#LockdownCreativity: Meet the cinematographer who shot an entire music video with two dolls

On March 27 last year,

Demel Xavier Edwards

was supposed to leave for Malaysia to shoot a film. But the cinematographer, a former associate of director and

cinematographer

Ravi K Chandran, who has shot films like July Kaatril and the promo songs of Darbar, couldn’t leave as the country went into

lockdown

on March 23. A few days later, he tested positive for COVID-19, and had to be moved to a medical camp. On returning, he had to

quarantine

himself for a few more days. “I became restless in those days of solitude. It got to a point where I felt like I had to shoot something with the camera to survive the isolation,” recalls Demel.

As he was racking his mind on what to do creatively, a couple of

dolls

on his showcase caught his eye. For the first few days, he decided to shoot something with the dolls, as a trial run. “I zeroed in on the theme of separation. Once I got an idea, I started shooting religiously every day,” he says.

This is how the journey of his recently released music

video

, Thousand Kisses, which has got a warm reception, began. “But shooting the song was quite a challenge,” adds Demel.

For one, he was shooting and doing everything on his own. Two, he was shooting on a mid-range phone, which belonged to his wife. “The thumb rule was that I shouldn’t go out of my house to shoot. I wanted to keep the song visually interesting while staying inside my home,” he says.

Using the rhythm of Shallow from A Star Is Born as a reference, he shot one or two shots every day. “I had to do most of the things myself… right from fixing the frame to the lighting and checking the exposure. Since I was shooting on the phone, for the first few days, I wasn’t sure about the quality of the visuals. It was only later that I realised that I could sync the phone to my TV and check the frame on a larger screen.”

At the end of each day, he’d discuss the day’s shots and the next day’s plans with his creative producer Deepban M, colourist Nanda and editor PK. He then approached Santhosh Dhayanidhi for the music. “The minute Santhosh saw the visuals, he said this looked like a Korean pop song. And within 24 hours, he gave me a tune and a rough track. Within a month, we had the final song,” says Demel.

Through trial and error, he ultimately managed to recreate snow, mist, fire, and rain while shooting indoors, using the dolls in various backdrops, like the study, balcony and even the shower! He even got visuals of the dolls against the backdrop of fireworks, shooting on Deepavali evening.

Post the release, Demel says many from the industry, right from his guru Ravi K Chandran to his peers like Vijay Milton, Dinesh Krishnan and GK Vishnu, called him up asking how he managed to shoot with limited resources. “I actually wanted to release the song during the lockdown, as I felt this attempt might be an inspiration for my fellow filmmakers,” he signs off.



Doll Story

On December 31, 2018, I had taken my son out when I chanced upon these dolls in a shop. I had seen Sillu Karupatti a couple of days earlier, and I wanted to surprise my wife with a gift just like how Samuthirakani’s character did in the film. I bought the doll set as a gift for my wife. I wanted to surprise her on New Year, but unfortunately, we ended up having a big tiff right on that day!