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Clever Versions

Debashish Chakrabarty — Thu, 02 Sep 2004 12:45:30 +0000

Bajaj is using the voice of radio doyen Amin Sayani in a television commercial for one of its vehicle range. Though this advertisement might be a complete unit in itself but the commercial plays a different combination of Indian language stanza along with the Hindi opening lines from a popular song of Adnan Sami for the Hindi movie Saathiya. What you consequently get are different versions of the same advertisement. In another commercial, again for an automobile, shows a bike rider who forgets the name of the Product (Petrol) while visiting a refuel station. The guy at the pump is able to guess the right word after the rider provides an assortment of clues. This commercial too has many versions, and sometimes various versions are shown during breaks of the same programme.

Now for the industry I am associated with maintaining various versions of a product is not uncommon (infact you need other software products to maintain/control these versions), but for the Indi advertisement industry probably this is a novel concept. AFAIK memory retention is one of the key factors for the success of a commercial. I remember that the commercial for Vicco Vajradanti shown on TV and Cinemas has hardly changed over the years in terms of the jingle and concept. May be this is true for products with large market share but for the ones that have to fight it out, cold-drinks for instance, we usually see new advertisement often with new celebrity brand ambassador one or twice a year. Commercials have had different versions based on the regional demands, a Pepsi commercial showing Akshay Kumar works in the Northern belt but for South the compulsions would be to go for an action-start popular there, say Chiranjivi. The basic treatment at the script level seems to remain the same withal.

Speaking of Bollywood, people have been making various versions of the stereotypical love stories mocking geometrical figures. Script is basically at the beck and call of Box-office and market considerations. It's said that following the recovery of Amitabh, Manmohan Desai's Coolie's script did a complete volte-face as far as the climax is concerned and Amitabh shown to live on. Many Maniratnam flicks have also had their regional language versions. In post 80's Gulshan Kumar started the notorious trend of creating cover version of popular songs finding a loophole in the copyright acts, which has now percolated into today's raunchy remix-videos with well-ventilated dancing ladies. Anyways, back to the subject.

What I meant by all this is that different versions of storylines with different closings are a rarity. Though I remember “Run Lola Run” was a movie where situations change for same set of events giving an unexpected plication to the story. Zee TV too experimented with the interactive show called “Aap kahein haan to haan, Aap kahein naa to naa” based on a Brazilian TV show, where the turning points in the story are based upon viewer responses. Imagine your local video library having a version of “Ek duje ke liye” with a happy ending. Grapevine is, Ramgopal Verma is also working on a movie that will have tow different climax sequences. I don't know whether he plans to release these distinct versions based on regional tastes or whether the same cinema hall will be showing a different version in various shows. In the effort of to do something new the conversion of the visual media into an interactive medium is indeed a laudable effort.

[Read the Hindi version of this post.]

It's the time to retro!

Debashish Chakrabarty — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 09:41:07 +0000

On the Holi eve, NDTV India had Prasoon Joshi, the man behind the Coke campaign, speaking on the advent of humour in advertisement on the Indian telly. He cited that people today wish for “instant gratification” and “entertainment everywhere”, hence the campaigns such as “Kya aap close-up karte hain?“, Alpenliebe's (the jingle so reminiscent of S.D.Burman). Besides humour I see a distinct mix of retro in these commercials, jingles being sung in archaic Hindi filmi-style. Look at the costumes and hairdo in these advertisements, bell-bottoms are back. Alpenliebe's set looks like the typical middle-class home straight from a Satyajit Ray flick. What's more Karan Johar's latest movie “Kal ho na ho” has a song bringing back the memories of disco, the popular dance music of late 70s. Have we come full circle?

Holly-Bolly ke bahane

Debashish Chakrabarty — Sat, 01 Nov 2003 04:23:35 +0000

Watching the closing credit title of a Hollywood movie makes me appreciate their dedication to the art. All people who put in their effort seem to get the due credit; so one is not surprised to see the credit for the “Teenager at the disco” or “The fifth waiter” or the “lady at street corner”. Many of the credit titles are very funny and many very artistic. On the contrast the Bollywood¹ flicks seem to concentrate on the opening credit and by the time the movie reaches finale, by which time half of the janata² already gallops for the exit gates, the director himself seem to loose his interest in his movie (so typical of David Dhawan). What you get at the end of the movie is just a replay of a happy-go-lucky song from the movie with the credits running insipidly along side acknowleding the efforts put in by the film financer, friendly-neighbourhood banker and the superstar who did that 2-second obliging sequence. You can't even expect the decency from the producers to express their gratitude for the numerous technicians who put in their effort including those stuntmen who are at far greater risk doing stunts here compared to their Hollywood counterparts, who apart from the insurance factor get the advantage of all the safety-precautions technology can provide while performing a stunt.

To me this is a display of the typical Indian mindset, first: we embark on a work but we do not finish it with the same vigour, we even go the extent of losing interest by the end. Second: we don't give a damn about people who helped us in our work, all our glory is due to us, we tend to forget those on whose shoulders we stand. Thirdly: only our life is important and other's a thing to waste. Isn't this ethos visible in all walks of Indian life? We tell our illetrate chowkidaar³ to change our broken fuse fearing we would get an electrical shock if we did it on our own, we tell our 8 year old girl-servent to babysit and carry our baby all day long, we savor all the delicacies on the festivities with our well-fed neighbours forgetting the safai-wala who cleaned your house to sparkles for the occassion. This may sound melodramatic but we just need to peep inside our own proverbial girehbaan.

1 The common term for the Indian Hindi film industry 2 Hindi for public 3 Hindi for watchman 4 Urdu for collar

I am in a movie?

Debashish Chakrabarty — Tue, 14 Oct 2003 06:43:28 +0000

The stardom has finally arrived. Yes I am in a movie! Don't take my word for it. Have a look here. Though I did not have a clue till now apparently the movie Mumbai Matinee has a 32 year old character called Debashish aka Debu played by Rahul Bose. If only other facts about this character (including his surname and profile and characterisation) were ditto as mine. Alas! I missed fame and glory by inches .

Middle-age chakra

Debashish Chakrabarty — Thu, 03 Jul 2003 11:54:25 +0000

The other day I was watching “Freaky Chakra” on Star Movies. Well I am not writing a review here (in any case the movie was altogether too puerile to pen a review on). I had seen the “ooh” TV promos before and was amazed at Deepti Naval's stupid escapades as Ms Thomas. Doing love-scenes with a kid, shiva-shiva. But then she is not akin to the middle-age crisis (or is it called some other kinda crisis in Bollywood parlance), is she? (I also read that her husband — not Prakash Jha– died recently). I saw a similar trait in Himani Shivpuri, an established name on TV eager to do petty roles (even lowly roles as brothel keeper) after her husband died prematurely. OK, OK, they are after-all actors, and the role demanded this etc etc but….I mean there is an age to do all such stuff. I remember a movie of recent times (remind me its name if you recall) where ripe actors like Navin Nischal and Rekha performed love scenes. There was another movie made with pious intentions of “exploring the intricacies of married life” by Vinod Pande (small time movie maker made famous of his serial “Reporter” on National TV) full of steamy scenes. Guess who played the male lead..who else but Pandeji himself. It's another issue that the movie vanished without a trace.