Tollu Padagallu

“Tollu Padagallu” by Archita Wadhwani.

Project Type: Director of Photography – Short Film
Location: Bangalore
Year: 2023
Tools Used: Sony A7iii (s-Log), DJI Ronin

“Tollu Padagallu” meaning ‘Empty Words’ is a short film by Archita Wadhwani (her directorial debut) made for her pre-graduation project (7th semester project) at Srishti Manipal Institute in October 2023. I worked on Archita’s crew as the 2nd Director of Photography, alongside Suryadevsinh Parmar.

As the DP, I worked closely with the director for the shot breakdown, visualizing them, going on several location recces to find places that best matched her vision and taking test shots to finally executing them on the shoot days. With Surya, I carefully blocked each shot and setup dual-camera setups to most efficiently shoot the film in the small shop which was the primary location.

FILM SYNOPSIS:

A young man in trouble in an alien city is brought together with a regular patron at a small shop late at night. The patron sympathizes with the young man and forms a bond with him despite the language barriers.

CAST:

Krishnan S as Man at Shop
Ishaan Kulkarni as Young Man
Prateek Sultania as Shopkeeper
Lakshman Srinath as Auto Driver

CREW:

Writer, Director, Editor – Archita Wadhwani
Directors of Photography – Suryadevsinh Parmar, Ved Murarka
Sound Recordist – Tanmayi Jarubula
Production Manager – Aryan Desai
Executive Producers – Rajesh Wadhwani, Sarita Wadhwani
Assistant Director – Shashank C
Camera Assistant – Mathew George
Sound Assistant – Sahil Sheikh
Production Assistants – Tanvi Bhalerao, Vani Gugnani
Casting – Amit Aggarwal (Webshorts Casting)
Project Mentor – Unni Vijayan

OTHER DETAILS:

Duration – 14 minutes and 43 seconds
Genre – Drama
Format – Digital (HD)
Language – Kannada, Marathi