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!)

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Why is media silent about its own corruption?

I remember there were voices of dissent and disapproval from other news channels when Aaj Tak first introduced ads in its news scroll. Very soon everyone else followed. This was not the first instance when a market leader in media started what was a debatable trend.

In 2003 Times Of India group started the trend of selling editorial space for 'paid' news through its marketing division named Medianet. There was a lot of hue and cry when the news first broke out. TOI was ridiculed and criticized for bringing the profession to disrepute.

But after the dust settled, media bosses understood the business sense and nobody wanted to be left behind in this race. (Couple of examples : DNA, Deccan Herald) So recently when The Hindu pointed that Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan got reams of press coverage whose expenses were not declared in the election expenses that he submitted to Election Commission, there was hardly a murmur from either politicians or in the media. The media houses accused in this report feigned ignorance and their rivals didn't even try to claim moral high ground because of obvious reasons. Outlook's December 21 issue had a more in-depth coverage of this malaise and shocking revelations of how serious and deeply rooted this paid news phenomenon has become, specially in the times of elections.

But what is truly shocking is the complete silence in the media about this issue. No discussions or debates on a practice what has threatened the reputation of entire profession. No attempt to censure the culprits or make any rules to stop this practice. Why? Imagine if medical profession accepted that the practice of organ theft or judges thought accepting bribes to give a favorable verdict was OK.

No words can describe the impact if news media started being stooges of corrupt politicians whose only qualification was being able to pay for favorable coverage. If our only source of getting credible information for choosing our elected representatives was proven to be corrupt, what do we rely on?

As they say, who watches the watchmen?

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A Tale Of Two Movies (And A Journalistic Test!)

I was curious to hear Rajeev Masand's review of 'Singh is Kinng' on CNN-IBN. Not because I adore Rajeev but because that movie was co-produced by Studio 18 and distributed by Indian Film Company, both Network 18 companies and sister concerns of CNN-IBN. 

In other words it was a test of Network 18's editorial integrity that whether they keep commerce above journalism or vice-versa. I am happy that they passed the test and whatever else the channel might have done to promote the movie (which is routine stuff nowdays) they didn't use Rajeev Masand to cheat the viewers.

This weekend Times group was taking the test. 'Hari Puttar - A comedy of terrors' produced by Mirchi Movies, a Times Group Company was released and I was eager to read Nikhat Kazmi's review. 

Now I must admit that I have not watched the movie so I can't condemn/corroborate Ms Kazmi's opinion of the movie. As a matter of fact by looking at the trailer itself I had anticipated that this is a blatant copy of 'Home Alone' and had decided to miss this movie (and the promos also!). 

However the TOI rating of 'Hari Puttar' is astounding 3.5 stars! And that keeps it in the league of 'Mumbai Meri Jaan'!!! Can you believe that?

(To put things in proper context this film ('Hari Puttar') has got 0/5 from Rajeev Masand (CNN-IBN), 1/5 from Taran Adarsh (IndiaFM.com) and 1/5 from Khalid Mohammad (Hindustan Times). NDTV's Anupama Chopra doesn't give ratings but she says for this movie "Steer clear and Rent Home Alone instead.")

Surely Ms. Kazmi has a different taste from her counterparts. And she has every right to stand apart from others undoubtedly. However I wanted to mention another 'news article' titled "Hari Puttar casts a spell' that appeared in Hyderabad Times on friday. It was about an 'exclusive premier' of the film. (I am not saying what T.N. Ninan had said!)

Ummm... ahh... well what is your verdict about Times Group's performance in aforementioned test? 

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