COVID EFFECT: SHOOT FROM HOME A VIABLE OPTION?
It is going to be a month since shoots were completely stalled in Maharashtra. While films can still afford to wait till the situation improves, for TV shows, it came as a huge jolt due to which many even relocated to different locations such as Gujarat, Goa and Telangana. But with lockdown imposed in Goa — which was the most preferred destination for shoots — what happens now since there’s a constant
Losing two members of her family in the past 10 days has left actor Meera Chopra sad and angry. She blames lack of medical infrastructure in the country for cutting short their life. “I lost two very close cousins not because of Covid-19 but because the medical infrastructure has totally crumbled down. My first cousin couldn’t get an ICU bed in Bengaluru for almost two days,” she says.
Both her cousins were in their early 40s, and their passing has left behind a deep scar. “It is so sad and depressing that we could not do anything to save them,” she adds.
Attempting to give words to her feelings, she expresses, “It is like life is just slipping out of our hands.” At the moment, she is feeling a sense of “helplessness and uselessness” and a lingering fear of losing “more closed ones”, something which she hasn’t experienced before. demand for a regular flow of content on the small screen. Are actors looking at shooting from home? Can that be a viable option?
Actor Sanjay Gagnani, who was shooting Kundali Bhagya in Goa says, “With new developments, the production team is yet to figure out how to take things forward. I feel, shoot from home is the most convenient and safest option for the time being. It’ll not only ensure our safety but also of the people around us, without compromising on the entertainment for the audience.” He mentions how even last
“The sense of anger is so high that for the first time I am feeling that our country has gone to the dumps,” she asserts, adding, “I’m sorry to say that this government has failed to save the lives of people”.
The grief in her personal life as well as the one she stumbles upon through news and virtual space is taking a toll on her emotional and mental well-being. “At times to keep my sanity, I feel I should be away from Twitter, but then I feel maybe I can help somebody by forwarding a message to a wider audience,” confesses the actor, who was last seen in web series, The Tattoo Murders.
For Chopra, it is a constant battle to keep your sanity. She herself struggled with the virus last month. “I have never felt the way I felt when I was sick in my life. I am much better now,” she says.
Chopra just wants people to take all the precautions. “We need to wear masks. It is not a joke! We are seeing deaths all around us,” she concludes. year, the shoot from home model “worked wonders” and he himself had “shot a three-week sequence” from his home on phone.
Given the worsening situation, while actor Karanvir Sharma believes that shoot from home is the best option at hand for actors, he finds the bio-bubble concept a better way of looking at things.
“It’s not possible to churn interesting content for long when you shoot from home. But never say never. We might just be going the (content creators) Bhuvan Bam or Ashish Chanchlani way,” says the actor of TV show Shaurya Aur Anokhi Ki Kahani, which also shifted to Goa last month.
In disagreement with this whole idea of shoot at home, actor Rajesh Kumar opines, “How is that feasible? The production houses have anyway been stretching their budgets when they opted to shoot out of Mumbai.”
Elaborating further, Kumar, who’d personally be fine shooting from home, adds, “Shooting TV shows require certain kind of set up, mics, cameras... arranging all that at home for every single member of the cast is not possible.”
That said, while TV shows can still be shot from home, what happens to web shows, whose shootings
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Bhanu Uday Goswami, whose web series Rudrakaal released in March just before the lockdown, tells us that there are still some episodes left to be shot. But he asserts that shooting from home isn’t an option for them. “For TV shows, since the stories are pretty much linear and can be altered for a period of time, so they can be shot from one place. But with web shows, the story cannot be tweaked because it’s a compact plot. Our series had to be stalled because we can’t shoot from home. We have a bank of few episodes but that’s not going to suffice. So, shooting from home may work for TV shows but not web series,” he maintains.
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