A rain-soaked uneven, playground with three-pole goal posts and a group of barefoot boys playing football to Shakira’s World Cup song. Jayan Mohan’s video, ‘La La Made in Kerala Ready’, is dedicated to joga bonito , the beautiful game.
The four-minute video was a snap decision for this automobile diploma holder. Directing the video is an extension of his passion for cinema, he says. Jayan shot the video at his native place Kalamboor near Piravom. “Its football everywhere, I was chatting with a friend when we hit upon with the idea of giving a Malayali spin to Shakira’s song,” says Jayan.
Armed with a skeletal script, financial support from family and friends and he was ready to shoot. The ‘actors’ are budding footballers from Kalamboor and belong to his neighbourhood.
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“I see these children play in the ground, which used to be a paddy field. They don’t play barefoot of course, that was for the nostalgic effect.” The rain and the shorts were to build the effect, as youngsters he and his friends used to play the ‘game of the season’ (cricket or football depending on which sporting event was happening).
A day was spent shooting the video, “we had only one day, June 8, to finish work. The next day was a Monday and the children had school. It was shot in around seven hours.”
He wanted rain ‘for effect’ but it hardly rained that morning and without rain “the slow motion shots would lack the desired effect.”
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However by afternoon the clouds brought rain and by evening the shoot was complete and it was a wrap. “It was like the forces of nature were on our side. There was enough light to shoot and there was rain when we needed it.”
The video looks like it would have cost him a packet, but he laughs. “Someone from the film industry told me shooting the video would have cost me more than a lakh. No, I spent around Rs. 20,000 which my brother and friends invested.”
The video was shot on a Canon Mark III D camera by Dijo Devassy. It was uploaded on Youtube on June 13, the day the World Cup started.
Jayan has worked in various departments of filmmaking; he has some experience of editing, marketing and assisting.
He lives in Kalamboor with his family. He has a script for a film, and hopes to begin work on it in August.