Harsh P

For most of us it must have been ages since we switched on DD apart form some cricket matches in between.With the coming of satellite channels and its further diversfication into a number of niche channels coupled with declining content on DD, DD has almost ceased to exist for us.But how much we slam DD the most iconic serials of Indian Television have been telecast on DD itself be it Buniyad,Hum Log,Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi,Flop Show,Bharat Ek Khoj et all.(Although I faintly remember these serials:P) When the satellite channels came in early nineties,we got to see some different stuff and some ahead of the time serials too like Tara,Banegi Apni,Baat Hasratein and Aahat.The content of these shows was on par with the DD and audience had best of the both worlds.They could watch both conventional and different stuff at the same time As a kid grown up in 90s I would like list 5 of the serials which I think if are re-telecast would give present day serials a run for their money 1.Byomke...

From last two weeks there have been lots of noise regarding Ajay Devgan's notice to Yash Raj,its implications et al .But has he done a right thing by doing so,if you ask me Yes he has.Its really unfair on part of any movie production house to use their muscle power to manipulate the competitors.It happens in every industry and film industry is no different.. If had happened 15 years ago it would not have this ramifications where movies had time to grow.In fact there have been many cases when movie released on same day have worked like Gadar and Lagan and also Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Bade Miya Chhote Miya,(the latter two released on Diwali itself). But today when the business of movies are dependent on weekends and at the most,a week a movie definately loses out if it does not get sufficient number of screens even if the movie is better than the other one.Even a good word of mouth wont' help since even if people want to see the movie what would they do if its not playing in...

Last week a news article said that students of IIM A will be cracking the code of a films' success based on some statistical tools at least during the first three days.With due respect to IIM A which is our country's best B School and one of the best in world,this study on face of it doesnt' make sense.Although it would be wrong to comment on something without knowing about  the tools and how will be they implementing it but the fact is no statistical tool can predict the success of an art form specially films on which viewers' views are so myriad.If the study limits itself to the opening weekend predictions it does make some sense as promotions do play a large role in initial footfalls,but beyond that it does not seem to be possible We see on a regular basis that we often have different opinions on the same movie when we came out of the theatre,some like it some dont. Also people have different expectations from the same movie,some are more keen on the drama part,so...

This has been a topic of debate right from the time the corporates entered into film production that whether it is good for the industry or will lead to more chaos.As it happens with every change there are both pros and cons Lets talk about positives first- it has definitely made the industry more organized and reduced the risks.Film making is a crazy business and corporates have brought method to madness.When did we last hear a producer selling his house or getting bankrupt? The pumping of money by corporates has finally reduced burden in many ways. In earlier days,even stalwarts like Guru Dutt,Raj Kapoor and Sunil Dutt suffered huge losses when their ambitious projects failed miserably and they lost huge money.In early days it was common for producers to put their own property and money at stake to produce movies.Hindi film industry although had started on a good note in 1940s following the studio system and studios like Bombay Talkies(kickstarted the careers of  icons like ...

Its surprising that how some cult brands which were a part of our lives once have faded into oblivion.I know you will be nostalgic after reading this post about some of the forgotten brands which are no longer there in the market 1 . Rexona Deodorant -Probably for most of the upper middle class Indians this was the first deodorant they ever used.At that time talcum powder used to be the only antiperspirant product for them.It took guts for Unilever to enter this market since although the potential was enormous, making people aware of the importance of smelling good was a huge task.Also Indian consumer is price sensitive and convincing them to shell out extra bucks for something like personal grooming was not an easy task To counter this they adopted the strategy of launching the deodorant in the stick form ranging from Rs 5 to Rs 21 to let the consumer try this at an affordable rate and once they realize the importance of body odour and smelling good they can go for the larger ca...

Stars these days are selling everything from a hair oil to jewellery,but what does this mean to both us and the stars.I would like to talk about it from both star and the consumer perspectives. Lets see this first from Stars' perspectives: Firstly it benefits in terms of money which helps them in two ways.Primarily since the nature of their profession is so fickle that its always good to earn pots of money while the going is good.Unlike other professions they dont' get much chances of rectifying their mistakes and also sometimes they dont' commit mistakes at all but lose out due to sheer bad luck.We always wonder how some stars could not succeed in spite of being hugely talented-what does a star do if the movie is poorly made in spite of the star pitching a good performance.What else would explain the success of an Emraan Hashmi over say an Akshay Khanna or Neil Nitin Mukesh who are far more talented. It also helps them in choosing better movies.Earlier when movies w...

Right from the time Barfi was announced as an official entry to the Oscars the print media,forums and television went overdrive that how it is not a deserving entry for the Oscars..Agreed that Barfi is not an original but an 'inspired movie' and hence it may not be the right choice which may again give credence to the fact that in spite of being the largest film producing industry in the world we still don't produce much original movies and end up aping the west in terms of plots But the point is why are we so obsessed with Oscars when most of the movies which deserve to be sent to the Oscars i.e.regional films and small Hindi Movies find it difficult to even find the producers for their movies and then go through a hard time to get their movie a proper release.Also the people who as audience are commenting would ever go and watch a regional or a small film on their weekends??Both the people from fraternity and audience should refrain from commenting if they are themselv...

Well the answer to this question is yes,at least for grabbing initial eyeballs and getting the movie a good opening which has become of paramount importance these days.Agreed that promotions cannot sell a bad movie but it can definitely get more out of a bad product.   There have been movies which are exceptionally good but have suffered due to lack of promotions.No wonder movies like Gangs of Wasseypur with a modest budget of under 20 crores are also keeping aside some budget for promotions.No doubt if the product is good it may pick by word of mouth and subsequently earn money from DVD or home video but even smaller films are also now realizing the importance of promotions and film promotions have come a long way from posters and trailers to being promoted everywhere from serials to malls to events these days Firstly we need to undersand why film promotions have become so big now a days.The reason is today the audiences have a wide variety of choices for entertainment-there ...

Just read this news item in some of the leading newspapers today. Now this is good news for the audience as it will improve the quality of movies. In the earlier days there used to be only two sources of revenues for the movies-the box office collections and the music rights. Filmmakers very well knew that the product has to be very good otherwise they will lose money. But post 2000 other sources of revenues also came into being like Satellite rights, DVD rights, music downloads and through radio and music channels, radio although was always there but its resurgence was in 2000s only. There have been movies which didn’t’ do very good in terms of theatrical collections but did well on other counts, the case of movies like Johny Gaddar, Sehar, Manorama Six Feet Under and Ek Chaalis ki Last Local. Some movie don’t work initially upon their release due to various factors like less promotions  new starcast, unconventional themes but find a following later due to...

I wonder that in spite of hearing everybody cribbing about the quality of television these days most people still end up enjoying the same kind of shows and rejecting the shows which attempt to break the mould barring few exceptions The production values have definitely are top notch these days in the serials and some are almost on par with movies.But the quality of television shows has gone down with each passing day although the revenues and TRPs touched the roof The reason for this rise has not been quality of shows but other factors.Economically the country has done better in the new millennium which means more income and hence more TV sets.Secondly peoples' lives became easier in terms of usual chores with the coming of technology be it in consumer durables,telecom or computers.Also the borrowing became easier and the overall streamlining of the entertainment business led to more channels and more shows. Initially,most of the serials used to be weeklies...

Dabangg,Ready,Bodyguard,Rowdy Rathore and Bol Bacchan have two things in common-firstly all of these were panned by the critics and second they all made more than 100 crores.This makes me wonder-do critics really matter ? The answer probably is both yes and no.Yes because we may go and see these films making them 100 grossers but we do read the reviews too and no because if the review mattered none of us would have gone and watched these movies Critics probably should not have a universal criterion for reviewing the movies,the genre of movies should definitely be considered and also the intent of the movies.None of the above films claimed to be anything more than entertainers.The films unabashedly claimed that they aimed to entertain the audience and not preach something or give out a social message.Sure there are films like 3 Idiots,Munnabhai series and Taare Zameen Par who do both-that is give out a social message in an entertaining way but not all movies can do so and even if the...