At 21, Bengaluru boy Vivek Anand is on the right track to his dream path, and is basking in the success of Chrono, his debut short film which is all set to be screened on August 31 and September 2 at Huntsville, in Ontario, Canada. The short film runs along a very interesting storyline — Chrono showcases the retrospection of a soul who looks back at the events of the last day of his life. In a candid chat, he shares the inside track...
“In order to find out the reason for his death, he finds himself introspecting his actions throughout. Addicted to using his phone, on hindsight he realises that he missed out on the one thing he wanted to know the most whether the person he loved, loved him back.”
As odd as it may sound, but being a smartphone addict; not just my parents even my friends used to advise me on using it in moderation,” chuckles Vivek, who pursues a BFA in Digital Art, Video Game Development from Asian Institute of Design. Speaking of how the idea sprouted, Vivek adds, “One day, I called up my friend, Tejus Kashyap, telling that I have a story, we met up, discussed for a couple of hours and that’s how Chrono transpired. After the discussion, I called him up and surprised him by telling he’ll be the protagonist. I believe that a film should be shown and not told. So, the challenge for him was to express everything without any dialogues and he pulled it off very well.
The intention was to let the audience connect with the protagonist. I got a great boon from Shivshankar Noorambada, an amazing cinematographer who shot it brilliantly and brought my vision to reality.” While Vivek is anticipating a massive response for Chrono, he also has a few interesting projects on the side. “I have other projects in development. I’m also working as an Assistant Director for Rachita Ram’s newly announced Project APRIL in which I got the freedom to design posters.
I plan to take my next venture a step higher. And we’re pretty much excited about the next one.” Quite like most newbie filmmakers in town, the team is running from pillar to post to get noticed in national as well as international levels.
“ After the completion of Chrono, we were left with little funds and hence we could only apply for select few short film festivals. We were happy when we received the confirmation from them and we are expecting more from others.” Not attributing any of the ideas to sheer serendipity, Vivek divulges how being a filmmaker has been a childhood dream. “As a kid passionate about video games, I delved into the development side during my 12th and showcased a shooter in a digitally recreated version of my campus.
I decided to create a story-based game. This led to story writing and to filmmaking by reading books and experimenting with my smartphone. I’ve always wanted to become a short film maker and I’m glad to have stuck to my guns, signs off Vivek, who would love to work in the Visual effects industry and make films using the same.
