Category: Hindi

Apart from directing it, Shanmugam, a versatile writer and director of Indian origin, is also producing the film with a budget of $2.5 million.

“The film revolves around George, a self-appointed soldier of Christ, who has embarked on a tortured personal quest to investigate lifestyles that disgust him and that he regards as rejected by God. His interactions with a wide range of people reveal their struggles toward self-acceptance even as the investigations begin to erode George‘s defences against his own demons,” said Shanmugam.

You‘re Rejected, filmed in the Bible belt of Georgia, USA, is slated to release in 2009 during the US Presidential elections.

“The views of the Republican Presidential candidates‘ echo those of the film‘s lead character George who is conservative and provocative. Hence, we decided to release the film during the 2009 US elections,” says an official source.

The film spins around gay and lesbianism captured by the canvas of American conservatism, life style and existence.

“We don‘t know how the Indian censor board will see the film because from the beginning to end the film contains religious extremist views. However, our distributors are very eager to release the film in India,” the source adds.

Presidential candidates like senator Hillary Clinton, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Chicago senator Barack Obama, Tennessee senator John Edwards, governor Mitt Romney, senator and actor Fred Thompson, Arizona senator John McCain, Delaware senator Joe Bidden from the opposite camps with different opinions about the gay issues, have become members in Parthiban‘s film site at MySpace.

Nearly two-thirds of these nominees employed workflows consisting of multiple systems from the various Avid brands, and for the eighth-consecutive year, every nominee for a Sound Editing Oscar used Digidesign Pro Tools systems. In addition, the award-winning Animated Feature used both Avid and Digidesign systems, the Visual Effects winner used SoftimageXSI for pre- and post-visualization as well as Avid systems, and the majority of the nominees for Original Song were scored using Sibelius 5.

Christopher Rouse who an Oscar for editing The Bourne Ultimatum says, “The most difficult thing about editing this film was dealing with the overall story and structure. We shot for a fair amount of time, starting in September 2006 and ending in July 2007. We added scenes…we took them out…we cannibalized scenes. We were constantly manipulating the footage – not only as it was originally intended, but often re-inventing the material to tell a stronger story.”

While the editing team remained focussed on the creative aspects of the cut, an Avid editing and shared-storage setup helped them keep pace with more practical concerns such as inputting and organizing the massive amount of footage and keeping track of constant revisions. As many as eight Windows-based Media Composer® Adrenaline systems were connected to a 16-terabyte Avid Unity MediaNetwork shared-storage system at one time.

“An Avid system is far and away the most comfortable tool for me to work with. There are zero barriers between me and the material. That for me makes all the difference,” adds Rouse.

Digidesign Pro Tools was instrumental in the film also being awarded the Sound Editing and Sound Mixing Oscars. Scott Millan, rerecording mixer on The Bourne Ultimatum points out the critical role that Pro Tools played in helping the team meet complex audio demands and a tight production schedule. “I knew how difficult this project was going to be from the beginning so I strongly recommended that we use Pro Tools. It was to our benefit, hugely because the post-production process was very fluid. We had a lot of conforms and a lot of new material coming in frequently. Pro Tools gave us the flexibility to work very quickly and overall we were served very well by it. It was pretty much a prerequisite on this project and key to our creative process.”

Dario Marianelli who won an Oscar for composing the score for Atonement, revealed how Sibelius 5 was used as part of his creative process in composing the score. “I knew that Atonement needed two distinct musical themes. There is the relentlessness of Briony – we called her the girl with faulty brakes, she just can’t stop until she’s wrecked everyone’s lives. And then there’s the intense love story between Keira Knightley’s character, Cecilia, and Robbie played by James McAvoy.”

To create the first of these two themes, Marianelli built up an evolving, percussive composition, and then amplified the tension further by adding the metronomic sound of Briony’s typewriter keys over each beat. “That was just one of those crazy ideas, and it really worked,” he noted.

For the love story theme, the composer used a more traditional, strings-based approach, which matched the mood and also the wartime period of the film. “Panorama view in Sibelius 5 really helped me with arrangements of both these themes because I don’t think in pages, I just think in music. With Panorama, there are no breaks in your thinking, you can think more laterally,” Marianelli added. Panorama view hides page breaks in scores, instead, displaying them on an infinitely wide page. Avid and Digidesign systems were also used in creating Atonement.

Avid Technology CEO Gary Greenfield says, “We congratulate our customers for being recognized as the best in the industry. We’re fully committed to providing them with ground-breaking tools—from music composition, audio editing and mixing to 3D animation, video editing and visual effects—that enable them to unleash their creativity and produce the world’s most compelling content.”

Pal has worked with Adlabs for three years in international sales, looking after overseas distribution.

Speaking to indiantelevision.com Pal said, “Sahara is a corporate channel that has been producing, marketing and distributing feature film since a long time now. I am extremely happy to join Sahara One Motion Pictures as distribution head from 1 March 2008.”

Sahara One Motion Pictures has ambitious plans for the new fiscal. It will be producing 10 movies in 2008-09, out of which 4-5 will be big budgets and the rest in the medium range.

Directed by ad filmmaker Arjun Bali, the film stars Randeep Hooda and Shahana Goswami.

“We are producing Rubaru on a budget of Rs 60 million and are still to decide on the distribution rights. The film will be releasing on 9 May,” a PPC executive tells Indiantelevision.com on condition of anonymity.

With Rubaru, not only will Hooda be stepping into the shoes of a romantic hero for the first time, but Bali will also be directing his first film for Bollywood. The film has been shot and completed in Thailand within a span of 30 days.

PPC is releasing Shoaib Mansoor‘s Khuda Ke Liye on 28 March all over India. The film, which has Naseeruddin Shah playing the role of a Muslim cleric, will be the first Pakistani movie to invade Indian theatres.

Khuda Ke Liye (In the Name of God), starring Pakistani actors Shaan and Iman Ali, depicts the difficult situation in which Pakistanis found themselves post 9/11.

The combination brings together New Line‘s 40-year legacy as an independent film studio with Warner Bros‘ scale and reach in global distribution and marketing.

As part of the consolidation, New Line will be operated as a unit of Warner Bros. New Line will maintain separate development, production, marketing, distribution and business affairs operations. But to maximise film performance and operating efficiencies, achieve significant cost savings, and improve margins, it will closely integrate and coordinate those functions with Warner Bros.

Time Warner president and CEO Jeff Bewkes said, “We are moving quickly to improve our business performance and financial returns. New Line has built a strong franchise of cutting-edge entertainment. We can enhance its value by combining it with Warner Bros. Given the trend toward fewer movie releases, New Line and Warner Bros will now have more complementary release slates, with New Line focusing on genres that have been its strength.

“With the growing importance of international revenues, it makes sense for New Line to retain its international film rights and to exploit them through Warner Bros‘ global distribution infrastructure. We can also take better advantage of digital distribution platforms by combining our studios. These changes will enhance our revenue opportunities and drive dramatic cost efficiencies and higher margins at New Line.”

New Line‘s co-chairmen and co-CEOs Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne have decided to leave the studio, but are in discussions about possible future business relationships with the company.

Bewkes adds, “Bob and Michael have a unique partnership that is noteworthy not only for its stability and longevity, but for its record of innovation and success. They have guided New Line‘s growth from a privately-held art film distributor to the world‘s leading independent film studio that is home to some of the most popular films in entertainment history, including The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Mask, Austin Powers, Rush Hour, Wedding Crashers and Hairspray. We thank Bob and Michael for their enduring contributions to Time Warner and look forward to a continuing working relationship with them.”

Shaye and Lynne said, “New Line has been our respective life‘s work as well as our second family. While we‘re sad to be leaving, we‘re enormously proud to have overseen its extraordinary growth and worked with so many dedicated and talented colleagues. New Line represents innovation, creativity and independent success.

“We hope that the company can continue to be a leader in creating entertainment that resonates around the world. We will now focus our efforts on exploring new entrepreneurial opportunities.”

iLabs is also expanding its broadcasting presence in Mumbai through the launch of TV9 Mumbai, a city-centric channel in Hindi language. This will be through Associated Broadcasting Company Pvt Ltd (ABCL), the company which is 80 per cent owned by iLabs and Unified Group and houses the TV9 channels.

In Lehren Entertainment, iLabs is making the investment through its wholly own subsidiary, Affiliated Media Company (AMC). Besides the TV channel, Lehren will have its other assets including a broadband portal and 10,000 hours of archival video.

Lehren TV has obtained the uplinking licence and plans to launch in April. “We are eyeing 14 April as the launch date. The dry run should start in mid-March,” says Lehren Entertainment founder and MD Mritunjay Pandey.

The Bollywood-centric free-to-air news channel will also have a small portion of its content for other films across the country. Besides news, it will have chat and gossip formats. “It will be a Hinglish (predominantly Hindi but also have English language) channel,” says Pandey.

The ad sales and uplinking will be handled by ABCL to drive in the synergies with the TV9 group of channels.

“We decided to join hands with Lehren because it has an old relationship with the film industry. With the other Hindi channel covering Mumbai, it will offer us a good bundle,” says ABCL vice president operations KVN Murthy.

Lehren‘s engagement with Bollywood dates back to the pre-satellite era when it started film-based entertainment shows in 1987. The videos packaged film scenes, songs, interviews and magazine content in the kaleidoscopic format of Bollywood.