study in film making

sadhuji

The four of them sit in silence brooding on how best to create a product that will definitely find a market in the country and abroad. A pair of boys and girls, they are the brains behind the story writing group of one of the leading Film Production houses. They have sheets of paper in front of them and, while two of them are in one group, the remaining two are in the second group. The heading, in bold, on the papers of Team – A is ‘must have’ and on Team – B, ‘must not have.’ There is also a box in which are folded pieces of paper with a single word written on each. Words like? Well - song, dance, fight, comedy, seashore, villages, rain, river, mountain, gorges, beggars, temples, orphan, widow, terrorist, twins etcetera.

These are the basic ingredients that spell the success of a film. Nowadays, actors and actresses are in the market by the dozen whereas villains and comedians are in short supply. The skeleton staff available knows that they can squeeze extra money out of the producers but they do not dare to attempt such exercises because, actors nowadays love to double up as villains and comedians. In fact, a few of them have made a name for themselves in these alternate roles. Hence, those who have used to be villains and comedians in the past are suddenly feeling threatened. There is nothing called specialist any longer – if Irfan Pathan can be a successful bat as an opener and also as a number three, if Rahul Dravid can don the gloves, why can the heroine not be a villain? It saves money for the producer and poses no problem for the Director because he has no role to play as such except to implement the general ideas of the producer.

Film music follows two patterns – either they are too loud for comfort or they are too soulful. Music represents the mindset of the present generation – either they are too fast or too slow. Lyrics have lost meaning and, lifting of popular tunes (also termed as ‘inspiration’ by some) is considered to be the in thing. Music composers nurse a feeling that they only have access to old Hollywood favorites.

All said and done, the correct proportion of the above decides the fate of the final product. All bright boys do not get admission to IITs or IIMs. Similarly, all films do not have the desired impact. The review ratings seldom go beyond three stars. Still there is no shortage of people who invest their money in these ventures – it can be safely presumed that they do not feel the pinch of such large scale monetary loss. The inferences are obvious.

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mooning over a moon journey

jivan

visit http://www.ftiindia.com/ to study the art of film-making. Many of our heroes/heroines & technical people studied here.

sadhuji

agreed. but, most of them stay away from mainline cinemas. obviously, what they teach in ftii differs from what succeeds in the box office!

NEVSAY_D

SAE ( www.saeindia.net ) is much better than the FTII...

jivan

There are actually quite a few institutes, the Rama Raoji Studios in Hyderabad has a school or is in process of having a film school there.
Thanx Nevsay_D I didn't know there was this one also. Seems to have quite a few branches.