House of Nanking

I missed blogging. I really wanted to, but I was in a state of suspended reality. I had done enough work of going through a divergent thought process for the current script. The time to shape the net that would slowly distill the divergent thoughts to a screenplay. The shape of the net you throw is of absolute importance since the wrong net will bring the wrong elements together. During the journey, net will be re-arranged, re-shaped and made smaller until you have the right kind and number of elements to embark on a screenplay.

Lets compare this process to setting up a restaurant. So, now you have decided to setup a restaurant. The divergent process is where you go through a journey of trying to figure out the elements that will make your restaurant. So, you will visit restaurants. You will recollect your eating experiences. You will look into what the market will support? what can you do? What is your specialty? Hmmm that tablecloth in restaurant A was great. I loved the ambience from restaurant B. The sesame chicken with yams and turnip was great at The House of Nanking… I would like my restaurant to be distinct to have a personality etc… Every random thought is priceless in this phase.

This process has no logic. Its sole purpose is to stimulate. To stimulate your heart, your mind, your spine and your gut. You might read a book on restaurants. You will go back to your experiences of working in one. So, the idea here is to open up a sea, an ocean, an universe of elements that have to do with setting up a restaurant. I have a lot of fun in this part. I write things down, why I want to do this film. I will pitch it to someone and see what they think. I will think of a scene. A particular shot. A song. A background score. The actor I want. I might look at some films in a completely opposite genre. I might listen to music a whole day. I will argue about a point with a friend only to strengthen my thought process (apologies to those people in my life). I usually tend to put up a tough fight just to see if I can defend my point of view. I might collect some photographs. A color tone might come to life. You get the idea. This part of process is where you have to just let go. You truly need to get yourself out of the way!

Then comes the convergent process. In the restaurant example it will start from some top level questions? Q: what kind of restaurant do you want? The cuisine. Chinese, Sri Lankan, Indian, Italian etc. Lets say you decide Chinese. Well is it Cantonese, Szechwan, Mandarin? Will it be fusion or authentic? The questioning process here is to help you make the decisions. Say you want to do a fusion, but you don’t want mix cuisines but might just want to mix the various cuisines of China. i.e. for a sesame chicken dish (mandarin), you might decide that you will serve it with yam and turnip (which is a Cantonese touch). Slowly this questioning process helps you make choices in terms of the space, the menu, the budget of dishes, etc. This process intimidates me. You have to ask the right questions and as you work yourself down, you need to make sure that the steps you take are moving you, not necessarily to any destination but to a destination that you intended.

In writing , it will be asking questions like what is it that I want to tell? Should I make my characters contrasty? What about the plot points? What kind of dramatization should I do? What is the tone of the film? This part needs a lot of concentration. How do you make sure the various elements (logical, emotional, plot, orchestration ) come together to tell a story you want. If you make a wrong decision on plotting, the story could be the same and the impact changes. If you write it with too much action you might miss out on the emotions. What kind of scene will help you balance it?

The process of answering is nothing but writing, re-writing, and re-writing and re-writing. So, the process of divergence and convergence is nothing but writing, re-writing & re-writing and… The first set of writing helps you understand what you want to do with the story? You then to make sure you are strong enough to ask the questions again and make sure that you know your destination. Sometimes the first draft is nothing but a journey to clarify your destination. Your second versions might be a total rewrite. You need to have the courage at this point to do that. To not cling onto what you have written. You need to love the process. If the destination seems right, then look to see if the various elements are falling in place. So, the process of answering questions is just writing.

When the intended destination and the journeyed destination match, it is magic. A million pieces fall into place gracefully complementing each other and working cohesively to generate an emotional experience! (a screenplay)

Finally back to food : ) “The house of Nanking” (San Francisco) is a great example of such a journey. The dishes are experimental yet decisive. They have even made sure that the fried rice has less salt so that it does not conflict with the salt levels of the main dishes. The journey the chef/owner has made allows millions of decisions to gracefully complement each other, to give us that fantastic food experience!
Raj