Dog – The New Star!
In my early days of PFC I had written a short piece on animated films in India, but I did not expand that much on the topic. But now, Yash Raj is stepping into the animation industry by forming a partnership with Disney, to co- produce a series of animated feature films. It is some good news, ain’t it? Well, I have some reservations about it.
You know, people say it is not fair to compare two different kinds of animals, but I am exactly going to do that. I would like to compare Yash Raj Production house with Pixar Animation Studios (which is a part of Disney), well, just generally. No, I am not being a numpty; I just think there are lots of similarities between both of the filmmakers. Lets just look at the both production houses from a layperson’s view.
It would be fair to say, that both Pixar and Yash Raj make escapist cinema. The former presents a simple story through some exhilarating animation, where as Yash Raj like to portrait a simple story as larger than life by having huge sets, ‘stars’ and filming in overseas locations. Also, erm, another thing they have in common is, that love is core of their story. So on general films from both production houses would have a lot in common. I am just stating the obvious – nothing fancy here.
But if you compare quality (of the story, technical sides and direction) of a Pixar film and a Yash Raj film, then they are worlds apart – in favour of Pixar Studios. That is what I think. Okay, you might say, that Pixar has a bigger-better budget than Yas Raj can dream about it. But Yash Raj produces and distributes a lot of films and music every year, and therefore, the total budget of all that would-should be equivalent to the budget of a Pixar film. So throw away the theory that they do not have the money, so quality of the movie is poor. Pixar spends money well, where as Yash Raj do not. Pixar spends majority of their money on creative and technical side of films, well, they have to because they are in the animation business. Yash Raj spends their money on ‘stars’, locations and big sets; which are unnecessary expenses. And hence, a Pixar film will always make you smile and a Yash Raj film makes you fart.
People have a misconception that a Yash Raj film is lots mature than a Pixar film, so they give the animated film a miss. But the truth is, people would, well, I find it easy to connect with an animated film than a Yash Raj film. Because, for a pure simple reason, that Pixar always get their story and narration to be flawless even when the theme is always similar in all those films. Basically, a Pixar film seems far more realistic than a Yash Raj film, which is a bit strange. How could some animated characters seem more connecting and realistic than the actors in Yash Raj Films? It is all about the story and narration, I tell ya. Which Yash Raj Production house sorely lacks because they do not invest in that.
Anyway, by now you would have read what Yash Raj and Disney are cooking, if you had not knew about that beforehand. If you still do not know, then… well, they are planning to create a musical Roadside Romeo and a dog being the protagonist; it’s going to be directed by Jugal Hansraj. Before this, they had a bit of animation in ‘Hum Tum’ and ‘Ta Ra Rum Pum’.
What I really would like to know is why are they interested in animation? Is it because Yash Raj/Aditay Chopra reckon that in future it would be too risky to sell their kind of films with just stars – since Shah Rukh Khan is ageing and other stars are not that sellable? So the best option is animation, as it would give them a worldwide platform and they would be able to do their kind of films? Or they just jumping on the Hanuman bandwagon and hence, will be ‘desifying/maslafying’ old classic animation films?
Karan Johar, a shishya of his guru Yash Raj, announced before his guru that he will be directing an animated film. The interesting bit about his concept is, that he will be making an animation version of his debut film ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hain’. And guess what, dogs will be playing the lead characters!
Also our featured author Suparn Verma will be making an animation version of his debut film ‘Ek Khiladi Ek Hasina’.
I just wanna know one thing… why would you do that? You guys would like to start a new remake trend, or just jumping on the bandwagon? Did you not find making an animation film inspiring that you would come up with a new simple–effective–creative idea for it? I would have liked if you guys had come up with some other ideas.
Or the beloved Masala recipe of ours will have a new ingredient in terms of an animated character/video. So in future all those commercial/masala films will have an animated music video or animated characters, as an integeral part of the film. And producers will not make a film without doing some animation first.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
when they made the announcement, the disney guy said…we have always believed in one thing. you need three things to make a great film..live or animation…it begins n ends with good stories, stories and stories.i thought ya ya,they got the rite partner. how else u justify tara bum bum,jhoom barabar jhoom,lean n licky,salaam namaste n god knows what all!!
I hate to say it but, Yash Raj was the best option for Disney, to create a new JV. Are there any better…? Sahara One Motion Pictures or Penta-media Graphics Ltd? The former could have been a good choice…
They have the resources now, so there should not be any excuses, for fucking up an animated film.
YRF has two things which sahara and the others don’t.. history (very important) and CLOUT (most important). they figure since real people (read, stars) aren’t making their films successful, they might as well try fake people (animated characters). so this time, YRF is literally going to the dogs!
I completely second HG, why would any one want to start a new remake trend with animations? what the hell is the point. Don’t they trust their creative geniuses to come out with something original like garfield or shrek, or the monsters house or anything such which will work with the audience. Don’t they have anything new to say which will work in the animation format.. Why would the audience want to watch the same s… again..why do the makers stress so much on remakes in our great industry…either they have no ideas or are not interested in taking a chance with their storytelling skills.At this rate with all the possible tie ups we still are not heading anywhere in the international market. People outside get all the more reason to sling mud at us. ((:((:
Suchita,who gives a f*** to storytelling skills or plain stories. Just attend any production houses’ story sessions and you will come across all that gyan and garbage of doing something different where they exhort writers to come up with something different, and when these pensmiths come up with some gem, these producers don’t have knack and guts either to recognise it. So down they go mix-n-match,rehash,already tested and safe DVD route.
Krysh, i know i am going through the same frustration. Last I heard was yash raj rents 40 dvds a day from a video lib in oshiwara:((