Comments on: The Art & Science of Storytelling

By: Siddharth ajith

Siddharth ajith — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:52:25 +0000

I completely agree with you sudhish that our Movies are running away from reality for commercial reasons or otherwise. Our filmmakers fail to understand the fact that actors, flashy sets, big budgets are not what make a movie, all these are a media to tell a story- and there is no point having any of these unless you have a compelling story to tell. With the audience in the country maturing each day, there would be a day when movies like the ones that are made today would be rejected outright-again I’m not outright rejecting commercial cinema-but emphasizing the fact that large percentage of the movie goers of the future would watch movies for merit and not just pure mindless entertainment. Afterall even Hollywood has both kind of movies released. My feeling is that we are presently in the stage where movies are appreciated for the stars and their antics on screen(them not realizing the fact that the real stars are the ones behind the camera) & that we would graduate to a stage where we would try to understand each scene and frame and to understand he minds of he people who make these movies like in the US today(Spielberg or jim cameron are amongst the highest paid in Hollywood-more than most big stars).

By: soin

soin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:00:08 +0000

films are like languages.you either got a flair for it or you dont.and when people try to get hat flair by hard work or plagiarism you get bad commercial cinema.how many famous script writers are there in tamizh cinema? most of them are all in all azagu raja.one or two exceptions like kb or mani rathnam.wont it be much better if we had different people doing diffrent macros of the film?coz we have enough good people to do that.

By: pooja nair

pooja nair — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:18:01 +0000

Nice to read the perspective of a film-maker – one to whome honesty comes easily.

Enjoyed this. All the best!

By: Thyagi

Thyagi — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:44:55 +0000

nice one macha…!!

By: Clyvin

Clyvin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:34:37 +0000

In pursuit of ‘good’ cinema.. huh? good article friend… and never give up searching..
The truth is so far no one has found out the success formula…no one!..coz in my humble opinion there are lot of factors other than SCRIPT decides the fate of the film’s success…like…
1. Public Psychology
You can never predict the public.Sometimes they are sensible,sometimes sentimental,sometimes with negative mindset,sometimes stupid and most of the times MAD. Most of the ppl have their own favourite Hero/heroine/Director etc. Some people just hate certain personalities simply because their enemies/friends love them…(natural human ego).
So public reputation of the cast/Crew is very important….

2. Season

Calender seasons do affect the fate of a movie. People’s mind changes with the climatic conditions.Hollywood reallized it and we have’nt.They release movies which are apt to the present climatic conditions…like releasing horror movies during Holloween, Romatics during spring or Kids movies during summer vacation…etc. Ofcourse I would like to watch a “Ithayathai thirudathaey” during a cool rainy day like today!!
And if you want family audience exam season is not the right time…alas we have exams through out the year!! also there should be no IPL no Australian tour,No Lawn/clay tennis trnmts..!and no H1N1….:)

3. Again Public Psychology..cash in on it..!

Think all people are French! If you treat them good they treat you like shit..If you treat them like shit they love you! ( taken from ‘French Kiss’).
…So what I mean to say is ..Sudhish…bombard them with 10 junk movies then give them one of your moderate movie…you may even get an Oscar!!

Am I a sadist??….Thanks for the compliment!!

By: vivekranjit

vivekranjit — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:53:42 +0000

yea.. using them as rituals is a terrible thing.. if they are add more value to the whole package (again in wat we call commercial cinema) and at least do something in carrying the narrative forward, then its good..
i love the way songs r used in rang de basanti.. no lip sync and each and every song was so integral to the narrative of the movie..

By: Harish S Ram

Harish S Ram — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:34:00 +0000

its a basic approach to a problem that many filmmakers r not following – do a mistake, then why repeat it again? well someone did the same mistake and yet they succeeded – but did the filmmakers notice the subsequent failure of those ppl?

By: sudhishkamath

sudhishkamath — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:46:36 +0000

I dont have anything against using song and dance but I do have a problem when song and dances are used like a ritual… just used for the sake of having song and dance. Why should every film have song and dance?

By: Shamz

Shamz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:23:35 +0000

Yaay.. I beat everyone else to here..

A good read for anyone who aspires to be a film “Maker” and to everyone who have heart to appreciate nuances of good n bad movies…

By: Vivek Ranjit

Vivek Ranjit — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:16:58 +0000

That was a great read..
Quite true that we have not had one solid villain/obstacle for the hero in our cinema in a long long time..
And I do not agree with taking away our song and dance routines completely.. In the case of a place like Tamil Nadu, a large no of people come to watch certain movies expecting the routine of stunts, songs and all the other melodramatic stuff right? And if that is not given, most of them would end up being disappointed. And despite the good content, even a Paruthiveeran or a Subramaniapuram had all this in place.. But yea, songs squeezed into movies at random points, just for the sake of it, should be stopped immediately.. (I was talking just bout the escapist kind of cinema, not the ones which have a genuine idea to share).