Writing this title became a bit of an adventure: are we talking of films when made on celluloid film? Is it the correct description to apply to projects that are produced and consumed digitally- are they 'films'? If the projects never reach a cinema hall, are they movies?
To anyone who creates or consumes audio visual media, this is a familiar linguistic dilemma.
Traditionally, films- both negatives and prints of celluloid based products, ended up in the bangle making industry. It appears that the 'traditional'/ industrial age use for movies that no one wanted to see anymore or the prints were damaged beyond repair with age was the bangle industry. Of course if your movie was a hit, you protected its prints with your life, as even old ones could be milked in the cinema halls. Some of the movies and their prints did end up in the National Film Archives, but I am sure the number of prints there does not compare with the number of movies produced in India.
If you ask me where are the negatives of my 'film' products: Diploma Film at FTII or short work at Children's Film Society, I would honestly have to say I don't know. (Not that I've tried looking for them, as I do have digital copies).
Then came the age of video, when we did TV and documentary work on various formats of video tape. Work that I had produced on my own had to be finally thrown away as I couldn't find video tape recorders that could play them. A few VHS tapes remain, for the moment I have a friend in Meerut who sells antiques and has a few working VHS machines, so some hope there.
With the internet age I guess everything gets dumped onto youtube/vimeo or some such website where we hope it shall survive for a while. I was reading about the use of Blu Ray DVDs by google for youtube, to archive material that doesn't get seen very often.
But the reason I am writing is not to describe the social phenomenon listed above. I want to ask a more immediate question: when does a filmmaker like me, working on commissioned work, actually stop paying attention to a product, stop updating its facebook page or twitter feed or whatever I do to promote a documentary?
The question came to me as my documentary for PSBT-DD The Caregivers, made over a year and a half ago is generating lots of interest still amongst audiences. Someone showed it in Tirupati (details on the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/documentarythecaregivers), where audiences loved it. I was again tempted to pay more attention to the exhibition of this project. But I have to earn a living and perforce have to move onto other projects.
What do I do? I honestly don't know. I do know that the documentary is far from dead-the producers have not even put it online.
But to devote time here means I have to cut myself off from other activities.
That is why I'm wondering is there a time when one detaches oneself from a project?
I don't know. Do you have an answer?
To anyone who creates or consumes audio visual media, this is a familiar linguistic dilemma.
Traditionally, films- both negatives and prints of celluloid based products, ended up in the bangle making industry. It appears that the 'traditional'/ industrial age use for movies that no one wanted to see anymore or the prints were damaged beyond repair with age was the bangle industry. Of course if your movie was a hit, you protected its prints with your life, as even old ones could be milked in the cinema halls. Some of the movies and their prints did end up in the National Film Archives, but I am sure the number of prints there does not compare with the number of movies produced in India.
If you ask me where are the negatives of my 'film' products: Diploma Film at FTII or short work at Children's Film Society, I would honestly have to say I don't know. (Not that I've tried looking for them, as I do have digital copies).
Then came the age of video, when we did TV and documentary work on various formats of video tape. Work that I had produced on my own had to be finally thrown away as I couldn't find video tape recorders that could play them. A few VHS tapes remain, for the moment I have a friend in Meerut who sells antiques and has a few working VHS machines, so some hope there.
With the internet age I guess everything gets dumped onto youtube/vimeo or some such website where we hope it shall survive for a while. I was reading about the use of Blu Ray DVDs by google for youtube, to archive material that doesn't get seen very often.
But the reason I am writing is not to describe the social phenomenon listed above. I want to ask a more immediate question: when does a filmmaker like me, working on commissioned work, actually stop paying attention to a product, stop updating its facebook page or twitter feed or whatever I do to promote a documentary?
The question came to me as my documentary for PSBT-DD The Caregivers, made over a year and a half ago is generating lots of interest still amongst audiences. Someone showed it in Tirupati (details on the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/documentarythecaregivers), where audiences loved it. I was again tempted to pay more attention to the exhibition of this project. But I have to earn a living and perforce have to move onto other projects.
What do I do? I honestly don't know. I do know that the documentary is far from dead-the producers have not even put it online.
But to devote time here means I have to cut myself off from other activities.
That is why I'm wondering is there a time when one detaches oneself from a project?
I don't know. Do you have an answer?
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