theatre

Today i went to a theater show. It was a show (drama) directed by Balakrishnan. I learnt something which I already know.

Film making is not just calling shorts edit put some sounds and boom - ready.

The show was called couples only and there were two stories staged. One about 45 minutes in length and another about 1 hour.

And you never noticed any lag (in cinema terms), just got over and you get so involved that you had no idea how much time passed.

Mind you, there were only two characters in each story, and there were no visual beauties or jump cuts and ramp shots to stun you. In fact, it is a single wide shot (in filmi terms again), as wide as your eyes could see. No fancy back grounds either.

While coming back home, i was just thinking, why did i get hooked up in this show so much as to not even noticing time.

Apart from the script, which is 100 percent dialog oriented, what I found was the performance of actors. they must have taken so much pain to get the lines into their head, then rehearse rehearse and rehearse and get the body language right, and make sure correct dialog delivery timings. Because there is no retake.

In tamil cinema, though there is always options for retake, rewrite, alternate angles, close ups, no one seems to concentrate on acting.

Directors just need the artist to deliver the dialog. Directors dont give artists scripts, artists dont want the scripts.

They could give, the time given to read the script to some one else and make more money. More over even directors does not know what is the story about - lets see on shoot, if something goes wrong then lets adjust in edit, if edit goes wrong, lets do it in dubbing, and if dubbing goes wrong lets correct it in RR and if RR goes wrong, lets see after release. Audience will not mind such things.

But then, if you wanna make money, there are hell lot of businesses. why come to cinema.

Cinema is a passion. You want to do cinema because you just want to do it badly.

If only rehearsed properly and actors were explained of their characters thoroughly and let them come up with their own style and performance and body language, you have over fifty percent advantage of making a bad script look decent and good script extra ordinary.

After all, if your script is the soul, then actors are the body and face.