Category: Movies

MUMBAI: Making your skin crawl, your hair rise and giving you sleepless nights. That‘s the objective of entertainment company Percept Picture Co (PPC). And at a time when Bollywood is getting cautious, PPC is getting aggressive about foraying into the horror genre.

The company has floated a new movie production arm, ‘PPC Horrotainment‘ that will focus only on producing small and mid budget horror flicks.

PPC will pump in approximately Rs 1 billion into its newly launched banner out of its internal accruals to roll out a slate of 10 movies over a period of three years.

The first project to be launched under the new arm will be ‘Grrrr….‘ directed by Priyadarshan. This will be followed by releases like Mumbai, Vehem, 13 and 888.

“We are looking at making investments in the region of Rs 800 million to Rs 1 billion to produce 10 films, to be made over three years and released over four,” says PPC COO Navin Shah.

The entertainment company plans to keep the cost of its productions in check and not get too adventurous about budgets, as has been the case with some other filmmakers recently. “The budget of the films will be stringed at around Rs 80 million,” Shah explained.

According to Shah, the invest requirements of any Bollywood horror flick is still minimal in India and hence, companies can remain optimistic of a higher return on investments while keeping the production costs tight.

When quizzed why PPC had opted for the creepy and crawly genre, Shah ventured, “When it comes to Indian consumers, the horror genre definitely carries huge potential amongst all. However, it still remains highly untapped in Bollywood. As the demand is more while the supply remains almost nil, we decided to explore this new space.”

Cinema goers had better gear up for the blood and gore.

NEW DELHI: Even as India anxiously awaits the outcome of the Oscars, Roadside Romeo, directed by Jugal Hansraj, has been nominated by the Hollywood-based Visual Effects Society (VES) in the category of “Outstanding Animation in an Animated Motion Picture”.

The film, which had animation by Tata Elxsi‘s Visual Computing Labs (VCL) studios in Mumbai, will compete with films like Bolt (Walt Disney Pictures), Kung Fu Panda (DreamWorks Animation), Wall-E (Disney-Pixar), and Waltz With Bashir (Sony Pictures Classics).

Roadside Romeo was released in October last year and had the voices of Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Jaaved Jafferi, Sanjay Mishra, and Tanaaz Currim with lyrics by Jaideep Sahni and music by Salim Sulaiman.

The Visual Effects Society, with more than 1,800 members in 17 countries, is the entertainment industry‘s only organisation representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners including artists, technologists, studio leaders, supervisors and producers in all areas of entertainment from film, television and commercials to music videos and games. The 7th Annual VES Awards will be presented on 21 February in Los Angeles.

A co-production of Walt Disney Pictures and Yash Raj Films, Roadside Romeo was named best animated film at the 15th Annual Star Screen Awards in Mumbai.

Roadside Romeo is considered to be India‘s first purely-entertainment animated theatrical motion picture, including eight original songs and five fully-choreographed musical numbers. This film departs significantly from the previous crop of animation films in India, in that it is a fully 3D animation movie, and follows a classic Bollywood formula as compared to the scores of 2D animated films based on mythology. Tata Elxsi – VCL‘s lead creative team on Roadside Romeo, individually named by the VES, includes Pankaj Khandpur – creative director and production head, Sherry Bharda – creative supervisor; Shrirang Sathaye – animation director, and Suhael Merchant – animation director.

According to Khandpur, “Our team got involved in the creative process right from the beginning. When Jugal Hansraj shared with us the script, we began conceptualising each individual character and their environments and we began to draw them, the old fashioned way, using pencil and paper. This process lasted three months. Once this stage was completed, we began storyboarding the film, illustrating each and every scene throughout the film. This was followed by the animatics‘ process – our first look at how all characters will move and interact with each other. The animation pre-production process took about 4 months, eventually overlapping the start of actual production.”

“For the full-blown production,” Khandpur explained, “VCL had an entirely in-house crew averaging 120 artists who worked on Roadside Romeo for over 15 months. The VCL team included modelers, riggers, animators, lighters and compositors, supported by texture artists, render wranglers and a core team of technical programmers. At the peak, we had a 170 member team working on this project. We have earned this nomination though the quality of our work, and yet the production cost of Roadside Romeo was a fraction of the production costs for major Hollywood CGI animated films.”

In addition to animating Roadside Romeo, Tata Elxsi Ltd‘s VCL division has created special effects for many significant films in like Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Jodhaa Akbar, Taare Zameen Par (India‘s official Entry to the Oscars), Rang De Basanti and Dhoom 2.VCL has also worked with other leading US entertainment companies including Sony Pictures Imageworks, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Lionsgate, Mike Young Productions, MGM, and STARZ/Film Roman.

MUMBAI: Consumer electronics company Sony has announced that its F23 digital cinematography camera was the production tool of choice for film and television projects in 2008 in the US.

The camera was used to shoot upcoming productions including Tekken, Public Enemies and Final Destination 4 as well as last year‘s releases like Cloverfield and Speed Racer.

On the TV schedule, the camera is behind the scenes of shows like Weeds, Gossip Girl, The Starter Wife and Knight Rider.

Final Destination 4 director of photography (DP) Glen MacPherson says, “The F23 has excellent dynamic range, handling highlights beautifully with a film-like quality. It’s also virtually noiseless in the shadows, and the 2/3-inch image sensor is ideal for shooting 3D. The F23 is my camera of choice for all those reasons.”

The F23 camera uses three 2.2 megabit 2/3-inch type progressive CCD imagers and a 14-bit analog-to-digital converter. The system supports multiple 1080 formats, including 24 and 60 fps in progressive mode.

Sony Electronics’ Content Creation Systems Group senior manager Rick Harding says, “The F23’s feature sets are expanded from our previous 24P cameras. It can shoot true variable frame rate (exposure time matches frame rate) and speed ramping (one to 60 frames per second). These functions are available to the director on the set in real time and can be immediately reviewed. There is no post step required. These features, along with compatibility with ARRI accessories, ultimately mean familiar operations, higher quality images, lower production costs and more footage at the end of the day’s shoot.”

The camera delivers 12.5 stops of latitude – more than any other 2/3-inch chip digital cinema camera. Cinematographers can also work in LOG mode, a camera setting that “allows for an even more film-like shooting experience,” according to Harding.

Stargate Digital founder and CEO Sam Nicholson worked with the F23 on Knight Rider and noted the distinct cost- and time-saving advantages of working with the camera’s dockable recorder, since it requires no reloading in the field and its “perfectly integrated speed ramps that go from zero to 60 fps at the turn of a knob, minimizing the need for on-set adjustments.”

Nicholson is working with the F35 as VFX DP for a new pilot drama called Defying Gravity. This is a fictional space epic about the first manned space mission across the solar system.

He says, “The real attributes of the F23 and F35 are their bullet-proof HDCAM SR workflows. These are the most smoothly integrated cameras on the market.”

MUMBAI: Riding high on the buzz generated by the Golden Globe winning and Oscar-nominated Slumdog Millionaire, Fox Star Studios is ready to release the Jennifer Aniston-starrer Marley & Me on 6 February in India.
Fox Star Studios is a joint venture company between Twentieth Century Fox and Asian media company Star.

Says Fox Star Studios India CEO Vijay Singh, “The film (Marley & Me) has already raked in huge numbers to make it to the top ten list at the US box office; and now we are taking it further to the Indian audiences. We will be releasing Marley & Me on 6 February across 50 screens. Our initial target would be the top 30 metros of the country.”

Directed by David Frankel, Marley & Me, which has had worldwide box office collections of approximately $155.8 million, is an American ‘dramedy’ that was released in the US and Canada on 25 December 2008.

The film had set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales.

Additionally, Fox Star is also gearing up to release Valkyrie, a United Artists film directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie.

Reported to be made at a budget of $90 million, Valkyrie was also released on 25 December in the US. The Tom Cruise-starrer was released on 22 January in Germany while it hit the UK theatres on 23 January.

“We shall be releasing the film on 20 February in India wherein we plan to open in across approximately 75 screens,” states Singh.

Meanwhile, after a one-week run at the India box office, the Fox Star Studios-distributed Slumdog has managed a net gross of Rs 90 million. The studio had released the film with 350 prints (Hindi and English) in India.

MUMBAI: The Chennai-based cinema and entertainment group Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd (PSTL) has posted a net loss of Rs 747.44 million in Q3 ended 31 December, 2008, as compared to a net profit Rs 298.65 million in the same quarter last year. The company has provisioned Rs 763.2 million for the appreciation of value of foreign currency convertible bonds on account of foreign exchange fluctuations which has led to its net profit of Rs 15.7 million being wiped out.

Of late, PSTL has been in the news for the wrong reasons. It had incurred huge losses on movie production (Rs 403.2 million loss on Kuselan); its stock value got a hit and it came under scrutiny over a fake Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) letter and buyback offer; and Punjab National Bank sold off some of the promoter’s pledged shares. Additionally, the buzz in the market was that Sun TV Network was looking to pick up a stake in the company.

A look at the financial results shows that the total income of the company has declined to Rs 1.38 billion from Rs 2.31 billion. Even for the nine-month period ended 31 December, 2008, the company posted a net loss of Rs 525.4 million as against a net profit of Rs 609.86 million in the same period last fiscal.

The company says its business model was to hire screens on the basis of fixed monthly payments preceded by security deposits, running the theatre (all expenses in the book) and taking benefits to the company. But after seeing a fall in the average capacity utilization of screens, average spend per person, less then 10 per cent of success rate of films, and a huge hit with its flop movie, PSTL has been taking a close look at its properties, and renegotiating terms with exisiting partners and signing new deals with them. It said in a release, “The company had to take uncalled for risk on content which was not the original business model.”

But since June 2008, when it had 802 screens, it has been paring them down. Unviable exhibition points have been chopped, while the business model of exhibiting in other screens has been changed to make the exhibition business profitable. By 30 September 2008 it had brought that figure down to 752.

During Q3, it has further reduced the number of screens to 252 where it only functions as an exhibitor (as on 30 December 2008). It dehired 194 screens, brought 151 screens from fixed hire model to case to case content model and brought 148 screens under the revenue share model. It transferred the accounts of these 299 screens under its distribution subsidiary PSEL.

The income from the exhibition business remained static at Rs 986.73 million in Q3 2008, while income from food and beverages was Rs 392.75 million. The total expenses stood at Rs 1.3 billion. The operating profit of the company is Rs 79.7 million (Rs 342.33 million, Q3 2007).

MUMBAI: The iconic Oscar statuette is spotlighted center stage among the lights of the Kodak Theatre in the official poster of the 81st Academy Awards released by the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences (Ampas) in the US. The poster is now available for purchase.

The artwork presents the point of view that host Hugh Jackman and Academy Award winners, presenters and performers will experience from the stage of the Kodak on 22 February. In India the show will air on Star Movies.

There will be distribution of more than 50,000 posters worldwide. T

This is the only 81st Academy Awards commemorative item available for sale to the public.

MUMBAI: The Screen Actors Guild ((Sag) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) in the US will meet on 3 february and 4 February to resume contract negotiations.

As had been reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, Sag fired its chief negotiator Doug Allen and put a new team in place. Some members of Sag were unhappy over the hardline approach during negotiations to work out a new contract.

Sag‘s 1,20,000 members have been working without a contract since June. This will be the first time that the two groups will met since a series of meetings with a federal mediator in November. Those talks failed to break the deadlock that has been in place since the contract expired in June.

MUMBAI: Puja Films has roped in Vivek Sharma to direct its next project Kal Kissne Dekha. The film is set to hit theatres pan India on 3 April.

Kal Kissne Dekha marks the acting debut of Jackky Bhagnani and Vaishali Desai, protagonists of the film.

Puja Films chairman Vashu Bhagnani says, “Kal Kissne Dekha is a romantic thriller which is launching Jackky Bhagnani alongwith Vaishali Desai.”

The film also includes Rishi Kapoor, Shahrukh Khan and Juhi Chawla in cameos.

According to Puja Films, Kal Kissne Dekha revolves around the story of a small town boy, Nihaal Singh, who comes to Mumbai to fulfill his various dreams and has to face immense hardships to meet his aspirations.

MUMBAI: After much discussion, The Indian Film Company (IFC) and the IFC Requisition Group (IFCRG) have reached an accord wherein IFCRG has agreed to withdraw the requisition presented by one of its members, Altima India Master Fund (AIMF) seeking to have an EGM to remove Raghav Bahl and Alok Verma from the company‘s board.

MUMBAI: One month after Disney decided to pull its hands off from co-financing the third part of the Chronicles of Narnia series, 20th Century Fox has announced its plans to join forces with Walden Media to co-produce the latest franchise.

Titled The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the film will be directed by Brit Michael Apted and will begin production sometime late summer after receiving the News Corp-owned studio‘s formal approval on the script and budget.

Fox and Walden, which plan to release the third Narnia movie in late 2010, will share the cost for the film that is estimated to be approximately $140 million.

Earlier last month, Disney had cited budgetary issues as the key reason behind bowing out of co-financing the franchise.

In 2005, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first in the Narnia series, had raked in $745 million at the worldwide box office, while Prince Caspian, the second in the series, garnered $420 million last year.