TV actor Rahul Dev Bose talks about issue with improvisation

MUMBAI: TV actor Rahul Dev Bose has opened up about his experimental Bangla web series "It's Complicated", which was shot without a script.

Starring Roosha Chatterjee, Rahul, Aryan D Roy and Titas Bhowmik, "It's Complicated" is about four individuals and how their relationships take a turn when they start revealing the truth about each other. The three-episodic series was shot without any script, but only a beginning and an end.

"The issue with improvisation is that we generally have to feel our way towards the end of the scene. Aryan and I had a scene together and we simply weren't ending it. I think Aryan forgot to utter the line that would end it. He may claim otherwise now. But as the scene progressed, it went on and on with the crew not cutting till they heard the last line. I was too engrossed in my character," Rahul told IANS about working on the series by Debanjan Majhi.

"Aryan, I think remembered the line that ended the scene after 15 minutes of just the two of us talking and talking and talking, Debanjan and the crew seemed like they wanted to kill us because they evidently got bored. Debanjan came up to us and said, 'Maybe this was too long'. Both of us agreed with a sheepish smile," he added.
This was the one occasion where a scene had three takes.

"We tried to keep it at one take for the veracity of our performances. The second take was also a blooper. But this one is funny. While Aryan and I chatted, some of the set art actually fell off its position and I ended up catching it mid scene. I bravely improvised the accident into the scene telling Aryan off for not maintaining his house but by the time Aryan and the rest of the crew had started laughing. And I gave up and joined in too. The third take was perfect though without mishaps and the best part was it was completely different to the last two takes," said Rahul.

The idea of the show came to them during "talk over coffee".

" It was a fine evening when Aryan and I were conversing about absolute honesty in acting performances. The talk over coffee veered into some of our favourite performances on screen before we eventually hit upon the idea of dialogues often becoming key to honesty in performances. Then came the notion of how would it be to do an exercise without a script. The notion developed into a spark and then Debanjan came in on board and the spark became a bit of a flame," said Rahul.

Then they connected with Roosha and Titas.

"We worked on and perfected the idea as the team kept growing. Everyone found a challenge for their respective crafts in an endeavour to shoot something without a script. Be it for the four actors in our quartet, the director in Debanjan, the DoP in Rupanjan and his team, it became a massive thing for us where we decided to accept the challenge of building something from scratch without a script altogether. With every passing day we upped the ante on the project by adding challenges without compromising the key facet of trying to induce a 'purely honest' performance and the rest as they say is 'It's Complicated'," shared Rahul.

"It's Complicated" is slated to premiere on July 7 on CineShorts Premiere, which is an indie short film distribution platform.