Career: CHILDREN

New Delhi, June 9 - WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

A children's movie could be an animation film, like the Lion King or Aladdin, or a blend of both animation and real-life filming like the trendsetting Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or a simple story about a child's life like Vishal Bhardwaj's The Blue Umbrella. A director is chiefly responsible for how successful and watchable a movie is. From research work on a movie, to taking decisions about who stars in it, to scouting for locations... he or she has to worry about everything. For a movie like Avatar, it took James Cameron years to find the right technique to create the wonderful world of the Na'vi. VFX, short for ‘Visual Effects,' went a long way in making the film a trailblazer of sorts in the world of animation. To make the Na'vi as realistic as possible, faces and bodies were ‘rigged' -- connected to computers, which made the mythical creatures simulate human movement. A lot of photographs and scans of real actors were used and these details were incorporated into the digital characters. It was Cameron's movie throughout, but more than 900 people across different locations got together to make it the science fiction epic that it turned out to be.

CLOCK WORK

• 4 am: Wake up, start preparations for early morning shoot to be able to catch the best light
• 4.30: Arrive at the sets, check if everything's in place, brief filmstars about what's required for the day, make them go over their scripts and correct them where they're going wrong. Discuss make-up and clothes to be worn for the shots
• 9 am: Breakfast on the sets
• 9.30 am: Filming begins
• 11.30 am: Problems with faulty camera. Discuss with technicians
• 1.30 pm: Break for lunch
• 2.30 pm: Shooting resumes
• 5 pm: Leave sets to check out location for next day's shoot
• 7 pm: Come back and resume shoot

THE PAYOFF

You stand to reap gold if your movie is a mega hit. According to filmmaker Subhash Ghai, "I hear that a Bollywood filmmaker earns 30 per cent of the profits of a movie for his direction. A director can always demand money as good as a big star does till he has given hits and made profits. He can become the producer and owner of the film too"

SKILLS

• Excellent creative skills
• Great imagination - to create a world of fantasy or something which can keep children engrossed for hours
• Ability to transfer the (script) writer's thoughts and feelings to the big screen
• Good with research - in case a period film is being shot
• Good team leader, who can motivate actors, technicians and others on the sets to deliver their best
• Good financial skills. To make a movie within the given budget and ensure finances don't spiral out of control

INSTITUTES & URLS

Films and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune

Three-year PG diploma in direction (14 seats)

One-and-a-half-year certificate course in animation and computer graphics (14 seats)

www.ftiindia.com/courses_main.html

Last date for receipt of application forms: June 25, 2010. Entrance examination for all courses to be held on August 1, 2010. For queries related to admission:

Phone: 020-25425656 (Direct line), 25431817/Ext. 223

E-mail: tutorial_sec@ftiindia.com

For online applications, email: helpdesk@ftiindia.com

Whistling Woods International, Mumbai

Two-year diploma in filmmaking and certificate programme in filmmaking. E-mail info@whistlingwoods.net or call +91 22 30916000.

www.whistlingwoods.net

HOW DO I GET THERE?

Doing a course in animation or filmmaking from a top institute in India or abroad helps. Assisting a well-known director later can also give you a good idea of how a movie is to be made

PROS & CONS

• Great riches and fame
• You get to do something wonderfully creative
• Fabulous lifestyle
• Failure can bring you down to your knees
• Stressful lifestyle

Source: HT Horizons

Date: 10th June, 2010

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