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Kishi6406
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 8:29 pm 
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Both Sanjay and Shankar looked stupid with all the money spent into putting in Devdas and Jeans.

Devdas, I can understand a little, but come on with Jeans now... New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Paris, Rome, China, Agra, Madras, and most of these locations were for the songs. That one song though, 'Ajooba Ajooba' overdid it with all those locations in one song. That was unecessary! That is the problem with our directors. In a place where many people need money in their lives, we have directors spending the hell out of themselves when it shouldn't take much to entertain an audience.
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Aryan
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 25, 2003 3:19 pm 
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The money spent on Devdas is pretty much justified and visible on screen. Also, the film requires a sort of overblown theatrical look. It is obviously and unabashedly a melodrama. Not so for Jeans, which is trying to be a teen movie, Jurassic Park and a made-for-rickshaw-pullers movie at the same time. Devdas and Jeans are worlds apart in terms of production values. It has consistently exquisite cinematography and editing. Shankar's films on the other hand are inconsistent technically. Some of his song sequences are so obviously shot by a 3rd party - e.g. Shakalaka in Mudhalvan. The rest of the film is nowhere as slick as the video.



Edited By Aryan on 1043508071
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DragunR2
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 1:12 am 
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Aryan wrote:
Devdas and Jeans are worlds apart in terms of production values. It has consistently exquisite cinematography and editing. Shankar's films on the other hand are inconsistent technically. Some of his song sequences are so obviously shot by a 3rd party - e.g. Shakalaka in Mudhalvan. The rest of the film is nowhere as slick as the video.

Devdas' cinematography was only average. After seeing Binod Pradhan's fantastic work in Mission Kashmir, I was expecting better framing, camera movements, etc. in Devdas.

I've heard reports of choreographers directing the songs in films before, so if Shankar does it it wouldn't surprise me. All the songs in Mudhalvan were well shot. The technique where the camera runs at 24fps and suddenly switches to a lower framerate is overused in the songs and is used quite a bit in the feature itself, which makes me believe that Shankar probably did have some hand in the songs. I've read rumors that Shankar directed some action scenes in Baba.
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Bludhound
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 3:33 am 
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I concur, Devdas' cinematography was quite average. I mean how many crane and ceiling shots can you have in a movie? I expected more from a movie of this stature.

-Bh
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Aryan
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 11:13 am 
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If Devdas's cinematography is considered average, I don't know how you guys can even stand to watch films like Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, Hum Saath Saath Hain, Border, Refugee and almost any other Indian film. Those films have atrocious cinematography. KNPH - That is a tasteless, gaudy and flashy galore - not Devdas. Before running down the cinematography of Devdas, let the composition, colours and movement incorporated tell you a little more about the characters and the situation. They are not just there. They require you to do some thinking (of course, that is unlikely if you are Indian).

As for 'Shankar's' ramping (framerate switching) technique, I dunno if he even knows where the switch is :) Its his excellent cinematographer K.V. Anand (I.S.C.) who also did Josh, that probably has a hand in it. And no, not all the songs in Mudhalvan were well shot. That weird 'snake-head' song was a disaster! Only Shakalaka was ground-breaking for an Indian film. I doubt that a dance choreographer would be able to do that - unless he is also an excellent filmmaker. Its probably by a company that specialises in music videos. I'm just guessing - it could be anyone - but not Shankar...



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spike86
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 2:13 pm 
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I also thought 'Devdas' cinematogrpahy was average. I didn't mean the cinematography was awful in anyway, but it fails to impress. The scene with Ash and SK near the waterfall looked horrible. Maybe Binod was forced to cover up some set disaster by lighting it that way. :rolleyes:
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DragunR2
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 7:48 pm 
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Aryan wrote:
If Devdas's cinematography is considered average, I don't know how you guys can even stand to watch films like Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, Hum Saath Saath Hain, Border, Refugee and almost any other Indian film. Those films have atrocious cinematography. KNPH - That is a tasteless, gaudy and flashy galore - not Devdas. Before running down the cinematography of Devdas, let the composition, colours and movement incorporated tell you a little more about the characters and the situation. They are not just there. They require you to do some thinking (of course, that is unlikely if you are Indian).

As for 'Shankar's' ramping (framerate switching) technique, I dunno if he even knows where the switch is :) Its his excellent cinematographer K.V. Anand (I.S.C.) who also did Josh, that probably has a hand in it. And no, not all the songs in Mudhalvan were well shot. That weird 'snake-head' song was a disaster! Only Shakalaka was ground-breaking for an Indian film. I doubt that a dance choreographer would be able to do that - unless he is also an excellent filmmaker. Its probably by a company that specialises in music videos. I'm just guessing - it could be anyone - but not Shankar...

Devdas' cinematography wasn't horrible, but it certainly wasn't anything special.

I thought the "snake head" song (Mudhalvane, or Oh Saiyyaan in Nayak) was shot okay. The SFX for the snakes was terrible (Mudhalvan actually had a shot of a metal pot singing, which was poorly done). But Azhagana Ratchasiye was fairly well shot. Good crane shots and camera angles, though the Steadicam shot at the beginning was a little shaky. But if you are right and some 3rd party did direct Shakalaka Baby, then that could explain the lackluster song picturization in Indian. Even though it was before Mudhalvan, the songs definitely did not look like they were directed by the same person who directed Shakalaka Baby!

Kaante uses the framerate ramping ad nauseum. Extremely annoying.
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spike86
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2003 10:29 pm 
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Are there any STEADICAM operators in Bollywood who knows what hell they are doing. I think its ironic that STEADICAM shots are not nearly as steady as the worst handheld shots.
Even the big budget Bollywood movies have horrible STEADICAM shots. :oo:
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DragunR2
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 1:29 am 
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spike86 wrote:
Are there any STEADICAM operators in Bollywood who knows what hell they are doing. I think its ironic that STEADICAM shots are not nearly as steady as the worst handheld shots.
Even the big budget Bollywood movies have horrible STEADICAM shots. :oo:

I thought the Steadicam shot following Aishwarya Rai in "Tauba Tauba" (Anbe Anbe) in Jeans was pretty nice. I remember liking some of the shots in Hey Ram also. But most of the time, Indian films have rough Steadicam work.

It takes a certain amount of training to use the Steadicam harness properly, and the operator has to have a strong back. Maybe the Indian production houses are buying Steadicam harnesses (or derivatives) and renting them to unskilled operators.
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DVD Collector
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 6:37 am 
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I see that the cinematography of Devdas is being understated here by most since its being weighed as just "average". Coming from the guy who gave inventive and striking cinematography in Parinda & Mission Kashmir, Binod Pardhan does not retrograde with Devdas, but infact I think he continues to display more of his effective enactment. In Devdas, his work clearly showed a great deal of detail in the films decadent opulence. Just watch that scene with Madhuri making her enterance at the beginning of the song "Kahe Chhad Mohe" with Pardhan's cinematography showing extensive detail of the surrounding environment with use of women dancing in the background in the night time in other parts of the city. Pardhan's use of lighting and effective colours also made some scenes look visually haunting and surreal. Forexample: The few scenes where Paro meets with her husband in the room with the picture of his dead wife look as such, and quite frankly, these are some of the most visually striking scenes I have ever seen come alive onscreen, and I fail to see how some can qualify the cinematography of Devdas as just "average". Sorry for sounding a bit egocentric, but I just had to let this out.

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congress
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 3:06 pm 
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DVD Collector wrote:
I see that the cinematography of Devdas is being understated here by most since its being weighed as just "average". Coming from the guy who gave inventive and striking cinematography in Parinda & Mission Kashmir, Binod Pardhan does not retrograde with Devdas, but infact I think he continues to display more of his effective enactment. In Devdas, his work clearly showed a great deal of detail in the films decadent opulence. Just watch that scene with Madhuri making her enterance at the beginning of the song "Kahe Chhad Mohe" with Pardhan's cinematography showing extensive detail of the surrounding environment with use of women dancing in the background in the night time in other parts of the city. Pardhan's use of lighting and effective colours also made some scenes look visually haunting and surreal. Forexample: The few scenes where Paro meets with her husband in the room with the picture of his dead wife look as such, and quite frankly, these are some of the most visually striking scenes I have ever seen come alive onscreen, and I fail to see how some can qualify the cinematography of Devdas as just "average". Sorry for sounding a bit egocentric, but I just had to let this out.

Image

Actually the cinematography of Devdas has not even been been presented properly...a terrible theatrical print and an equally bad dvd..The print that I saw in theater was so unsteady that it was impossible to judge any steadicam work...
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DVD Collector
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 6:20 am 
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congress wrote:
Actually the cinematography of Devdas has not even been been presented properly...a terrible theatrical print and an equally bad dvd..The print that I saw in theater was so unsteady that it was impossible to judge any steadicam work...

I guess its just me than, because where I saw Devdas, I didn't notice any problems with any steadicam work.

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congress
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2003 2:00 am 
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DVD Collector wrote:
I guess its just me than, because where I saw Devdas, I didn't notice any problems with any steadicam work.

Image

I didn't see any problems either but i'm just saying that it is quite difficult to judge a film's cinematography from a bad print...



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Bludhound
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2003 5:31 am 
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I saw the movie in a grand hall with a great print and booming DTS. I paid close attention to the cinematography in this movie, and it seemed like a rehash of HDDCS. The steadicam shot to open the movie was cool and was one of those 'ooh ahh' shots to give us a taste of the elaborate sets we will see in the movie. But the camerawork was uncreative, using the same angles and craneshots over and over again. There were some moments that were quite well shot, especially the ending. However SLB focussed more on the sets and less of the cinematography.

-Bh
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