Recently we all were dazed with Slumdog mania that gripped India. Better late than never, India was graced to Oscars, not one but three, a long wait after Satyajit Ray and Bhanu Athaiya. The kids from the sewers walked on in a huge city with much more glitz than amchi Mumbai, between millions of lights and strange white people of they never heard of before who shook hands with them. A few of them namely Tanay Chedda and Tanvi Lonkar came from middle and upper middle class families, but the kids in question here are namely Azhar and Rubina, the kids from small shanties in Dharavi.
Well first of all lets get this clear. Why did Slumdog win its battery of accolades?? Script, direction, music,marketing.......or simply the empathy of the Indians and the sympathy of the west towards the Indian slum life.........Whatever the reason be its crystal clear that these kids were NOT the reason of success of the movie in any case. I mean lets face it.........Tanay , a few ads and TZP down and Tanvi coming from a better upbringing may have faced the camera with a confidence that clearly showed on screen but what abour Azhar and Rubina......if instead of them there were a Ismail and a Salma from the same slum how much difference would have that made......Whatever the case its clear that the way the kids were felicitated and the media hype that was generated around them is going to be nothing but detrimental to their mouldable souls today.......Why wouldnt an Azhar ask that five years down the line he is still in a slum and nobody in the outside world is failing to acknowledge his presence........Why wouldnt an Rubina ask that once described by tabloids as the future of Bollywood she still today is failing to make her ends meet.
Such was also tha case of one small Muslim kid , who also was a party to an Oscar winning Salaam Bombay and promised Rs.15000 by Mira Nair. Considering the level of inflation the kid would have been well to do today. But today what we see is a 32 year disgruntled man driving an auto in Bangalore with just a below ordinary existence.
What psychological trauma the kids will face one year down the line .........how drastically the behaviour must have changed with their peers afetr this bolt from the blue type of success and praises which may lead these innocent little ones to belive that they have the power to make the world go to its knees........ButI can only pray not for their success but that they have the grit to handle it.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The concept TTP or Totally Transparent Pricing
TT or Totally Transparent Pricing means that the client gets the most value for their spending. For instance today we have some production companies make over 50% profits on a given project. It is maverick concept in means of thought but still helpful in long run.
Though this is a sound policy for the short term The producers feel that it is not a good long-term strategy given today’s fast growing industry.Our pricing model is simple. The projects are executed to achieve maximum potential of any size of budget.
The Production houses show the client where their money will be spent and our fees are always a fixed percentage of the total cost of the undertaking which is open to the clients scrutiny at any time. This policy makes sure that the client gets the most bang for his buck and the pricing is always Totally Transparent!
Being Totally transparent but has its own drawbacks. The agencies or client may try to squeeze in or negotiate on the producers margin which is not a healthy sign for any production house. On the other hand given the commodity pricing or studio costs the production hoses may try to keep them at minimal thus maybe a sheer compromise on quality will creep in. Thus a 'translucent' option maybe less maverick ,least radical but more sensible.
Though this is a sound policy for the short term The producers feel that it is not a good long-term strategy given today’s fast growing industry.Our pricing model is simple. The projects are executed to achieve maximum potential of any size of budget.
The Production houses show the client where their money will be spent and our fees are always a fixed percentage of the total cost of the undertaking which is open to the clients scrutiny at any time. This policy makes sure that the client gets the most bang for his buck and the pricing is always Totally Transparent!
Being Totally transparent but has its own drawbacks. The agencies or client may try to squeeze in or negotiate on the producers margin which is not a healthy sign for any production house. On the other hand given the commodity pricing or studio costs the production hoses may try to keep them at minimal thus maybe a sheer compromise on quality will creep in. Thus a 'translucent' option maybe less maverick ,least radical but more sensible.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tips for treatment in a corporate films
Corporate films are one of the most difficult media of advertising. This is because the scale of the film is too large making it miss the consumers field of grasping. Too much information is cramped into too little time. Thus an effective treatment is needed to make the corporate film more interesting and less boring. Here are some of the types of the types of treatment you can try and mix and match to make the film more interesting
1)First is the colour theme of the film. Depending on the product you can select the colour 'feel' of the film.......from a warm yellow sepia to a cool enhanced green or blue
2)Transitions-Transition treatment from one shot to another is another important element.One can ,use for example, a kaleidoscope changing from one frame to another or an interesting wipe.The transition gives an effective theme to the film and a structure to the entire film.
3)Computer Graphics and Other Thematic Effects- Computer graphics improve the lucidity of the whole film. Corporate films tend to become very technical and thus the common audience cant understand it. A good CG helps the audience understand and thus connect to the film.
Thematic Effects like supers appearing in an interesting manner or a frame that sets a theme to the film can be form of treatment.
4)Sound and music-Normally sounds are not used in the treatment as they may clash with the voice over. But the music plays an pivotal role in the treatment of a film. The music gives an effective pace and can give an effective feel (royal,rugged,tough,beautiful,extravagant etc)depending on the clients customer and product profile.
1)First is the colour theme of the film. Depending on the product you can select the colour 'feel' of the film.......from a warm yellow sepia to a cool enhanced green or blue
2)Transitions-Transition treatment from one shot to another is another important element.One can ,use for example, a kaleidoscope changing from one frame to another or an interesting wipe.The transition gives an effective theme to the film and a structure to the entire film.
3)Computer Graphics and Other Thematic Effects- Computer graphics improve the lucidity of the whole film. Corporate films tend to become very technical and thus the common audience cant understand it. A good CG helps the audience understand and thus connect to the film.
Thematic Effects like supers appearing in an interesting manner or a frame that sets a theme to the film can be form of treatment.
4)Sound and music-Normally sounds are not used in the treatment as they may clash with the voice over. But the music plays an pivotal role in the treatment of a film. The music gives an effective pace and can give an effective feel (royal,rugged,tough,beautiful,extravagant etc)depending on the clients customer and product profile.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Using a WMV without quality loss or gen down in FCP for Corporate Films
A corporate film usually consists of extensive stock footage. The need arises due the scale of the corporate film. A scale of a corporate film is very large but suffers from time and budget constraints.So the stock is either bought ( or some even conveniently borrowed ) to meet the requirements. The problem mainly arises when the stock is in WMV format, which it rarely is, cause you normally have it transferred on tape or in the desired MOV or VOB formats. But just in case lady luck decides to mess with you then here are the loopholes....
1) First and the foremost, a WMV would not work on an AVID or an FCP, so quit trying to get components and bugs.....remember that just because you managed to work it with flip4mac on an APPLE it wont work on an FCP.
2)Converting an WMV would lead to gen down and pixellation that leaves no meaning to the money and effort you spent on buying the footage. All conversions to any format have minimun 1 step gendown.
3)That leaves us with only one simple but effective alternative.
Create a TGA sequence( avoid using JPEGs primitives!!!)in a software like Adobe After Effects or dowload a video decompiler.
Depending on the length of the footage the render would be of any thing between 10-15 mins.Another advantage is that even Smoke accepts TGAs and the sequence can be inserted online.......and Voila!!! a WMV without gen down or quality loss sparkles in your film.....
1) First and the foremost, a WMV would not work on an AVID or an FCP, so quit trying to get components and bugs.....remember that just because you managed to work it with flip4mac on an APPLE it wont work on an FCP.
2)Converting an WMV would lead to gen down and pixellation that leaves no meaning to the money and effort you spent on buying the footage. All conversions to any format have minimun 1 step gendown.
3)That leaves us with only one simple but effective alternative.
Create a TGA sequence( avoid using JPEGs primitives!!!)in a software like Adobe After Effects or dowload a video decompiler.
Depending on the length of the footage the render would be of any thing between 10-15 mins.Another advantage is that even Smoke accepts TGAs and the sequence can be inserted online.......and Voila!!! a WMV without gen down or quality loss sparkles in your film.....
Friday, January 16, 2009
Corporate Films- An overview
The corporate sector in India is booming than never before.The increase in Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) has been increasing steadily over the last decade thus an fueling an increase in corporate houses as well as foreign players in the Indian market.
Corporate houses engage in a lot of promotional activities in terms of events, exhibitions, summits CSR activities but indulge in an out and out media advertising unless and until the product is an out and out B2C product.
The B2B corporate firms however use corporate films as an effective tool to pitch to their client and provide an effective way of presenting an informative overview of their business to the client.
A corporate film, though is a less glamorous cousin of the ad film sector, holds quite some importance in today's break neck competition in this sector. With the IT industry already flourishing and India being heavily industrialized, a corporate film has become the need of the hour for any corporate.
Making a corporate film is an art which only an connoisseur recognises. It is difficult, and almost impossible to captivate an audience through a topic which is highly technical and mostly boring through 20 minutes of a film and the target audience being a corporate honcho or a CEO who will count his seconds in dollars.
Nowadays a corporate film is treated no less than a feature film with a strong script, computer graphics, high end editing softwares,garangutan budgets and even use of models and actors
Today a corporate film is done with high end cameras with digibeta and film platforms and is colour corrected with the likes of Smoke, Quantel and Flame platforms.
Thus a corporate film today is an impressive tool today to market the corporate entity to new heights
For info contact: whitehope.films@gmail.com
Corporate houses engage in a lot of promotional activities in terms of events, exhibitions, summits CSR activities but indulge in an out and out media advertising unless and until the product is an out and out B2C product.
The B2B corporate firms however use corporate films as an effective tool to pitch to their client and provide an effective way of presenting an informative overview of their business to the client.
A corporate film, though is a less glamorous cousin of the ad film sector, holds quite some importance in today's break neck competition in this sector. With the IT industry already flourishing and India being heavily industrialized, a corporate film has become the need of the hour for any corporate.
Making a corporate film is an art which only an connoisseur recognises. It is difficult, and almost impossible to captivate an audience through a topic which is highly technical and mostly boring through 20 minutes of a film and the target audience being a corporate honcho or a CEO who will count his seconds in dollars.
Nowadays a corporate film is treated no less than a feature film with a strong script, computer graphics, high end editing softwares,garangutan budgets and even use of models and actors
Today a corporate film is done with high end cameras with digibeta and film platforms and is colour corrected with the likes of Smoke, Quantel and Flame platforms.
Thus a corporate film today is an impressive tool today to market the corporate entity to new heights
For info contact: whitehope.films@gmail.com
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