Friday, April 15, 2011

Are they invisible...

“I don’t do stunts. I only do my own fighting scenes which I don’t consider as stunts. My friend and stunt double does all the hard stuff.” This simple statement given by actor Liam Neeson while promoting his upcoming movie got me thinking. How is it that on one hand there is this person who is categorically and very humbly stating that someone else does those breathtaking action sequences, while on the other hand we have actors like Abhishek Bachchan who was caught lying when he claimed to have done the cliff-dive in Raavan?

And this is not the first time in Bollywood when someone has tried to take credit for someone else’s work. And why should I say in Bollywood, doesn’t it happen everywhere? Given a chance, people would surely try to get credit for a good job done by someone else! Some get caught, others don’t.

The recent trend, as per Indian film industry, is to get publicity in any and everyway possible, irrespective of whether it’s positive or negative. Relationships are made, fights are created and eyeballs are captured in the horde to get publicity. And if the movie works, the credit goes to the actors, the director or numerology!! But what about those who work behind the scenes to make it a success? What about those technicians, spot boys, assistant etc. who toil extra hard, irrespective of the time or weather, to ensure that the lead actors look great and everything goes smoothly. They get lost somewhere between the making of the movie and the awards show where only the influential ones are mentioned, except by a few actors.

Of course, they are the point of interaction with the audience, so the actors have to be highlighted but that doesn’t make it the outcome of an individuals’ effort only. It has always been and will always be a team effort and its time that the Indian film industry accepts it.

However not all filmmakers are like this. And this is one of the things I like about Rohit Shetty (director of movies like Golmaal series, Sunday, Zameen etc.). At the end of each of his work, he mentions ‘Rohit Shetty and Team.’ It’s an informal way of congratulating and saying thank you isn’t it?

2 comments:

  1. Nice thought...however now many award shows are conducted to honor the work done by the people behind the scenes..

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