If someone were to be blindfolded and made to sit in the auditorium, he/she would say, in the first few minutes of the function, that it was a typical college cultural festival - the catcalls, whistles, applauds et al.
That was the scene at the preview theatre in the sprawling Annapurna Studios on Saturday evening, where a bunch of friends, most of them engineering students unveiled ‘Pelli Pustakam’ at a screening, where actress Madhavi Latha, of ‘Nachavule’-fame, was present.
A product of MR Productions, the 20.33 minute short film is the 97 in the series of the short films that Dheeraj Raju and Raja Subhashchandra, two young engineering grads have made in the past few years.
The entire production company - cast and crew, are all friends. A majority of the scenes were shot at an apartment in a gated community, owned by a friend Naveen Chowdhary, and his family members were coaxed to essay some of the roles.
It has Naresh Varma and Prerana Reddy in the lead with Rakesh and Rathna Chowdary in the second lead. Naveen Padamatalanka, as the hero’s cousin showcased his acting skills pretty well.
While Dheeraj wielded the megaphone, Subhash was the Director of Photography putting his Canon D-550 digital single lens reflex camera to ‘innovative’ use, together with a simple tripod and no flash.
“We used natural lighting and Sony Vegas software in the post-production,” says Subhash, who also handled the editing part of it. Music was put together by Vamshikrishna, while Lakshminarayana was the title designer.
Lyrics of the title song Pelli Pustakam… penned by Dinesh, had over 95,000 views on Facebook.
“There was an instance of a girl in the USA who was frustrated enough with her life that she contemplated taking the extreme step, before she heard the song and changed her mind,” recalled Dheeraj.
“Our 98 and 99 productions are under way and we are preparing ourselves to hit a century, with a difference, of course,” chorus Dheeraj and Subhash, the duo, who have covered most genres including action, comedy, message-oriented stuff and thrillers too, since 2008 when they formed MR Productions.
