A movie is an artistic marvel which is created by the collaborative effort of many artists under the umbrella of Director's vision. The artist will include writers, actors, light operators, camera operators, sound mixers, production designers, make-up artists, music composers, sound designers, voice over artists, singers, Video editors, managers, producers etc. If any of the teams do not perform well everything will surely result in shambles.
It is an amazing process of conceptualizing a tiny idea into an amazing piece of art work with the collaboration of these artists. While producers wear the business hat or mostly play the numbers game and directors wear the creativity hat or pitch the innovative mind; there is much an overlap between the two thoughts due to fact that finance and budget plays an important role. These are the two main nerve centres to make a movie and one depends on the other. A lot of time the role is played by a single Director or Producer. In most cases of Independent Feature Films the producer and director are involved from inception of a fairly developed script to the final distribution stage with the exceptions films created by studios.
All artists and technicians work during a particular phase either during pre-production, production or post-production. It is like a revolving door where people will do their part of the project for a short period of time and hand over the completed work to the next person in the relay. They usually move on to their next project after their deliverable. For example actors will be involved in the early production stage of the film to cast characters. In few cases the same actors will also be involved in sound recording for voice over or ADR in post-production. My point here is that the Writer (Script), Director and Producer are the three kings of the film and everyone else support or follows him/her.
Typically general audience think like the actor who played the Protagonist role was one of the kings of the film which was originally developed by the Writer, Director and Producer. Now there still needs clarity on the term producer which I will come too in my next article. The success or failure of a movie depends on many factors which no one really had a clue or clear though about. If the formula was defined every film-maker would follow it and make his/her film a hit. If a movie does not succeed at the box office the failure or blame points to the Director. If the movie was a success the entire cast, crew who were involved in the project will jump on the credit, ironic but true.
The film industry was created with a mindset that the actors were the driving force. Unfortunately it failed to promote the three kings as the driving force. The end to end story line, characterization, bringing out the best in the actor’s performance and delivering the final quality of the film depends on the Director and not on the lead actors. Technically the audience should judge a movie by the Director and the producer and not by the main actors. Actors are one in ten of the art departments and should share the credits accordingly.
I know that Film industry is indeed a glamorous world. Glamor attracts audience but a movie is not necessarily a glamorous product. To present the actors glamorously in the picture there are many behind the scenes artists that play a major role to make them look really good. It's just does not depend only on the actors to look very glamorous on the camera and set. I feel that it is very important that actors should understand their role and character and listen to their fellow artists to create an artistic marvel instead of assuming that they are artistic marvels themselves.
Chandu Yarram
Director/Producer at Movie Buff Creations.
