Bollywood

[Icarus112277]

DOing the Indian Oscars right now and YIKES

The director got here late (not his fault he was booked late), does not speak the language of the producers or talent, and does not know the talent by face.

We had no jib operator until 45 minutes before the show was scheduiled to start...and the lighting director kept screwing with the lights while we were trying to chip the cameras.

How can you shoot a multicam awards show without knowing the faces of the people. Isn't crowd shots of the nominees what these awards shows are all about (hypothetical question obviously).

Already saved their asses by providing them with a still they did not come prepared with...so that when their little nominee videos go to black (and the tape decks they rented have no D/T heads) their main stage monitor doesn't gop to black behind the emcee.

Good Lord, foam the runways we're coming in for a hard one tonight...

And the best part is, now that the show has already been delayed by an hour, we'll get out of here at about 1...just in time for a few brews before our morning call at 4:30am.

[Tippster]

Sleep => So over-rated right now. ;)

[rexreed]

Bollywood doesn't have their sh*t together? Have you seen the sorry excuse for movies coming from there? You are surprised?

[Icarus112277]

Never seen any Bollywood movies and now I'll make sure to avoid them.

[Shaky & Blue]

Hey now.

There are some really crappy Bollywood movies, but there are also some damned good ones. Just like Hollywood. Considering that India has the largest film industry in the world, even larger than the US, you can expect a wide range of quality. I don't completely understand why there has to be a musical number in almost every film, but they do turn out some decent product.

If you want to see something really good that doesn't have a musical number, see if you can find The Bandit Queen. It's f*cking awesome, a true story about a woman who was gang raped by a village and left to die, but instead survived, put together an armed force and killed all the men in the village for revenge. Then she went on a rampage through the countryside killing and stealing from corrupt bosses of the towns, becoming a folk hero in the process. Her band ended up killing so many people and was so difficult to catch that the government was willing to negotiate lenient terms for her surrender to end it.

Also, look for Lagaan, which is available at many a Blockbuster. It's about a rag tag group from an Indian village taking on a challenge from the local British governor to a game of cricket. The wager is their taxes, which they can't afford; if they win, their taxes are forgiven, but if they lose, they have to pay triple, which will bankrupt them all and put them into indentured servitude. The problem is that they don't know how to play cricket, and it looks as though they're doomed. Unfortunately it has some silly musical numbers, but they aren't too bad, and the game sequence makes up for it.

I work with Indian television sometimes, and it is pretty strange. But don't knock the movies until you try them.