Ok… How am I going to skip writing something about the E-nite despite the fact that it was held months ago. During the last three and a half years spent here as an undergraduate I can’t recall a moment where I was as happier as that awesome night. And why is that?... the answer is obvious right… :P…
That’s mainly due to the admiring responses my role in the visual for the E-nite theme song (Adareyi Obata maa) had earned me. But it was not my only contribution to the E-nite 2011… My stage performances as a Dancer and a vocalist gave me an ample chance to experiment my hidden talents. Even my parents were so happy to see me doing something positive after a long time.
After our six months training period I had enough time recover myself and make up a better mood to look at the uni life in a positive way.. Most of my friends too consider uni life as hectic due to the excessive load of pressure it has exerted over us. But I’ve understood that it’s always up to us to make life better with optimistic approaches in whatever things we do.. So my intention was to make myself busy with all the non-academic stuff in my last year @ university. And the annual E-nite was the perfect event for that.
Things started when I got this call from a friend asking whether I could take part in a dancing item for the E-night. If he had asked me the same question six months earlier I would have surely answered.. NO men are you crazy I’m the worst dancer on earth (which I’m sure is not: P). I could move my body to a beat in some sort of rhythmic manner: P... But after my Internship period @ SriLankan Airlines I had gained some weight and had to practice really hard to synchronize myself with fellow dancers. I’m quite a bit of shy guy. And fortunately I got the perfect dancing partner for me.. Sunari was cleverly making me dance and the final output turned out to be a great one. Our dancing crew consisted of three couples (Me,Sunari /Chandima,Hasini/ Damith,Kumuduni) three trees(Sahan,Arosh,Pramod) and a watchman(Ganushka) . The friendship we built up in that short period of time was so dear to our hearts. I wish we could have an E-nite each month.
I knew I could sing and I wanted to perform a song for E-nite. Too bad there were plenty of super vocalists and we had a very short period of time allocated for the event so only the group song was available for me. And I accepted that gladly because I was practicing for the Dance so hard that I barely had time to involve in singing practices.
Getting to the song visual ,many might come up with the basic questions …How did I happened to get this role? Was it volunteered? Hmmm… the answer is no.. The song was already chosen by Dinuth and he had some shadowy story of a lecturer and two friends falling in love with the same girl kind of thing… And I was informed to be chosen for a friend’s role. Then (The new me) said Ok… Let’s do it.. Um ready to take it. Inside I was happier because I knew I’m somehow going to appear in that big screen where all my juniors would be staring at.
Not many days were left for the event when we started discussing about the script. It had to be altered several times after many interruptions from individual ideas. But everyone wanted the end to be happier for the boys and terrible for the girl which is the typical expectation in a university where 80% of the students are us the Male worriors :P.
When we couldn’t come to a conclusion Dinuth and Lakshitha opted to write it themselves with their own ideas. The initial script was changed reducing major roles to one lover, Lecturer and a girl and with a story ending fair to everyone.
The role selection was not that hard. Out of the two celebrities for the male role (Ryan and me :P ) the chance was given to me as Ryan was busy with his music practices. Shanika had already done a role in a short film directed by Dinuth so she was preferred for the girl’s role. Ganushka was chosen as the lecturer considering his outstanding acting skills (I’m pretty much sure he wants me to state it like this ). I opted Lakmal for my friend’s role because he and I had the same styles .
So with the crew and the script ready we started shooting with the scenes where I entered the lecturer’s room while shanika was flirting with the lecturer and then me moving out of the lab in a disappointed mood. The Analogue lab was the chosen location and the non-academic staff waz willing to help after they saw Ganushka was going to imitate Dr.Chulatntha . Within few shots it was all over. Casting crew was way quicker and learning faster than expected.
Next scene was me pacifying Shanika after her unexpected exam results .Actually that was the last scene in the visual and the scene of checking results was postponed as we couldn’t find a result sheet for a closer look up. (But the closer lookup of the result sheet was removed from the scene after the final edition). If anyone was careful enough he could have noticed me wearing two different jeans in the same location J.Later that Ganushka’s lecture and the whole opening part at ENTC Hall 1 were shot very quickly. And that was it for the day. Meanwhile Hasini’s grandmother passed away and we all took train to visit her place. Few shots were taken inside the train for both the visuals. The scene where I was sharing some tutorials with Shanika was shot the next day.
Everyone was busy with their assigned tasks for this interesting event so it was never easy getting the cast together.Specially shooting Lakmal's part was difficult as he was nowhere when we wanted him and we initially didn't have a suitable location for the scene. However we managed to shoot it @ Matara boarding with the help of some junior batch mates.
The scene at the beach was very much fun as several friends including our dancing crew accompanied us there. And this ridiculous question as why I was walking in the beach in a formal dress???? … Oh come on… no one told me I’m going to need this much of cloths for this visual. That was the only bloody dress I had with me suited for a dream… In many of the scenes I had to swap my clothes with friends and special thank goes to Hasith, Akalanka and Chinthaka for letting me have theirs.
Holding hands with a girl in Mount Lavinia beach…. Something I’ve never done before.. :P But It was Shanika who was totally responsible for the failures in the shots.Instead of acting as a romantic couple we appeared complete strangers in the shot. To tell the truth she was NOT HELPING ME AT ALL … Errrr… this shy girl ruined my mood several times. I could have excused her if she wz in a relznship… But to my knowledge shewasn't and was laughing all the time when I tried to get into any serious action. (You know what… I’m blogging with the brave assumption that she doesn't read my blog)..
For the exam shot I had early copied down some calculations from communication examples which I had already forgotten how to solve by the time it was shot J Thanks to the great support from ENTC friends we had a nice shot there and after that we took the last shot of me sleeping and shanika wakening me up.
That’s the end of the story. It seemed Dinuth had done a miracle when he came up with his final output. He as usual was outstanding in his editing and directing. It’s obvious that 90% of the credit should go to him and I’m so grateful to him for using his skills to make me a single night star. I was bit shocked while it was screening as all my friends who were not there at shootings were amused to see me in the visual which was visible from the sudden noise they made.But at the end the response was so encouraging.
Hmmm… I breathed a sigh of relief after everything went well on that awesome night. For me that was a night to be remembered for the unforgettable glory though instantaneous, it had brought upon me.
