The Story of a Box Camera
In a world that is forever focused on changing and racing toward an unknown future, there is something very inviting about taking a step back, finding a mirror to the past, admiring its beauty, and acknowledging how far we've come. Interacting with Tikam Chand Ji and his over 160-year-old box camera allowed us to do exactly that.
Storytelling is our forever love affair
At French Fries Films, we pride ourselves on delivering impactful and ROI-driven videos to our clients across various industries. Still, we often like to step back and revisit what got us to filmmaking in the first place, the love of stories. The love of bringing alive these stories, full of heart and soul, for the world to see.
The great thing about these personal projects is that they keep the team's creative fire lit because we're creating something purely for the joy of creating it. There are no limitations or rules placed on us externally, just the French Fries Films team and their love for their craft.
One of our beloved personal projects is "Nazariya," a short film focusing on the small pleasures of life that today's fast-paced lifestyle has alienated us from. Nazariya went on to get featured in the 14th Habitat film festival, was chosen by Mr. Prasoon Joshi, and got Ravneet Oberoi (filmmaker & founder, French Fries Films) invited as one of the 75 filmmakers across India (officially called ‘75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow’) at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa 2021, initiated by the Ministry of Broadcast as part of their 75th Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav
Finding a box camera and his master
One day, Joey L, one of Ravneet's favourite photographers, was recounting his journey through Rajasthan and happened to put up a series of stories on Tikam Chand in Jaipur with his 160-year-old box camera. He showed a glimpse of the process and what it was like using the past to capture the present. Ravneet, being fascinated by this process and his story, wondered why there was no proper film on this subject. It was a story that needed to be told.
The journey toward the story
Despite a busy shoot schedule, his upcoming nuptials, and a thousand other things to get done, Ravneet could not shake this story from his mind. As luck would have it, Moment announced their annual smartphone film challenge within a few weeks, with the deadline for submission on 31st March 2020. This was the perfect opportunity, filmmaker friends Abhimanyu Aneja, Bhaavan Goswami & Vinayak Das Gupta were roped in for this opportunity, and we contacted Tikam Chand Ji to confirm his availability. The stage was set; we were equipped with our gear, this time using only 2 iPhone 11 pros with Moment pro app on both for manual controls and with DIY ND Filters. The sound was recorded separately in Zoom H4. We reached Jaipur on Friday evening and finished the entire shoot by Saturday night.
Every great story must have a great climax
After a quick and efficient shoot, we returned to Delhi, ready to resume work and everyday life, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was about to hit the world. On returning to Delhi, the first COVID19 weekend curfew was announced. Projects were cancelled, work came to a grinding halt, and even Ravneet's wedding plans were overhauled to accommodate this new normal. The pandemic had hit, and we were locked in.
The silver lining the pandemic brought for us was the realignment of goals, figuring out what we were passionate about and the belief in the power of positive thinking. With all client projects on a halt, we focused on telling the story of Tikam Chand Ji and his box camera. Still, because no project is without its challenges, we realized we had run into major technical issues. Faulty memory cards gave us hell; all the recorded sounds had gotten corrupted. We got to work and managed to use our backup audio captured on the phone via the rode video mic pro. At the end of this process, we still had something which could go out of the world and make them curious. And now more than ever, we owe it to Tikam Chand Ji to tell his story and bring back his customers who had vanished due to the COVID lockdowns.
Finding this story's happily ever after
With all its hurdles and challenges, we finally got the film done with a lot of effort from friends and family and constant encouragement and input from Ravneet's wife, Kritika.
We decided to submit the story across competitions, and at first, when it didn't win anything, it was disheartening, but we persisted, and the submissions continued. This turned out to be just the nudge we needed because the film got nominated for all the festivals we applied to:
Moment International Film Festival, 2020
Short Shorts Festival in Tokyo, 2021
Barcelona International Film Festival. 2021
Mobile Filmmaker International Festival, 2022 where it also won the best film award!
One of the highly talked about films at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa 2021, as part of the 75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow submission, an initiative by 75th Azadi ka Amrit Mahatsov under the Ministry of Broadcast.
This film has been a labour of love and learning for us. But telling the story of a man and his great love of photography and history possibly couldn't have been anything else. We're proud we got to bring this story to the world.
Here's a glimpse into the making of this remarkable tale:
Film Credits:
Director: Ravneet Oberoi
Cast: Tikam Chand, Ravneet Oberoi, Asif Hamid
Producer: Kritika Kapoor & Ravneet Oberoi
Cinematographer: Bhaavan Goswami, Abhimanyu Aneja, Ravneet Oberoi
Sound Recordist: Ram Chander
Editing and Color Grading: Vinayak Dasgupta, Ravneet Oberoi & Asif Hamid
Sound / Music: ‘You’ by Fjodor & ‘With some malice’ by Francesco Dandrea
#ShotoniPhone
160 years ago, you had to first manually create a negative image on a photo paper, then convert this negative into a positive image, all by estimation. If it's a bright sunny day, you will expose your subject for a shorter time; if it's overcast, you'll have to expose your image for a longer time. Nowadays, even before clicking a picture, you get to see the outcome on your camera LCD or Smartphone. Your camera settings and lighting situation will further apply AI tools to produce a high-definition image on the screen. And Capturing an image now takes a fraction of a second. But in the past, it was a task only a few could take up. It required patience. It required creative skills. It required hours of labour to capture the history to preserve it for the future. And we wanted to document this story from the perspective of the camera, and we wanted to use the most modern portable tool available to humankind at present, a smartphone.
Press & Media Coverage:
Ravneet Oberoi at the Press Conference held at International Film Festival of India, Goa 2021 for 75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow.
