production, Shyama would not have been made. It seems fitting to me that we should be using the latest techniques to bring Tagore's classic work to a new, global audience. Shyama was filmed in Tagore’s home town of Santiniketan in West Bengal, India in February 2007. It was a unique experience, thanks especially to the commitment of all the world class performers based in Santiniketan who came forward to take part in the production. Most of them take part regularly in productions such as Shyama which are staged during the annual festivals which attract over 100,000 people to Santiniketan. The dancers and singers rehearsed daily for four weeks before the shoot itself, under the guidance of Jitenda (Shyama's dance director, who also dances the role of Uttiyo in Shyama) and Ashokda (Shyama's music director, who also sings the role of the King's Guard). I should perhaps explain that the long-standing convention in Santiniketan is to address one's elders as '-da' (literally, older brother) or '-di' (older sister). I joined the team after I arrived in India a couple of weeks into the rehearsals. Through the rehearsals and also during the shoot itself, the dancers, singers, musicians and crew developed a very strong team spirit. I hope that the end result will do justice to their skilled performances. Clearly, as it's now been a year and a half since principal photography was completed, the post-production has taken quite a long time. This is both because I have been doing it single-handed around quite a demanding day job and because we have also been completing a more commercial project back-to-back (Kaberi's Indian dance workout - see www.kaberi.eu). Of course, the advantage is that digital distribution and marketing have also evolved during this period, including the creation of MovieSet. I should also underline that Shyama really has been a collaborative effort. So the true credit for the performances lies with the performers themselves and with Jitenda and Ashokda, who have trained them not only for the film but also for a number of years. Although originally written in 1939, the story is timeless and I believe Shyama is as relevant today as it was when it was first performed, against the backdrop of growing turbulence in pre-Independence, British India and Hitler’s treatment of Jews in Europe. Of course, the turbulence and racial intolerance are of a different kind today. However, they are still very real elements of the world we live in. Unfortunately, the errors of this period of world history are being replayed, though not necessarily only in the same countries. Tagore developed his dance form towards the end of his life after seeing, on his international travels after winning the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature, that people struggled to understand his Bengali prose in translation. His idea was that dance was a universal language which could help people around the world understand his work better and more easily. Unfortunately, perhaps because Shyama was one of his last works, or perhaps because the lyrics of the songs alone would not mean much in translation without being able to hear the music or see the dance, Shyama does not appear to have been translated before from the original Bengali. This feature film version of Shyama allows us to use the audiovisual medium, multilingual subtitling and the global reach of digital technology to realise Tagore’s dream, while drawing attention to his creative genius. At the moment, we're finalising the soundtrack album, which should be available from online digital music stores by the time the film is launched at the end of November. We're aiming to complete the film itself by early October. I'll try to keep you updated on our progress here on MovieSet. Meanwhile, please let me know if you have any comments about the trailer.