By Hindustan Times
After Rockstar (2011) and before Barfee (2012), Ranbir Kapoor will feature in a four-minute short film that encapsulates the last moments of a Bollywood movie. In filmi fashion, the actor sprints over around 100 Nissan Micra cars, almost crashing during the windscreen of the fourth. This action sequence could land the film within the Limca Book of worldwide Records.
“I got a decision from the Limca team in December,” admits producer Khalil Bachooali of Offroad Films, recalling how hard it was to get 92 cars to align perfectly. “We’d allocated four hours for it, but after an hour-and-a-half, I USED TO BE convinced it wouldn’t happen. After we got it with the last shot, everyone started clapping.”
The shoot wrapped up in a week, went into edit for 2 weeks and for the last two-and-a-half months, 400 people has been engaged on the post-production. A 30-second trailer goes on air today. Since it’s too long to run as an ad on TV, plans are to glue it to the negative of an upcoming Bollywood biggie and post it on Facebook.
“I have so much to thank Facebook for,” says Khalil, recalling how the project took wings on his last birthday. “On August 11, 2011, my friends and that i decided we would have liked to do something that wasn’t clichéd and came up with the speculation of a crowd-sourced short Bollywood movie, featuring RK, 20 co-actors and 100 cars.”
A storyboard was developed, along side three original tracks. Khalil post all three tracks on FB and designed a competition whereby people were invited to download them, zero in on any one, shoot a video using a webcam and upload it as their audition.
“Within three weeks we got 2,600 entries. We then asked Facebook friends to vote for whom they wanted within the movie,” he says. “From the 76,000 responses we picked out the highest 100 from which Ranbir, director Ahmed Khan and that i shortlisted his 20 co-stars and took off Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad to shoot the film.”
Now that he has his End, and a fan club of just about 5 lakh (4,90,000 at the last count) desires to make a full-length feature film and can soon invite screenplays. Anyone from anywhere can write in and help in making this short film a big feature.
