Minutes of the (First) meeting

Date: July 02, 2009

Time: 11:10 am to 11:55 am

Faculty Members present: Kripa, Raghu

Discussing the project idea, content and form:

• How does the Indian society look at obsession? Do they consider it as a disorder?
• Is obsession actually that bad? Presently, there are a lot of assumptions in the idea.
• Being judgemental at this stage is not good. Also, try not to be preachy about anything. Just propose the idea of obsession to the audience.
• Think about the kinds of characters you want to study.
• Look into the lives of people from the army and how their training cultivates an obsession.
• What are the pros and cons of being obsessed/having an obsession?
• What is the logic behind the right and left brain and how is it related to obsession?
• What is obsession in medical terms?
• Study Agatha Christie’s characters.
• Keep thinking about the final outcome along with the research, look for forms within the research, and draw from there.
• Will the final product be interactive/ digital/ print based? What are the possibilities in each of these? Can it be a game? I want to make it more experiential, something that everyone can relate to and identify themselves with.
• It could just be a set of wacky and provoking questions, something that stumps the viewer (you expect to win but you end up with another beginning, almost like Kabir’s ideologies).
• Make an observation bank, meet people.
• Once the main plot has been finalised, look for the sub plots.
• Look at how testimonials work as a product (it gives a satisfactory feeling to the viewer that someone else also agrees to what he or she believes in/ says).
• Concentrate on the positive points of the disability.
• Think about how you could change someone’s obsession.
• Study different celebrities as examples (the way it has been done in Taare Zameen Par).
• Identify groups of people you want to study, also the spaces you would find obsessed people.
• Book: Why men try and why women cry (study the tone of narration)

What needs to be done before the next meeting?

• Contact Dr. Murty, Psychiatrist at Manipal Hospital
• Collect other resources, talk to people who have studied Psychology, talk to people who are obsessed
• A detailed timeline of how the project will move forward