Harsh P

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...