Category: Movies

I like what you like

The New York Times has a very interesting article about herd instinct. The main point it makes is that people tend to like things that they think other people like (or will like). In other words, Himesh Reshammiya is popular because he is popular. Of course, people do have intrinsic likes and dislikes which are independent of what other people think – but equally, if not more more important role is played by the “social” aspect.

And of course, there is research to prove this point.

They created 9 different websites of music by unknown artists. Users of these websites could download and listen to the music. On 8 of those websites, the users could see how often a song had been downloaded by others in the past (from that website only). And on the last one, they had no idea of the popularity of the song. And a bunch of interesting results emerge:

First, if people know what they like regardless of what they think other people like, the most successful songs should draw about the same amount of the total market share in both the independent and social-influence conditions — that is, hits shouldn’t be any bigger just because the people downloading them know what other people downloaded. And second, the very same songs — the “best” ones — should become hits in all social-influence worlds.

What we found, however, was exactly the opposite. In all the social-influence worlds, the most popular songs were much more popular (and the least popular songs were less popular) than in the independent condition. At the same time, however, the particular songs that became hits were different in different worlds, just as cumulative-advantage theory would predict. Introducing social influence into human decision making, in other words, didn’t just make the hits bigger; it also made them more unpredictable.

On an average, they found that a song that was was a top-5 song in terms of intrinsic quality (the 9th website), had only a 50%
chance of making it into the top-5 list by popularity.

So that should explain why shakalakalakalakalakalakalakalaka shakalaka boom boom is assaulting my ears everywhere. And why Aap ka Suroor is even happening.

Anurag Kashyap apologizes for Shakalaka Boom Boom

My respect for Anurag Kashyap has just gone up significantly.

Over at PassionForCinema, Anurag Kashyap, dialogue writer of Shakalaka Boom Boom has apologized for atrocities inflicted upon us.

Quote:

… worst is every time the promos come on air my daughter calls out to my maid and says, “shamsu..papa ki picture” and i try and tell her don’t say it out loud.. i hope she doesn’t tell her friends in school..or her teacher, or her school bus driver…

and then a little later

…but then did i take so much interest in the film when it was going on.. no.. was i there to tell them where everyone was going wrong.. no..did i fight for it.. no..did i care..no..well..when you don’t care then this is what you get baby..commercial or not..when you make a choice you gotta care and i didn’t..i didn’t bother..when they called me i went..what they asked me to write..i wrote..i did not add anything to it..so all i can say for it is I AM SORRY and that is not enough..all i can say is never again..

After Black Friday (which he wrote and directed) and Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. (for which he wrote dialogues) I had a lot of respect for him. Amazing versatility! That came back crashing down after Shakalaka Boom Boom. But, now he has gone and redeemed himself.

It takes a clear-headed and courageous person to publicly admit that some of his/her work is bad. (Maybe I am partial to such people – I recently blogged about Leslie McFarlane the author of the early Hardy Boys books, and how he hated his work. Mildred Wirt Benson, who wrote some of the early Nancy Drew books, appears to like her work, and I have less respect for her.) But in the case of Anurag, I wonder how much easier this apology became because of the fact that the producers stopped paying him for his work. I wonder whether he would have done a similar apology if he was still on speaking terms with the producers.

Whatever the nitty-gritty details, I think this is a great step. I also loved the fact that Anurag blogged about why he made Black Friday and then diligently and thoughtfully answered most of the readers’ comments there. This is a celebrity who “gets” blogging. That is a rather rare phenomenon. I don’t know any other Indian celebrity in this category.

Read his entire article. And the comments – those are interesting too.

Post-production technology in Bollywood

The Indian Express has a great article on the use of technology in post-production of movies in Bollywood. Although all of this material is familiar, I was unaware of how extensively this is used in Bollywood, and also some of the details are very interesting.

For example:

Is not only the fact that producers and directors want their films to be processed in digital labs after the shooting is done. Film makers are even going to production houses with the rough sketch of the storyline and using the latest technologies extensively to visualise their movies before the first shot is called. Post-production houses have even started moving to the role of pre-production by providing facilities such as pre-visualisation, character designs, story boarding and layouts. This helps director do his homework before going for the actual shoot.

Before and after: an animated van is rendered by PrimeFocus for a commercial. The image on the left is a sketch. The one on the right is the rendering of the same.

Read the full article. It is quite interesting.