Showing posts with label Doordarshan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doordarshan. Show all posts

Friday, January 29, 2010

How was 'Phir Mile Sur' made? Inside story!

Are you wondering why did Zoom decide to recreate 'Phir Mile Sur'? Here is the top secret unearthed by our under cover agents (borrowed from UTV Bindass's Emotional Atyachar).

Zoom honchos had thought of making a music video featuring Bollywood stars but then someone suggested why not piggyback on something already popular and remembered! And they decided to do 'Phir Miley Sur'.

Here is how the "creative team" acted on the brief given by producers:

1) We need to have the 3 Khans doing what they are best known for. So Salman has to be shirtless (and keep his mouth shut!), Aamir has to be with kids (audience needs to be reminded that he is the conscientious Khan!) and SRK doing his trademark open-arms thing. And obviously all need to be given equal footage.

2) We need to show the young 'achievers'. To this someone said most of them may not be recognized by public. Good Point, so we need to show their more famous dad with them. Here come Ustad Amzad Ali Khan with sons Amaan and Ayaan, KJ Yesudas with Vijay, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma with Rahul. Pt. Ravi Shankar is unwell so Anoushka will have to do alone.

3) Bollywood's first family. No it will look like a family album. OK, we will do it in more discreet manner. Let's drop Big Ma. (She's a politician anyway!) Big B can sing, so let's keep him alone. And the beta-bahu can be shot together. (Someone said ya, may be we can sneak in a bar of Lux also somewhere!)

4) Musicians. Rahman HAS to be there but since we don't have anything like storyboard so we don't know what to do with him. Shankar-Ehsan-Loy can do a "Rock On" but who will tell them their piece which sounds like a crescendo is actually not in the end! Sivamani can be trusted to do something crazy. God bless the person who suggested inclusion of Ustad Rashid Khan. Shreya Ghoshal and Shan can be clubbed with east India. Sonu Nigam can be used as playback for stars.

5) Bollywood. But we have to keep whole country in mind, no? Uhh ok, Vikram and Surya from Tamil, Mahesh Babu from Telugu, Mammooty from Malyalam. Happy? Rituparna Sen Gupta and Sonali/Atul Kulkarni will go well because they can be shown as Bengali and Marathi (respectively) as well! (The guy who suggested this got a bonus.). Now we can fill in as many Bollywood guys as we want. (This thought made them so happy, they all shared a McAloo Tikki)

6) Budget. We have already spent 99.875% of our total budget on stars so get some sportsmen to whom we don't have to pay conveyance charges and yet people recognize them. Enter Gopichand-Saina, Vijayendra, Sunil, Abhinav and Baichung. Technicians? Unh who needs them. We can edit and put it all together ourselves on a Mac. So what if lips are not in sync with lyrics or fingers not in sync with the instrument. Oh, it's still not 16 minutes? Let's put in some stock shots of armed forces.

And then as they say rest was history. (PMS got such a bad response, that it was relegated to history books in first week itself!)




Friday, January 26, 2007

On This Republic Day ...

The two facets of a Republic: On this republic day, as the news channels beamed images of a resurgent, vibrant and proud-to-be-India-on-camera India amidst news of separatist groups protesting or observing bandhs, the mercury of my dilemma soared northwards.


Each time they show these kind of visuals of happy, dancing, talking-on-latest-cellphone Indians to project the image of NEW India, somewhere at the back of mind, emerge the images of hungry and extremely malnourished children, everyday mounting toll of farmers committing suicide and many others who are victims of apathy of not only Governments but perhaps of this new 'resurgent' India as well.

Then the sceptical me asks: what and whom this celebration is for? A celebration by the rich/middle class, of the rich/middle class, for the rich/middle class?

And the hopeful me replies: don't be sceptical you jerk. If you have so much pain in the heart for the deprived, don't just shatter keys, go out and dirty your hand in helping them. This one day is a reminder that we have moved a lot but we still have a lot of ground left to cover. No point cribbing over failures, but to highlight the successes and get INSPIRED.


DD Blues: The live telecast of R-Day parade on Doordarshan's National channel was typically old fashioned and hence somewhat nostalgic.

Actually the whole parade seems to be exactly what it seemed to be years ago, when I almost always missed the live telecast (going to school on the two national holidays was compulsory!!) and had to catch the glimpses on the DD's news bulletins which were of course very few and gave very summarizing coverage.

I tried to know the names of all the units marching and the armaments and equipments on display. And though all the tableaus had almost similar themes (and it seems will continue to have same themes for next 1432 years!) there was an excitement of watching all of them and knowing who was the winner.

I can't understand, just why can't DD make the coverage more informative, interactive and vibrant? Of course claiming some one else's feed of a cricket ODI as your 'legitimate right' is much easier than doing some innovation on your own. Mr. Priyaranjan Das Munshi are you listening?