Cinema
In India cricket and Bollywood are no less than a religion. If you compare the number of people going to a temple and a theater, there won't be much of a difference. In a temple we praise the lord and in a theater we praise the actors. For some, cinema is just a 2 hour entertainment, where as for some it's life. Cinema, movies, films have become an irreplaceable part of most of our lives. On weekends all of us watch a movie or a part of it, either in a theater or on a laptop or a TV, but we do. The reasons are pretty simple. They take us away from all our worries, sometimes we even relate to the stories. We cry with the character, we laugh with them, we start living their lives. But for 2 hours only. That's the beauty of cinema, you get to live multiple lives without anything to lose. May be that's what attracts us the most. Everything is an affair of just two to three hours.
However, making a movie is not that simple. To depict a complete story in few hours is a tough job. It takes a lot of effort and dedication. Critics very easily give 1 star to the movie, but even 1 star movies has to do a great deal of work. For most of us the actors are the movie, none of us care to read the long list of credits which comes after or before the movie. Those are the people who have put in their sweat for our 2 hour entertainment. The Director, assistant director, editor, sound engineer, light man, assistant directors, camera man and a long list of people; these names don't mean much to the audience, but for a film, they are the true artist. An actor puts life in the film, but the rest of them, creates it.
We see the movie through the director's eye. He is the one who imagines everything and decides everything. Everyone else is just a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, but the director always has the whole picture. Some directors have 100 assistant directors, depending upon the scale of the movie, as they don't want to comprise on detailing and continuity. Generally movies which are written, edited and directed by the same person are better than others, because these roles are the main sculptors of the movie. They decide the look and feel of the movie. Not much credit is given to the editor, but he/she is a real artist and it takes immense imagination power to do editing. Editing is not just putting the scenes together but to create a story which will make sense to the audience. There are a lot of movies which had great stories but failed as the editing didn't do justice to the story. Same is true for the writer. The film is born out of a writer's imagination.
The movies in which a cameraman(DOP) is chosen before the actors are bound to be beautiful, as people making the film know the importance of a good camera man and his/her unit.There is a difference in what we see on the screen and what can be seen on the sets, this difference is created by the DOP unit. They can shoot a winter scene on a sunny day. If you ever come across any film making experience you will see what it takes to prepare one single shot and a film contains millions of such shots. Similarly, a good background score can change the feel of the movie. A movie with an excellent background score makes more impact than anything without it. Music directors are definitely given the credit, but sound engineers and background scores do not get that much of an attention or praise from the audience.
May be for only some time but, cinema has an impact on our lives. The art director, the production team, costumes, make up team, spot boys; these are the people who create a new world for us. They inspire us, they are sometimes our way out of depression, they are sometimes our best companion and sometimes a good movie is all that we need. I have used 'they' because cinema is not of or by one person, it is by a group of people who dream together, who know how to make it real for the audience.
So, let us not just watch cinema, let's witness it and appreciate the artists.
We see the movie through the director's eye. He is the one who imagines everything and decides everything. Everyone else is just a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, but the director always has the whole picture. Some directors have 100 assistant directors, depending upon the scale of the movie, as they don't want to comprise on detailing and continuity. Generally movies which are written, edited and directed by the same person are better than others, because these roles are the main sculptors of the movie. They decide the look and feel of the movie. Not much credit is given to the editor, but he/she is a real artist and it takes immense imagination power to do editing. Editing is not just putting the scenes together but to create a story which will make sense to the audience. There are a lot of movies which had great stories but failed as the editing didn't do justice to the story. Same is true for the writer. The film is born out of a writer's imagination.
The movies in which a cameraman(DOP) is chosen before the actors are bound to be beautiful, as people making the film know the importance of a good camera man and his/her unit.There is a difference in what we see on the screen and what can be seen on the sets, this difference is created by the DOP unit. They can shoot a winter scene on a sunny day. If you ever come across any film making experience you will see what it takes to prepare one single shot and a film contains millions of such shots. Similarly, a good background score can change the feel of the movie. A movie with an excellent background score makes more impact than anything without it. Music directors are definitely given the credit, but sound engineers and background scores do not get that much of an attention or praise from the audience.
May be for only some time but, cinema has an impact on our lives. The art director, the production team, costumes, make up team, spot boys; these are the people who create a new world for us. They inspire us, they are sometimes our way out of depression, they are sometimes our best companion and sometimes a good movie is all that we need. I have used 'they' because cinema is not of or by one person, it is by a group of people who dream together, who know how to make it real for the audience.
So, let us not just watch cinema, let's witness it and appreciate the artists.
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