Apparently Preeti did a lot of theatre in college so she’s going to write a few scenes and bring it in tomorrow. And she has asked me, Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese, to act out some of the scenes for the in-house test recording session.

We are going to do it very quietly in the conference room. But still I think it is quite a sizeable responsibility on my shoulders. If I screw this up then the entire film project might get shelved.

I better practise my gestures and dialogue delivery in front of the mirror for a while. It’s been a while since I took the stage but once you’ve played a shepherd for the Christmas play in school you never really forget acting. It gets into the blood.

10.20 p.m.

Two hours of rigorous practise later I feel very confident.

I even have this little speck of an idea for a very cool film script in my head. Preeti is going to love this one!

More tomorrow.

Cut! And scene!

5 September 2006

11.09 p.m.

A disaster averted today thanks to some quick on-the-feet thinking on my part.

After quickly wrapping up some Panchatantra work by lunch I sat for a few hours typing out my film script idea. And then around 4.30 Preeti asked me to join her in the conference room for the script description and the sample filming.

I gave her my script treatment and told her to read it quickly before we began. She read through it in rapt attention and when she was done I could see the respect in her eyes.

The idea was quite simple really. Our film would be loosely based on The Usual Suspects. It would open with a bunch of guys in suits sitting in a room, each one representing a different consulting firm. Like in the movie, the story would progress but instead of a policeman we have a client looking for advice and instead of crime there is a serious business problem that the client is facing. No one knows exactly which of the five or six consulting firms wins the project till the very final scene in which the last remaining suit walks out of the client’s office and walks down the road till suddenly, like Kevin Spacey, he pulls out a visiting card and you can see the words Dufresne Partners printed on it. I strongly suggested that Jerry should play the role of Kaiser Soze, the mass murderer in the original movie, but in my treatment a highly qualified veteran management consultant.

Preeti thought the idea was exciting but too experimental for a company like Dufresne. But I insisted that she keep the script with her and think over it when she had time. Her script, meanwhile, was nothing special. It had a few good touches here and there but by and large it was just a lot of people in Dufresne talking about what makes them feel special there. In Preeti’s story, the office boy goes around the whole office talking to various people. She thinks that this will tell people that Dufresne cares for even the small people.