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Thinking Men

By Rehmat Merchant

They always had this in mind. When they made the music video for New Age music group Deep Forest's Bohemian ballet -- now on air in India and to be shown from end-September in Europe -- Sunil Raina and Pankaj Sethi were merely translating a dream into reality. Directors of the Bangalore film production house Thinking Pictures and admirers of the music of this group from France, Raina and Sethi had decided "if we were going to make a music video, it had to be about music we cared for". Adds 42-year-old Sethi: "We wanted to make a video for music that was truly special and which we could interpret innovatively." Having earlier worked only on ad campaigns for clients like IFB, BPL and Procter & Gamble, they decided to get more ambitious and enter the world of show business. In September 1998, just about a year after they set up Thinking Pictures, Raina and Sethi contacted Deep Forest's manager Cyril Preuir and, on his advice, Sony Music, Paris, with their proposal. "We intended to make a video with the Deep Forest thinking -- a world look that is open to interpretation by all," says Sethi. The video for the track Bohemian ballet from the group's album Boheme was completed in January this year. Shot in Hampi with Italian choreographer Nadia Orlando, the video has an experimental look, unrestricted by any one culture. So even though they didn't get to meet any of the group members, Sethi and Raina did get to make their own bohemian rhapsody with images.