5 things you didn’t know about the Pre-production of ‘500 & 5’

Well, it all has to be in 5's right? So...here they are...

1. The thematic core of ‘500 & 5’ was conceived one frustrated evening, in December 2010. Obviously, this frustration was a result of long, tiring periods of our ideological/philosophical ramblings about all things under the sun, especially creating a film independently and that too about money.
2. Initially, since we planned on this being a low-budget, independent film/s(it still is), we figured we’d hardly cast 5 to 10 people to illustrate the story. But eventually, it turned out to be a 90-member casting coup.
3. The entire script(actually 5 scripts with a total of about 90 pages) from ‘FADE IN’ to ‘FADE TO BLACK’ was completed in 15 days (my personal best in terms of speed, coz usually I take months of research, writing and rewriting). The script was finalized and greenlit on 11^th February, 2011. Of course, the incubation process took a little longer and constant tweaking was done to the finished script till the shooting stage.

4. By early February 2011, we had started fabricating/designing and mechanically creating various equipments ourselves because we couldn’t afford to rent out from high-end production houses. With help from Youtube tutorials, local blacksmiths, carpenters and mechanical workshop technicians, Dass, Ramesh and Toot-machi over-saw and managed this entire mechanical process. We literally created Steadicams, Wheel-cam rigs, Track dolly and table-top dolly from scratch for real cheap but of awesome quality. For example, we made our Steadicam for a mere 5000 Rupees when the ‘Rental cost’ of a professional Steadicam is 10,000 Rupees per day in Chennai.

5. 500 & 5 is actually a crowd-funded film thereby reaffirming that this is a truly democratically-made film. The funding for this film was put together in exactly 9 phone calls. Though right now we can’t discuss in detail about it, we’ll share more later.

Pictures: 1. Dass testing the Camera-rig we made. 2. Our first shooting schedule in Bangalore for Adi(Me, Dass, Ramesh & Shankar). 3. Dopehouse scene with Dass holding the wheelcam rig that we created. (In it, me, Pradeep and King Sek.)