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June 21, 2004
Movie making – one of my dreams!
Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Lakshya’ is a hit. Would you believe if I tell you that I told the same story to my sister 5 years back! I am not trying to say Farhan stole my story just that he is in the right place at the right time and that happens to be the secret of most successful people.
I would use this new section of my blog to talk about movies, my movie ideas, few gossips about celebrities and my association with film stars.
May be someday I will be in the same place where most filmmakers are today.
I learnt few important techniques of story telling from my spiritual teacher, which gave me an insight about how to stitch scenes around the main plot.
The vital factors of a movie story –
Main plot
3-4 main characters
3-4 sub plots
3-4 twists
Characterization
Pace of the movie
Entertainment value
I personally don’t give much importance to the entertainment value alone. I feel film as a strong mass medium has some social responsibility and providing the audience with a good time should not be its only motto. Every movie should make few think and should be able to transform few. My movies are going to be with a message (ie when I make them :P).
Here is an example how story is stitched around a concept.
Main Characters – Ram, Sita, Ravana, Lakshman, Hanuman
Sub characters – Dahsrat, Bharat, Kaiki, Vali, Sughreev
Ramayan’s one line concept – ‘Ram rescues his kidnapped wife from Ravana’.
This is the single line concept Valmiki would have thought about, and rest of the epic is sub-plots that are stuck to the real one.
Who is Ram – son of Dashrat, who is Dashrat – a King with 3 wives, who was Sita – daughter of King Janak, where did Ram meet Sita – in a swayamvaram, how could Ravana kidnap Sita – because she was alone in a jungle, why was she in the jungle – Dashrat had asked Ram to go, did Ram and Sita go alone – no Lakshman joined him, who took care of the Kingdom then – Bharat, who helped Ram to rescue Sita – Hanuman, who was Ravan – the king of Lanka, what made Ravan kidnap Sita – his sister’s insult by Lakshman, who made the process easy – Vibhishan.
This is how subplots are built around the main plot. And then the mood of the movie is decided on - whether it is a romantic movie, or a thriller, or a masala packed movie. The pace of the movie, cinematography, the background score and the music are set according to the mood of the story.
Keep checking this page for more details in the coming days…
Posted by Kenni at June 21, 2004 04:27 AM