Title | MASTER JI |
Brand | BYJU'S |
Product / Service | BYJU'S BRAND FILM |
Category | A01. Direction |
Entrant | BYJU'S Bengaluru, INDIA |
Idea Creation | BYJU'S Bengaluru, INDIA |
Production | DORA DIGS Mumbai, INDIA |
Post Production | DORA DIGS Mumbai, INDIA |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Divya Gokulnath | BYJU'S | Strategy |
Vineet Singh | BYJU'S | Strategy |
Vishal Sagar | BYJU'S | Writer & Co-director |
Akshay Shah | Dora Digs | Producer |
Sameer Sharma | Dora Digs | Director |
Sneha Khanwalkar | Dora Digs | Music Director |
This is a story of Tyagi Sir - a biology teacher just 2 years away from retirement. The film starts on 21st Mar 2020 - the day India announced 1 day of lockdown and then extended it for 5 months. In the film, Tyagi sir's world changes overnight, as schools go online. We see him struggling. His family tries to help and keep him happy. He is hoping for lockdown to end so that he can go back to school. The day lockdown is removed, he gets to know that online school will continue for 6 more months. This is the day when all his hopes are shattered and he types his resignation letter. He receives a call from one of his ex-students, who is now a doctor thanking him for his contribution in his life. Shaken, Tyagi sir, decides to master technology and new ways of teaching.
The biggest directorial challenge was to keep the film simple to showcase the raw emotions of the protagonist. Master Ji is a simple story of a teacher, our times, clashes of tradition and technology. And, since the script had so much to show, the directorial choices were made accordingly. One of the key emotion is of being stuck in time. Stillness. So we picked a house next to river so that we could juxtapose the stillness and rigidity to move showed by our lead with the always moving nature of river. The framing of the lead in the second half of the film is done through windows, curtains and more to show his feeling of being trapped. The music in the film is absent in first half to make it realistic. To bring it closer to real life. Many more such choices were made to show struggle, pain & rebirth.