Innovations in Indian Film Industry

Innovation is everything in the modern world. ‘Innovate or die’. Every industry or sector tries to innovate and bring in freshness and new excitement. Movies are no exception. The maker of the epic documentary ‘Corporation’ let viewers watch the documentary free on the internet. At the end was an appeal for a donation and it worked. Many did contribute. The latest ‘in thing’ is crowd funding for a movie. The producer puts out an appeal in the digital media and the interested public can fund the movie in return for future profit (if the movie makes profit!).

Indian movie makers have tried out innovations of their own like inserting two intervals in the Hindi movie ‘Sangam’. Some have tried sequels to sustain the interest of film viewers. Ram Gopal Verma, the maverick film maker came out with an innovation of his own. He tried a new distribution model for his Telugu movie Anukshanam.The producers auctioned theatre rights of the ninety-minute film for specific centres instead of the traditional model of selling territory rights.The more revolutionary aspect of this was putting the process online and allowing first-timers to place bids. Some of the other path breaking innovations are discussed below,

1. Mythological movies with elaborate costumes, trick photography, great dialogues and terrific acting: Telugu cinema is well known for being the best in the production of folklore, historical, fantasy and mythological films in Indian cinema, a considerable contribution has been made in this genre through many critically acclaimed films.

The movie that stands out among all is Maya Bazar. Maya Bazar without argument is the greatest Telugu movie of all time. It had the best screenplay. It is said that the Director shot only 200 feet of film more than the planned film length. And in 1974 Ramesh Sippy shot three times the length of a full movie. The editors had a tough time editing it to make it another epic – Sholay. Maya Bazar is a laugh riot and it had the best trick photography ever seen. The movie was shot in 1957.

Marcus Bartley the Anglo Indian cinematographer of Maya Bazar was exceptionally talented. The heroine of the movie is shown as a small girl. She is peeping into the water. The camera moves to the reflection and then onto the face again. To the viewer’s surprise, instead of the small girl he sees the fully grown heroine, Savithri.

And it is a single shot. No fancy editing. In one of the songs, Marcus filmed sunlight and showed it as moon light. That song is even today is said to be the best moon song ever filmed. The camera tricks that Marcus deployed enthrall the audience even now. Grownups squeal with joy seeing laddus magically fly into the mouth of Ghatotkacha. Many have watched it a dozen times and still find the movie to be charming and magical.

2. Silent movie: Pushpak is a silent comedy released in 1987. This film was directed by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao and written by Kamal Haasan. Set in a large unnamed Indian city (shot in Bangalore), the film is based on the king-for-a-day story. The film is notable for its inventive re-casting of the silent film format.

Though shot in color and featuring incidental noise, the film does not have any dialogues. Instead, clever cinematography, implicit and physical communication, and creating scenes or shots with no dialogues are used. Additionally, crafty camera placement is sometimes employed to rationalize the inaudibility of dialogue. The beauty of this movie is that it can be released in any language without dubbing!

3. Name less movie: A Telugu movie tried out the unthinkable. It was a movie without a name. In a movie industry where a name is everything this movie went to the town saying that it has no title. The producers claimed that the viewer could name the movie after watching it in the theatres. It was a very brilliant concept but the movie was not great. Finally the movie was named Paape na Pranam (My daughter is my breath). The movie sunk without a trace.

JD chakravarthy the hero and producer was of the opinion that nameless movie will arouse the curiosity in the audience and that they will come to the theatres and according to him it worked, until they named the movie. The co-producer wanted to release in B and C centers (In India that would mean small towns and rural areas) and he felt that audience won't accept the movie without a title. That effectively took out the USP of the movie which was not having a title. A brilliant marketing coup laid waste by a back peddling co-producer.

4. Apoorva Sahodharargal is a 1989 Tamil feature film directed by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao. The film had Kamal Hassan in triple roles, as a mechanic, a dwarf circus clown and a police officer. The film was dubbed into Hindi as Appu Raja. The make-up used on the dwarf in ‘Apoorva Sahodarulu’ floored the audience and they had no clue as to how he could manage it.

But, the film’s director Singeetam Srinivasa Rao not only revealed the secret but also felt that an interactive session with members of a film society and others was the right venue and best occasion to do so. At the session organized by the Vizag Film Society, Mr. Srinivasa Rao revealed the secret and said that the credit goes to Mr. Kamal Hassan, who worked very hard for the role, the photography director P.C. Sriram and a set boy called ‘Japan’.

Figure 3Dasavathaaram

5. Dasavathaaram is a 2008 Tamil film co-written and directed by K. S. Ravi Kumar. Kamal Hassan,wrote the screenplay, story of the film and starred in ten distinct roles, including the lead character. Kamal Hassan was keen to break the record for an actor appearing in the most roles, so he came up with an original storyline and got it directed by K. S. Ravi Kumar. Kamal Haasan played 10 roles at a time making it the first time for an actor to appear in so many roles in world cinema (this record was later broken in 2009 by Priyanka Chopra who played 12 roles in What's Your Raashee?).

6. Yaadein (meaning "Memories" in Hindi) is a 1964 B&W Hindi film directed and produced by Sunil Dutt starring himself. The only other actor in the film is Nargis Dutt that too in a silhouette in the final scene. This film is the first-ever Indian film to feature a single actor and found an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of fewest actors in a narrative film.

7. Suyamvaram is a 1999 Tamil comedy-drama film starring a cast of actors from the Tamil film industry and shot by a large technical team. The film was planned by GiridharilalNagpal and brought together 14 associate directors, 19 cinematographers and over thirty leading actors.

The film holds the Guinness World Record for casting the most stars in a film and also for being the quickest ever full feature length film made, with filming being completed in 23 hours and 58 minutes. The film released on July 16, 1999 to positive reviews from critics, praising the intentions of the makers.

8. Mixing cricket with movies: There are two things that fascinate Indians. The two things are movies and cricket. Both cricket and movies are viewed as competitors and it is quite common to see many movies getting delayed because of cricket matches. But it took creative geniuses like Aamir Khan and the director Ashutosh Gowariker,to combine the two things and make a blockbuster film Lagaan.

The brilliantly conceptualized Lagaan is the tale of poor village simpletons who overcome the British Empire. The villagers are pitted against the might of the Britishers in a game of cricket. Defying all odds the villagers come out winners. Lagaan became a case study in B-schools as a stellar example of leadership emerging from a dark crisis.

Lagaan was the Indian entry for the Oscars. It could not win due to its extra ordinary running time. And the Americans could not get a grip of cricket. Lagaan remains the only Indian movie that has entered the category of “100 movies to see before one dies”.

Out of eight innovations discussed, three are from the Tamil film industry, three from Telugu film industry and two from Hindi movies. Amazingly Kamal Hassan is the lead actor in three movies Pushpak, Apoorva Sahodharargal and Dasavathaaram. Without doubt the south Indian film industry is way ahead of the Hindi movies industry when it comes to innovations.

By:Dr M Anil Ramesh