The minute-long trailer of Operation LSD has garnered enough interest on the YouTube. The film releases on May 25 on YouTube.
In that one-minute, you get to know that the film is intense and as the title suggests deals with drugs. Interestingly, the film is written and directed by debut director Sudeep Shetty. Sudeep is a chartered accountant by profession bitten by the film bug. The best way, he says, was to give short films a shot as everything is “downsized in this medium”.
So he teamed up with a set of actors and roped in film cinematographer Uday Leela as the director of photography (DOP). Uday is known for playing with lights in his work and one can see that in this short film.
“When I first heard the script, I wanted to shoot it with a lot of grey shades. But as we wanted to try something different, all of us have attempted to capture every emotion with an out-of-the-box approach and thinking,” says Uday, who adds that no technological tools were used in this film, but simple live shots. “Normally, the rain effect is avoided in short films. The team did create the rain effect,” adds the cameraman who also started off his career with short films and later forayed into Kannada films as the DOP.
Having working in short films and cinema, Uday adds he is “well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of both mediums and also is comfortable working with small and big budgeted projects”. He has worked for a Tulu film and right now is set for his next Kannada release Sankashta Ganapati , which will release in July. Besides this he is working on Magalvara Raja Dina featuring Chandan Acharya ( Kirik Party fame) in the lead and another film titled Joru .
Sudeep, who has directed the film is thrilled that the film will be released today and says that making this film was a challenge because, “You need the finance and when you are new and want to make films, no one comes with a silver platter to support you. You are all on your own and have to work out the logistics – creative and financial – all by yourself. I am thrilled that Uday came on board.”
Why not choose a happy story instead of such serious material for a debut? “Love stories are so common and TV is loaded with family dramas. So we zeroed in on drugs as it will also raise awareness about the effects of drug abuse. The film shows the multiple personalities of a person and his reaction towards relationships and people once he is on drugs,” explains the self-taught director, who also wrote the script for the film “after a lot of reaserch and trial and error”.
About YouTube as a platform for their release, Sudeep says, “It will not be feasible to show this film in a theatre. It does not make sense to have the audience brave the traffic to watch an 18-minute film.”
Uday adds, “The only disadvantage is that they will not get the large screen effect, nor can they see the minute play of light and colours when they watch the film on their laptops or mobiles.”
You can watch the film on https://youtu.be/xer-j1hnhd0
