UCSD alums 'Trade Off' academia for film

By Anne Cong-Huyen
Hiatus Editor
UCSD Guardian

November 13, 2003

When movies by Indian filmmakers are mentioned, images of Bollywood, people flirting in song behind trees and romances like "Monsoon Wedding" come to mind. But first-time director Vikram Yashpal's new film "Trade Offs" delivers suspense, drama, romance and everything necessary in a good film. Yashpal's critically-acclaimed film was shown at the San Diego Asian Film Festival to sold-out audiences and still continues to win accolades at film festivals across the country. Shot entirely in San Diego with UCSD alumni, "Trade Offs" isn't merely an Asian-American film, but one that appeals to all audiences. Two of the film's principal cast members, UCSD alumni Deypika Singh and Anup Sugunan, recall their experiences working on their first feature film and offer their advice.

Guardian: How does "Trade Offs" compare to other Indian-American films like "Monsoon Wedding" or "Bend it Like Beckham"?

Anup Sugunan: Well, just budget-wise, they had a lot more money than we had. Their movies were made with millions of dollars and ours is very low budget. It's all made with first-time actors and crew. Even the director had never set foot on a movie set before. It was his first time. But in terms of passion that comes from that first time you do something, you give it all you've got without money or returns. That's what allowed us to come this far.

Deypika Singh: I would agree with Anup in terms of how it's not entirely made by professionals in the field who specialize in acting or directing or anything like that. It's just like a couple of friends deciding to make a movie. I know the director really well and I've worked with him onstage as an actor. Basically, one day he said to us, "Hey you guys, I want to make a movie," and we just laughed at him. We realized he was serious and started writing the script and it came so far.

A.S.: But the end result is we hired a few key personnel who were experienced and that got us the look of a polished film.

G: It must be amazing to see your movie take off like this.

D.S.: Unexpected. We never expected it to reach this far.

A.S.: Yeah we saw the trailer first and she calls me up [and says], "Did you see the trailer!?" [laughs]

D.S.: It's amazing! One of the things that the director did was that he didn't show the actors what he shot. So when we were shooting, we didn't see anything. We didn't see a single shot until it was all done.

A.S.: Yeah, he kicked me out of the editing room.

D.S.: The trailer was the first time we saw ourselves on the screen and we were like, "Oh my god, how did you make us look like that?" [laughs] It was really amazing.

G: How did you get involved in this project?

A.S.: I was a programmer at the SDAFF in 2001 and they had a radio show - the director and one of the other producers. I was on the radio show with a couple of other filmmakers and they knew I was interested in film, but I had never made a film. They knew I was into music so they asked me to compose for them, but I said, "I want to act! Let me audition and if I get it, I get it."

G: It seems, from the trailer, that culture is a really important part of the film, as with other Indian-American films.

D.S.: The culture is not a big part of the movie. They're just Indians, but honestly they could be anyone else. If you replaced the characters with people from Tennessee, the story would still make sense. The sari that you see is in a dream sequence and it's the only time that you see her [character Sapna] in a sari. See, the story is about the transition of getting married and getting to know each other's personalities.

G: Was it a great experience to be involved in something like this?

A.S.: Totally!

D.S.: Incredible [laughs]. It was so awesome. Probably one of the coolest of my life so far, and I'm not exaggerating. What made it so cool was that it was this unbelievable, extraordinary situation that was created and how much fun it was. Imagine most of the cast, 50-plus people and most of them are not getting paid ‹ OK, 97 percent ‹ and we shot for two months, every weekend. Saturday morning we would meet at 5 a.m. to get our make-up done. We'd be in the director's garage getting our make-up done, our hair done, preparing. Fifty people show up at this place, everybody on time, and we shoot until 10 p.m. at night. And then Sunday morning, we're up there again. And it was so unbelievably fun. It wasn't like we were being forced to go to a job. Everybody wanted to be there.

A.S.: We couldn't wait for the weekend! It took us 20 days to shoot it and the whole thing was shot in San Diego. We shot at the airport, at the Solana Beach train station, at the beaches, the Torrey Pines cliffs.

D.S.: Everyone that was involved in the project was so helpful, even the film commission. They didn't just help but they were passionately involved. It was all Vikram. He was so enthusiastic with everyone he talked to, he just enrolled them in the project. He was so unrealistically optimistic that it rubbed off on the entire cast.

Deypika Singh graduated with a degree in cognitive science from UCSD in 2001 and is currently working as a usability specialist for Macromedia, but said, "I would leave my job for an awesome role. I'm looking for exceptional."

Anup Sugunan graduated from UCSD in 1997 with a degree in physiology and neuroscience and is obviously not working in his field of study. His last project was "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" with Russel Crowe, where he plays a mercenary.

For more information on the film "Trade Offs," visit http://www.tradeoff-themovie.com.