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LIGHTS, CAMERA & ACTION! AGAIN?
As the Maharashtra CM asks entertainment industry to prepare an action plan to restart work, we talk to filmmakers and find out what the way ahead looks like
No, this is not a low-budget horror movie shoot. In
Manila, Philippines, high school students graduated with the help of robots wearing cut-outs of their faces! They attended their graduation ceremony virtually from home. Creativity and humour are the two blessings that’ll never let humans surrender to any adversity. how grim toy, no matter a child like a workers Nothing excites of migrant are. The children mental circumstances and the unimaginable physical toys undergone distributed have Police lockdown. Jhansi hometowns distress in the their their way to children on on their faces. among these to bring a smile
“We wanted SP Rahul with parents. Jhansi happy,” says to see them
It was a joy
Srivastava.
In Shamli, Uttar Pradesh, a doctor, Abid Saifi broke his Ramzan fast to save a woman and her child’s life. Lawyer Rupesh Yadav’s wife
Dolly urgently needed B+ blood during child birth. A WhatsApp forward connected
Dr Saifi to the family and he, at once, rushed to help them. The two families have developed a deep bond, and Yadav has even requested Dr Saifi to pick up a name for his newborn son!
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The lockdown very has been nasty to little confining ones, them in their homes. Till the time they out again hop and chase active even butterflies, indoors. they have his daughter Actor Neil to stay Nitin Mukesh dancing. Nurvi busy has It’s a with working kept seems to challenge, out, singing be says the doting and pretty good father, active”. His at keeping but he fans can’t the girl “superbly lockdown get enough videos of the of the adorable child he shares on Instagram.
Shona Moeller is one lucky wife! As she spends days on bed rest in a hospital in Chicago, US, waiting for her baby to arrive amid the lockdown, her husband, Robert Conlin, sits on a chair outside, with flowers and candles! When Moeller gets to look outside the window, she sees him smiling! Love always finds a way through the trickiest of alleys!
The Vaishno Devi Shrine in Jammu and Kashmir is preparing sehri and iftari for 500 Muslims. Its kitchen is functioning overnight to serve those fasting in Ramzan. In March, the shrine turned its Aashirwad Bhawan into a quarantine facility. This is the invincible India we love and live for!
The film and television shooting sets are missing their characteristic lights, camera and action since mid-March, when the nationwide lockdown came into force. But now, there seems to be a glimmer of hope, as Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has asked entertainment industry representatives and producers to prepare an action plan for limited resumption of film shooting and postproduction activities.
But then, a big question that arises: Is it practically possible for a cast and crew of only 3040 people to manage the work that was earlier done by over 400 of them? Filmmaker Ali
US president Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, described the act of an Indian girl cycling 1,200km with her wounded father to get home amid lockdown as a “beautiful feat of endurance and love”. Sharing an article by livemint.com, HT’s sister publication, she tweeted, “15 yr old Jyoti Kumari, carried her wounded father to their home village... This beautiful feat of endurance & love has captured the imagination of the Indian people and the cycling federation.”
Abbas Zafar, for one, feels that we “should patiently wait for another two-three months before thinking of getting back on the sets”.
Ask Zafar why and he says there’s “too much risk”, before explaining, “Even if you shoot with 50-70 people [in total], what if one person gets infected? Then, there are technical issues. How do you shoot scenes without two or more actors being in close proximity? What if the director of photography wants to take a close-up shot? The post-production work, however, can start with precautions and minimum staff.”
A number of films such as Salman Khan’s Radhe, Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha, Sanjay Guptadirected Mumbai Saga, Zafar’s Khaali Peeli, Bunty Aur Babli 2 and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, had started off, but are stuck at various stages due to the lockdown. “There’s no doubt that the safety of the cast and crew comes first. So, if shootings restart, of course, there will be loads of challenges, but you have to do something and start somewhere. Remember, we’ve daily wage labourers and others whose livelihoods are at stake,” says producer Bhushan Kumar.
Gupta, who has just about three-four days of work left on his film, says he plans to wrap up the film as soon as the lockdown is over. “There are going to be some guidelines, which we all will adhere to. I’ve always said that nowadays, when you walk on a film set, there are just too many people — on an average, 300-350 of them. Now, we won’t have a choice but to go back to the old working
Many multi-starrers and big projects such Shakun as Takht, Batra’s upcoming untitled project, Ayan Mukerji-directed Brahmastra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi, Akshay Kumar-starrer Prithviraj, Ajay Devgn’s Maidaan, and Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Shamshera, among others, are stuck either due to no-shooting or status post-production work. style of not having more than 30-40 people. Unfortunately, it means that people such as spot boys, junior artistes and caterers, etc., will be badly hit,” he says.
Kumar opines that if permissions come in, some small films, TV shows or patchwork shoots, which require smaller units, can “possibly start first”. “But big films that require 200 people and big action sequences will have to wait. The postproduction work can surely start, since it happens within an office and a controlled environment,” he says.
On a lighter note, Zafar puts things in perspective and says, “The safest way out will be to write coronavirusspecific scripts... but it will take away the whole fun.”