Cost cutting the entertainment….

Of late I have been seeing that the cost-cutting bug has bitten even the entertainment industry and even these guys have been hurt by the recent increase in the oil prices.

For example, let’s take the notorious Hindi soap operas playing on every channel from 7pm to midnight. Earlier these serials had a distinctive background score, had songs and a music director. Now, these serials just pick up songs from Yash Chopra or the Karan Johar “romantic” movies and use them as a background score. And since Yash Chopra and Karan Johar movies have songs for every imaginable situation in a love story, the serials have absolutely no problems finding a suitable song to use for their particular situation. This kind of innovation has eliminated the need for a specific music director and thus saved costs for these serials. Not only that, I am sure all the serial guys have come together and created a central repository for all the costumes just like a public library. That’s why don’t be surprised to see the heroine of a serial wearing the same saree as the main vamp of another serial. All these measures have tremendously benefited the soap opera industry.

Another recent instance of this is the new Kamal Hassan movie “Dashavataram” which has Kamal Hassan in 10 different roles. My guess is that the movie went so much over-budget and he was forced into these multiple roles instead of hiring 9 more actors. I will refrain from saying anything more about this movie since I do not know the language in question and my comments are totally based on only what I saw.

Lastly, another update on funny and bizarre Kannada movie tag lines (which I am always on a look out for). This week, I read this very interesting tag line whose meaning I do not understand at all. The tag line reads “The Procession of Pyaar in War”.