I have received four exclusive pictures of the construction of INGILI set in K. GULHI. Sadly, they are in low resolution. However, the chief carpenter overseeing the construction reports that the work is going fine in high resolution quality and they are going to give our production team, especially director RAVI a real surprise.

Today TED, our production consultant gave us the idea of presenting the set to the people of K. GULHI as a token after production ends. We thought it was a splendid idea.

After the production, we are scheduled to revisit the set to shoot the music video of the end credit song.

Producer/ director RAVI and the entire production team were delighted with the progress.

More news, later.

It’s not just any song that the production team has decided to include at the end credits of INGLI. This evening, we had a special meeting after the usual meeting we have with TED, our production consultant. It was yet again over coffee with, no, not with Karan, but with a heavy metal band who’s at times very controversial and has taken the Maldivian youth by storm. At this point, I’m not allowed to reveal the name of the band for several reasons which I cannot write for several other reasons. Oh man, this is so hard not to disclose the band’s name. I wish I’m permitted to give a hint, at least.

The band consisted of their famous leader, their drummer and their guitarist. From the production team’s side, director/ producer RAVI, producer/ actor, the other actor who is overseeing the construction of the set, our DP and then there was me. Guess I too should give myself a  cool slashed designation. I’m producer slash screenwriter then.

The band was delighted with our proposal to include their song for the end credits of INGILI. We gave a brief verbal presentation of INGILI storyline and they felt, it was nothing short of being extra-ordinary. The entire production team of INGILI was flattered. I’m sure our grins would put a Cheshire cat to shame.

Apart from composing a song for INGILI, the band was willing to offer any help they can give to the production of the film. INGILI will make history in Dhivehi film making, if no other Dhivehi film releases before INGILI with an inclusion of an exclusive heavy metal song.

I’m asked to prepare a small summary of INGILI so that the band can start work on the lyrics immediately. However, at the moment they are busy with several shows. After mid-May, they are going to be free and have planned working on the entire music composition of the song to be included in INGILI.

In the meantime, the production team of INGILI and the band will be signing an understanding over the rights of the song. More news on that, as it happens. In short, it was one of the memorable meetings out of memorable meetings the production team of INGILI have almost everyday over coffee with, no, not with Karan, once again…

Today, I had the opportunity to view a rough cut of PINK FAIRY, a children’s movie to be released in June by FATTHAAH. However, it’s directed by his current DP, VISHAAN (aka KANDI).

I wouldn’t want to spoil the storyline, but PINK FAIRY had some good fantasy moments and had a family appeal to it. But I felt that the film could have been much better had FATTHAAH worked on the screenplay at the pre-preproduction stage. After viewing, I gave my feedback and emphasized on areas that could be improved to give PINK FAIRY more strength as a film. Few additional scenes and a reshoot of a very important scene, which now hurts character development of the protagonist, would make PINKY FAIRY a delightful treat for the entire family. FATTHAAH said he would consider my feedbacks.

I am not going to give a review of the film but I am tempted to mention that the performances given by the child actor and her father played by a budding actor look promising. I don’t remember seeing such good chemistry between a child and a father in a Dhivehi movie before. Both of them are two diamonds in the rough, so I thought.

Since I watched a rough cut, all the visual effect shots, music and natural sound were not included. Even then, the film had a charm. I am not sure if I am supposed to write this post on PINK FAIRY, but I hope to God, FATTHAAH wouldn’t mind.

Late this evening, production team of INGILI has green lit the construction of INGILI set to the quotation given by the crew at K. GULHI. They have been waiting for our confirmation. We have scheduled three days for the set construction. As planned, once the set is constructed our team will travel to K. GULHI for an inspection. Shooting begins after that. We are pushing principal photography for an April 30^th start.

Budgeting of INGILI is ongoing fast. We have divided the budgeting in to three parts. Our actor, who had connection with K. GULHI  is liaising with the crew there working out the budgeting of the construction of INGILI set which has been marked completed. He will also work on the rates for accommodation, food and other important tasks that will be carried out in K. GULHI.

Our production manager is on props and every other task required for the whole production.

Meanwhile, our DP is budgeting and at the same time scheduling the 5 nights shooting in K. GULHI.

Hopefully, with in a day or two, budget for all three parts will be completed. Then the production team will sit down to finalize the budget. After that, the three producers will hook up to obtain finance for the finalized budget.

The team is very excited that we are getting closer and closer to the production. Just can’t wait for  principal photography to be started.

She came to me dejected. She was jilted. A stranger at first. She had nowhere to go. She was crying. I couldn’t deny her. I gave her a place to stay, gave her food. I even gave her new clothes. She was dazed, and she was confused. A useless life she was living, she thought. She also tried suicide. I tried my best to comfort her, yet I had reservations. I was married.

She started coming out of her shell gradually and each day, revealing a new layer of her complex character. I was fascinated. I was hypnotised. She moved me. She made me cry. She made me laugh.

Finally, I managed to make her smile. After that, she started laughing. Then we laughed together. She started talking, at first, a few words, then in full sentences. We became friends. Her metamorphosis was beautiful. As she was about to come out of her cocoon, something happened.

One cold October night, her boyfriend appeared before her. They fought. She cried. I stood motionless. All I could do was watch. He apologized to her. She forgave him. I was happy for her, yet I couldn’t bear the thought she was going to disappear from my life, forever. Never understood why I had a sinking feeling until she was gone.

Something shattered inside me. It was my heart. Only then I realised I was in love with her… still.

It’s been five months since RAANIYAA left. She was the title of the screenplay which I wrote for DASH STUDIO last year. It was a project DASH STUDIO started under the direction of SEMI MUSTAPHA many years ago. With more than 90% of the principal photography completed, it was shelved abruptly.

At the start of the final quarter of last year, DASH STUDIO decided to complete RAANIYAA and appointed director FATTHAAH to helm the project. Since RAANIYAA was written by AISHATH NEENA several years ago, long before cell phones were introduced to the Maldives, completing the production to her screenplay now, FATTHAAH thought it would be unwise both commercially and critically. That’s when I came into the equation.

FATTHAAH commissioned me to reboot the screenplay of AISHATH NEENA as a fast-tracked project of DASH STUDIO. It took me a month to write a complete re-imagining of RAANIYA. I submitted the draft on October last year. Since then, the hype of RAANIYAA slowly subsided. I am yet to receive feedback of RAANIYAA from director FATTHAAH even though I have already rewritten RAANIYAA once.

The main reason for the hold up this time, according to FATTHAAH was the delay in composing the much-needed songs for RAANIYAA. Five months later, he has resumed work on RAANIYAA. He has met with music composer THITTHI on speeding up the song compositions. In the meantime, location scouting for the Male’ part started last week. FATTHAAH has already chosen HA. KELAI for the island part and then there’s a part in a resort too. He hasn’t decided on that yet.

More updates later…

The production team of INGILI has received the long-awaited quotation for building the set in K. GULHI, even though it has been only five days since we requested for one. We are excited and so is the crew at K. GULHI.

We have started budgeting INGILI. Even as we speak, our production manager is going through a thorough read of the screenplay and will note down everything necessary to acquire for the production. He will work closely with director RAVI, DP and I. Our production consultant, TED will be overseeing the whole process.

The production dynamics were worked out during our trip to K. GULHI last Friday. Once the set is built, we have scheduled to visit K. GULHI again to do an inspection of the set, where we will make final adjustments. Once that is done, principal photography begins.

As for the storyboarding, RAVI is nonstop working on it. He has completed 75% of the storyboard. On a daily basis, every evening he reports his status to us over coffee. Most days he presents his visualization of certain key shots. And we all give him feedbacks. This evening, our DP gave the idea of making a soil POV shot where the protagonist puts out his cigarette on top of the camera. Sadly, it was thrown to the cutting floor. So early? It’s not even post-production yet!

It’s always hard to be waiting for something. The hardest is if the waiting goes on for days and days. I am finding myself in such a waiting game.

It’s been three days since I have given SEEZAN the rewritten screenplay of VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA and I am yet to receive his feedback. He did call me last night to inform that the production was back on track after he delayed production indefinitely. That was great news. But when asked about the feedback, he said he was busy last few days and will make an effort to read it with in two days. So, I await for another two days. Make it three, in case he gets busy either today or tomorrow.

I really want to wrap up VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA for good so that I can move on to writing my next screenplay. I have two concepts in mind. First is based on newspaper articles of a slaying of a youth a month ago. And it already has a producer attached. Then there’s this loose adaptation of one of my favorite English movies. The latter has no one attached to produce but my heart is more attached in writing this one since I have loved this movie so much so that I have viewed it close to eight times.

I don’t know when the urge to write this adaptation hit me first, but lately I have been thinking about it constantly. I have even retrieved the movie out of my movie collection to view it again and see if it’s really adaptable to today’s Maldivian society. I have very current and relevant themes to add to it but will know how much these themes would fit once I have a viewing. So I guess, I needn’t to sway my mind on what to write next. It’s been decided…

It’s a rare occurrence for a failed plan to get resurrected and become a successful one. At least for me it was. Moments after the production team of INGILI deemed Plan C a bomb, we somehow felt that we should check out K. GULHI ourselves before deciding that place inappropriate. So we went back to Plan C as scheduled and eventually, trusting our instincts has really paid off.

Yesterday at 1410, we sailed off to K. GULHI despite the shaky start to the proceedings. The sea was a tad rough since the climate looked confused whether to rain or shine. Nevertheless, our production team was having a blast. The team included producer/ director RAVI, his DP, our production manager, one of the actors who actually had the connection with the island, TED who’s helping as our production consultant who keep reminding us that his consultancy meter was running from day one and then there was me, the screenwriter who’s also one of the producers, my very first producing gig.

It took us around 30 minutes to reach K. GULHI where we were welcomed by 4 friends of the actor. One of them, a good carpenter, also happened to be a friend of our production manager. This carpenter friend will be overseeing the building of the set.

We started scouting around the island almost immediately, checking the outskirts first. But we were feeling very discouraged as we declined location after location. None was living up to director RAVI’s visuals. We were almost giving up when they took us to the last spot of the island, which turned out to be THE SPOT we were looking for. This location had thick foliage all around with a space in the middle enough to build our set, as if this spot was waiting to be found.

We immediately started measuring the space to the measurement given in the design. And bingo, it fitted like a glove! We have asked for a quotation to make the set and hopefully either today or tomorrow, we will get it. If their quotation fits our budget, the set will be made. We have also worked on other important dynamics of the production.

After spending 2 hours, we sailed off from GULHI on scheduled time. We couldn’t careless of the rougher sea as we were joyful to have the production of INGILI back on track.

The night ended on a happier note for me. At around 11 something, SEEZAN called to inform that VAFAATHERI KEHIVERIYAA was also back on track.